Gemma Abbott

A screenshot of this book cover. It is neon green, with a blue, pink and green picture of the back of a person who looks like the king in a pack of playing cards. They have their fingers crossed behind their back.

Book 71/? - Fair Play by Louise Hegarty

I don’t know if I entirely enjoyed it but I couldn’t stop reading. It’s undoubtedly very clever, weaving together a pastiche of/ homage to golden age murder mystery with a modern telling of the mundane horror of grief. Impressive (if a tiny bit disjointed?)💙📚

A screenshot of this book cover - a gold yellow with a contorted body on the front, wearing pressed, crisp cream clothes and an elegant snakeskin high heel. The person is on one leg and the other is raised high above them to the front, like they’re dancing.

Book 70/? - The Coin by Yasmin Zaher

I listened to this on audiobook and was transfixed. It was funny but also so very sad. It left me feeling a bit raw. Loneliness, displacement, class, beauty, nature… it is disgusting at times and moving too 💙📚

A screenshot of this book cover - bold yellow with the title in red. The cover has a pigeon carrying some red cherries at the bottom

Book 69/? - Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley

I succumbed to the endless promotion of this (despite the grating name)

It was genuinely funny - and pretty devastating on the furious resentment that can brew between couples when it comes to making space for parenthood 💙📚

Screenshot of this book cover

Book 68/? - The Unicorn Woman by Gayl Jones

The story-telling is irresistible - it meanders and flows, sometimes almost dreamlike, always interesting

I hadn’t read Gayl Jones before - glad to have realised my mistake

💙📚

A copy of this book sitting on the stones on Brighton beach. The cover is royal blue with the title in large neon green writing, below a fried egg. This photo came from the Amazon page for this book but you should buy it from anywhere else ideally 😆

Book 67/? - Gunk by Saba Sams

So good - this had me racing to download the author’s first book (Send Nudes). It’s somehow both tender and acerbic - and funny too. Highly recommend 💙📚

Copy of this hardback book - the cover is cream with a picture of an apple and its leaves. The title is a bold orange. The edges of the book are the same gorgeous orange with white apples and leaves.

Book 66/? - The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce

I loved this. On siblings, on family, on those tiny resentments and assumptions that might suddenly collapse under their own weight

The indie hardback is a feast for the eyes too - hunt it down if you can! 💙📚

Thank you. I hope you have many, many years together 🥰

My mum died three years ago. I don’t really know how I got to the end of it - I found myself stricken with great gasping sobs at times - but there was something cathartic too. Somehow I was ready, I think. It’s just beautiful, isn’t it?

A copy of the book cover, which is a lovely pencil drawing of a cliff bath and sea, with scrolling waves, a diving dolphin, swooping sea birds and two shadowy people on the path.

Book 65/? - The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

I enjoyed the nature writing and it’s set in a favourite part of the world. But I don’t think it goes much further than memoir - eg I found it quite shallow on its broader themes of homelessness (& don’t get me started on her take on refugees 😳)

💙📚

The cover of this book in a square format. It is a close up of a deep blue water, cresting against a grey sky. The perspective is of someone half under/ half above. The author’s name and the title are in bold white against the blue. There is a Penguin logo bottom right

Book 64/? - Water by John Boyne

This popped up on my Audible, one of Boyne’s ‘elemental’ series

I loved the writing as it dealt with nature; I was left a bit cold by the characterisation…

Not sure I’ll read the others but I did like the setting of an isolated and unyielding Irish island 💙📚

A lovely cover - there are two pinky/peach triangles mirrored top to bottom and meeting in the middle (looking like a sky and a path) and dark teal green triangles mirrored left to right and meeting in the middle. There is a man with his back to the viewer in the middle, with a white shirt and shorts, casting three shadows. The title is embossed gold and the author’s name is white along the bottom

Book 63/? - The Names by Florence Knapp

I succumbed to the unrelenting coverage of this, which made me - wrongly - think this was going to be light and fun. It’s not! It’s much more interesting, and harrowing, than I expected - and better for it 💙📚

A copy of the book cover - a dark blue sky with a smattering of white stars, which is the background to a branch of orange leaves, given the impression you are staring up at them from the ground. The author’s name and title are in white text

Book 62/? - On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

I’ve been meaning to read this for a while, prompted by his new book arriving. It’s poetry masquerading as a novel, and it’s both agonising and beautiful. I loved it 📚💙

A screenshot of this book cover, which is a beautifully painted window with warm light streaming in and casting shadows of the window frame. The book name is written across the painting in a white serif font; the author’s name in caps along the bottom

Book 61/? - Days of Light by Megan Hunter

I listened to this on audiobook - beautifully written, lyrical & evocative. I found myself a bit frustrated by the passivity of the main character - & the religious underpinnings didn’t really chime from my atheist perspective. But I enjoyed it anyway! 📚💙

A copy of the hard back cover of this book. It is white, with the title in huge caps, as if cut out from a photo of a snowy landscape with small red houses and fields. The author’s name is above in black.

