Top 10 Tuesday | Black History Month (UK)

Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly book tag that was run by The Broke and the Bookish but has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week she provides a different bookish theme those deep-seated desires to list! Anyone is welcome to join in on their blog, in the comments or any other way. 

This week’s prompt for TTT was actually “Bookstores/Libraries I’ve Always Wanted to Visit”, but as it’s Black History Month in the UK this month I wanted to give you all some recommendations for that instead. Last year for a TTT prompt on favourite British fiction, I shared a list of diverse British fiction in response to the numerous lists which focused overwhelmingly on whitewashed and middle-class Britishness.

Book Review: Small Island | An Incredible Insight into Interracial Relations in post-WW2 Britain

TITLE: Small Island
AUTHOR: Andrea Levy
SERIES: N/A
RELEASED: September 2004; Headline Review
GENRE: Historical Fiction
FORMAT: Paperback

KEY INFO: Jamaican immigration to Britain, interracial relations, WW2, colonial Britain
REPRESENTATION: women of colour, people of colour, migrants, female protagonists, PTSD 
CONTENT NOTICES: racism, anti-blackness, racist slurs, racial violence

amazon // book depository // goodreads

Top 10 Tuesday | Diverse British Fiction

Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly book tag that was run by The Broke and the Bookish but has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week she provides a different bookish theme those deep-seated desires to list! Anyone is welcome to join in on their blog, in the comments or any other way. 

– Top 10 Books Which Represent the Diversity of Britain –

This week’s Top 10 Tuesday prompt was actually Books That Take Place in Another Country but I felt really moved to do something about my own country and its diversity. Part of this is motivated by a very long and enduring grudge that I have against the British film industry which continually perpetuates this idea of Britain as some kind of posh, white British utopia full of Keira Knightley’s and Benedict Cumberbatch’s. But my Britain is a lot less Pride and Prejudice and a lot more Kidadulthood. This is not to say that everywhere in Britain is like that, but I am from a world of estates, tracksuits and hanging around in the streets rather than big houses, tweed, and Oxbridge.