A few more in the post: teen fiction for next year's Literature and Identity course, if I still have a job then. Nancy Garden's Annie On My Mind, Hautzig's Hey, Dollface, and the first Judy Blume I've ever held, Forever, which is apparently still controversial and frequently banned (haven't they ever read this or this: they make Blume look like a medieval nun?).
Cue female readers telling me their Judy Blume stories. Please! Being male, they're rather out of my comfort zone. I'm sure at least one of my 4 sisters must have read them, but I'm certain that they'd have been on the banned list in the family home, being about it.
Also on the subject of identity, P J Harvey's new album, Let England Shake, has arrived: an exploration of competing versions of Englishness. As far as I can tell, Harvey objects to the way Englishness seems to be defined by aristocrats cheerfully sending peasants off to die for imaginary reasons. I do love her music - very few artists are as consistently unsettling and challenging. Not sure why she focuses on England rather than Britain - only she could answer that, I guess. Britain's Patti Smith?
2 comments:
I remember I got a Judy Blume book out from the library when I was a wee lad. I can't remember how old I was, but I was still living down south so I was probably about 10/11.
I had never been so confused in my entire life.
Ha! You were most definitely not the target audience!
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