At AvidBards, we continue to be honoured when authors ask us to review their books. Though we’ve admittedly been much slower to take on new books and respond to requests in the last little while (especially throughout the pandemic), one request that really piqued our interest was actor Leon Acord’s memoir entitled Sub-Lebrity*: *The Queer Life of a Show-Biz Footnote.
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Margaret Atwood has become a household name, widely recognisable and revered, increasingly so after the production of a TV adaptation of perhaps her most famous novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. In September of this year, Atwood finally released the widely anticipated and requested sequel, entitled The Testaments. Written 34 years after the first, the novel similarly takes place some years after the events of the previous, specifically 17 years later. Moreover, prior to its release to the public, the novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize. The novel returns us to the patriarchal nation of Gilead, a state born out of…
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Happy Pride Month! For many countries around the world (namely Western ones), June is Pride month—a month of recognition, and in the recent decades a celebration, of the rights and equality of all members of the LGBTQ+ community. It is no revelation that to many, literature is a form of escape from reality. And in the case of the LGBTQ+ community, it has similarly been turned to as a source of validation. Literature featuring homosexual characters is not as new as some may think, with evidence of same-sex relationships being hinted at, or even described, in as early as the…
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The Importance of EcoLiterature Today’s post is an incredibly exciting one as I am reviewing a book part of a massive book tour organised by Twitter’sThe_WriteReads, a forum where book bloggers can support other bloggers through retweeting and commenting. Not only is this a great way to increase one’s exposure in the blogging world, TheWriteReads has created a community in which bloggers can exchange opinions and ideas freely and get recognition for the hard work they put in. And now, they can even take part in this #UltimateBlogTour and get to experience reading some amazing books they perhaps would not…
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Have you ever had that moment when you’ve looked around you and asked yourself, “what if that didn’t exist?” or “what if things worked differently?” and you fall down the rabbit hole of imagining a whole different kind of world? Well, that is exactly what reading V. E. Schwab’s novel A Darker Shade of Magic did for me. A Darker Shade of Magic takes place in a world that holds multiple universes, four to be precise, and only those with magic can cross over into the other worlds. While so many things are different in each of the worlds, one…
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Another book straight off the 2018 Man Booker long list, Sally Rooney, the author of Conversation with Friends, bring the long during and complex friendship between Connell and Marianne to life in Normal People. I had heard so many praises for Conversation with Friends over the years that when Rooney’s latest novel, and her first one since Conversation, came out I immediately knew I wanted to pick it up. Additionally, as a general rule, I am a huge fan of any and all popular guy/girl galls for the unpopular guy/girl. Not entirely sure why, but the dynamics and challenges that…
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