• The Archaeology of Loss

    The Archaeology of Loss

    Welcome to my first blog of 2024! After a bit of a hiatus I am back to scribble down my thoughts on books on death, dying and the dead. I have quite the stack of books waiting to be read, or already read, and waiting to be written about. This year will see reviews on…

  • All My Wild Mothers

    All My Wild Mothers

    All my Wild Mothers: Motherhood, Loss and an Apothecary garden is a memoir written by Victoria Bennett. Previously Bennet wrote the poetry collection To Start the Year from Its quiet Centre which focused on the dying and death of her mother. In many ways her mother’s death fits in the natural order of things; at…

  • Stay True

    Stay True

    Do you ever wish you could return to a period of time that you have experienced in your life time, but at a different age? I was born in 1989 and thus a child in the 90s. As this decade is more and more the topic of contemporary popular culture I have an increased nostalgic…

  • Ashes to Admin

    Ashes to Admin

    I just finished the pages of Evie King’s Ashes To Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer for a second time this year. I read it earlier this year in preparation for a Dead Good Conversation with the author. I occasionally organise online conversations with authors, and the one with Evie was…

  • Aftermath

    Aftermath

    In November 2019 Usman Khan travelled to London to attend a prison education conference at Fishmongers’ Hall. Khan had been convicted of terrorism-related offences when he was just 20, and spent 8 years in a high-security prison. His temporary release license did not allow for travel to London, he had to be given special permission…

  • Somewhere towards the end

    Somewhere towards the end

    The photo of ‘Somewhere Towards the End’ was taken in front of Pultney Bridge and the Weir in Bath, England. I visited Bath this July and found a copy of this book in a charity shop. The house I used to live during my time in Bath is pictured as well. I used to spend…