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When she first meets Adam, Coralie is new to London and feeling adrift. But Adam is clever, witty, and (he insists) a quarter of an inch taller than the average British male. His charming four-year-old daughter, Zora, only adds to his appeal. But ten years on, something important is missing from the life Coralie and Adam have built. Or maybe, having gained everything she dreamed of, Coralie has lost something she once had: herself.
Highways tend to be built across the easy routes and flat places, or the landscape is cleared away – logged, graded, levelled, tunnelled through – or the roadway lifted above it to streamline the journey. But to stick to these roads is to miss what else is out there. In her writing and activism, Rebecca Solnit has sought the back roads and the pathless places in order to celebrate indirect and unpredictable consequences, which, she argues are key to understanding power and the possibilities of change. Picking up where ‘Hope in the Dark’ left off, collected together here are Solnit’s best recent essays about the climate crisis, as well as her broader reflections on women’s rights, the fight for democracy, the trends in masculinity, and the rise of the far right in the West.
Like so many of us, Alice Vincent had become overwhelmed by the sensory overload punctuating our every moment. And then, a baby’s heartbeat arrived. A rapid, pulsing whoosh of white noise. An undeniable rhythm. Once again, Alice’s life became cacophonous – both with a new child, but also with the societal pressures that motherhood holds. What followed was a personal quest to rediscover sound as something alive and vital and restorative. Beyond music, Alice’s journey takes her into new corners of listening: from the phantom crying heard by mothers across the world to the nightingale’s song and the crackle of the Aurora Borealis. As our attention spans shrink and our sense of disconnection grows, Alice wants to find out if sound can reconnect her not only to lost parts of herself but to a life more consciously lived.
Laurence lives what appears to be an ideal existence. Her life features all the trappings of 1960s Parisian bourgeoisie: money, a handsome husband, two daughters and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though her mind unbidden writes copy whilst she’s at home, and dreams of domesticity in the office. But Laurence is a woman whose happiness was relegated long ago by the expectation of perfection. Relentlessly torn by the competing needs of her family, it is only when her 10-year-old daughter, Catherine, starts to vocalise her despair about the unfairness of the world that Laurence resists.
This volume combines two books by Virginia Woolf which are among the greatest contributions to feminist literature this century. They consider the implications of the historical exclusion of women from education and from economic independence.
Cosmetic surgeries are at an all-time high, Ozempic is bringing back ‘heroin chic’ and TikTok trad-wives are on the rise – after four waves of feminism, what went wrong? Despite decades of progress, the gains of the feminist movement feel more fragile than ever. But as Atlantic critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sophie Gilbert points out, this is not a unique moment. Feminism felt just as fragmented in the early 2000s, when the momentum of third-wave feminists and riot grrrl’s was squashed by lad culture and the commodification of ‘Girl Power’. Casting her eye across pop culture of the past thirty years – from Madonna, the Spice Girls and the Kardashians, to MySpace, `GirlBoss and ‘Real Housewives’ – Sophie Gilbert reveals a toxic pattern of progress and misogynistic backlash.
When Cassandra’s patron god, Apollo, offers her the gift of prophecy – and all the power that comes with it – she seizes the opportunity. But when she fails to uphold her end of the agreement, she discovers just how very far she has to fall. No one believes her visions. Which all seem to be of one girl – and she’s going to start a war. Helen fled Sparta in pursuit of love – though that’s proving more elusive than she’d hoped. Far from home, Helen’s navigating all the politics and backstabbing of the Trojan court. And one princess seems particularly intent on driving her from the city. But when war finally strikes, it’s more than the army at their walls they must contend with. Cassandra and Helen might hold the key to reweaving fate itself – especially with the prophetic strands drawing them ever closer together.
Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight. They have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship. Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Beatrice, politically-minded daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way – and her own friends – for the first time. Socialite Otto fills her room with extravagant luxuries but fears they won’t be enough to distract her from her memories of the war years. And quiet, clever, Marianne, the daughter of a village vicar, arrives bearing a secret she must hide from everyone – even The Eights.
Jihye is an ordinary woman who has never been extraordinary. In her administrative job at the Academy, she silently tolerates office politics and the absurdities of Korean bureaucracy. Forever only one misplaced email away from career catastrophe, she effectively becomes a master of the silent eye-roll and the tactical coffee run. But all her efforts to endure her superiors and the semi-hostile work environment they create are upended when a new intern, Gyuok Lee, arrives. Like a pacifist version of V in V for Vendetta, Gyuok recruits a trio of office allies to carry out plans for minor revenge. Together, these four ‘rebels’ commit tiny protests against those in more powerful positions through spraying graffiti, throwing eggs, and writing anonymous exposés. But as their attacks increase, the initial joy they felt at the release becomes something more.
In the blue dusk of a spring evening, a man is drawn to a lonely, beautiful stranger across a station platform. She follows him home, and over one heady night of wine and cigarettes, recounts to him the devastating story of her life.
A data-led examination of The Glass Cliff social phenomenon, whereby women are often only hired into leadership roles when a business is already underperforming, thereby undercutting their chances of success.
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