SPOILERS PRESENT I read Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin in preperation for Waterstones Deansgate’s ‘Required Reading’ bookclub I bought the Penguin Clothbound Classics version This book was brilliant and affected me deeply. I did not know what it was really about before reading it, and I found the subject matter very difficult. I grew up in an area, time and had an upbringing that was very homophobic, and at least some of that homophobia has stayed with me - is ANY man who identifies as heterosexual entirely free from all social imprinting aspects of homophobia? I would hope that we are getting to an age where that is increasingly not the case, but in 2025 there are still entire countries where homosexuality is punishable by death. ...
Although it is not a play, or even, a book, I wanted to write something about the BBC Radio 4’s 2018 audio version of ‘Wild Honey’, starring David Tennant. It was broadcast in 2018, and is currently unvailable to stream, but the iPlayer (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7pbdy)[URL is here] if it becomes available again to listen to. I personally got my own copy from Archive.org - I won’t provide the deep-link, but I’m sure you can search for it. ...
This is my new reading/books blog, where I will write reviews of books I’ve read, chart progress on books that I’m reading, and anything else literary-related that I can think of. It is using the same setup as my main https://davidcraddock.net blog - as in - it’s self-hosted, and uses the Hugo Go-based static blogging engine.