Book 60/? - Flesh by David Szalay

I read a review that advised not to “pigeonhole Flesh as a novel about masculinity…” - but I’m not sure I found much universality in the experience of the unemotional, unflinching, strangely passive protagonist

Excellent, but not a pleasure 💙📚

Thank you - I haven’t read anything by Jean Hanff Korelitz, or Remarkably Bright Creatures - will check them out! Have a lovely weekend 😊

Oh I haven’t! I shall - thank you 🙏

Screenshot of the Audible book cover. It’s bright yellow with the name in white and the author’s name above in black. There is a person drawn in pale yellow against the yellow background - only her face, hair and arms are filled in. Her hair is black and her skin pale. She may be half-Korean, assuming she is the author/ narrator. She is looking down, sadly, and clutching armfuls of groceries.

Book 59/? - Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Another audiobook, which I thought was excellent, if pretty tough to listen to (I hadn’t quite realised I was embarking on a story about motherhood and death - I’d have done so *much* less casually had I known)

Beautiful though

💙📚

Copy of the paperback of this book against a grey marbled background

Book 58/? - Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

A bit trite to say perhaps but this book made me both laugh and cry. It’s brutal at times; I realised I kept on taking breaks when reading to catch my breath

Has anyone read Torrey Peters’ new book, Stag Dance? It’s gone straight on my list! 💙📚

A screenshot of the audible picture for this book. It’s a simple cream cover, with the New York skyline showing in a line drawing as if through a window (the book is told from a hospital bed looking out on the city). The font is a simple serif one - the author’s name in black caps above the title in red. It says “Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016”. The Penguin logo is at the bottom.

Book 57/? - My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

Working my way through Elizabeth Strout’s works to get to her most recent on the Women’s Prize shortlist! I listened to this on audiobook and really enjoyed it. I love the simplicity of her storytelling - it’s so humane and compassionate 💙📚

Gorgeous Fitzcarraldo Edition of this book. It’s a glorious peacock blue, with very simple white text with simply the title, the author and ‘Fitzcarraldo Editions’ at the foot

Book 56/? - Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico

No need to add to The Discourse on this. It’s a short read, sharp and unrelenting in its skewering of a gentrifying, hipster generation. Deadpan and ultimately quite depressing, I’m not sure I quite enjoyed it as much as admired it… 📚💙

Oh wow! That is spectacularly kind. I’m not able to make it sadly but THANK YOU 🙏

A long-ish thread on racial disproportionalities in the use of force in prison - and why this makes yesterday’s decision to authorise the use of PAVA spray in children’s prisons all the more appalling - please do read and share 🙏

Final post in 🧵 (for now!) - here is the Government’s use of force evaluation as cited above

Read it and weep 😭 assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/680933...

🧵 And watch this space for updates on work @thehowardleague.bsky.social is doing more broadly around the use of force in adult prisons - including in relation to PAVA use against young, Black men

A long-ish thread on racial disproportionalities in the use of force in prison - and why this makes yesterday’s decision to authorise the use of PAVA spray in children’s prisons all the more appalling - please do read and share 🙏

Stop the use of PAVA spray on children in prison The Howard League is a national charity campaigning for less crime, safer communities and fewer people in prison.

🧵 Please support @thehowardleague.bsky.social to challenge the decision to arm prison officers in children’s prisons with PAVA spray, if you can 🙏

www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-th...

Use of pepper spray authorised at young offender institutions in England and Wales Decision by Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, means Pava spray could be used on children as young as 15

🧵 It is almost unfathomable that - on the same day as publishing research laying bare the racial disproportionalities of the use of force in adult prisons - that Govt would authorise the use of PAVA spray against children in prison

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Graph showing disproportionally high numbers of Black children in custody Figure 7.6 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/youth-justice-statistics-2022-to-2023/youth-justice-statistics-2022-to-2023-accessible-version#children-in-youth-custody

🧵Black children are significantly over-represented in youth custody - especially those on remand (i.e. awaiting conviction or sentencing)

Paragraph from this evaluation https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68093394e4d2b76ccfb527a0/Use_of_Force_Evaluation_Report.pdf Which states “Responses to assaults and/or fighting may need particular attention, given that it is these incidents which tend to lead to more force on black or mixed ethnicity men. Our research indicates that officers are more likely to use high-impact techniques when responding to these incidents, and that more black and mixed men are experiencing more high-impact techniques. Research may be needed to better understand, even in situations where it is deemed necessary for some level of force to be initiated, why the type of techniques used appears to differ depending on the ethnicity of the prisoner. Indeed, this research signals that prisoner behaviour does not fully account for the levels of PAVA or Baton use experienced by black men in prison.”

🧵 Govt’s own evaluation on the use of force - published yesterday - states “prisoner behaviour does not fully account for the levels of PAVA or Baton use experienced by black men in prison”

Except from use of force evaluation that says “Prisoners from four sites, including white prisoners, spoke of targeted force towards ethnic-minority individuals describing it as 'disgusting.' At least one prison had held forums with prisoners to further explore the issue. They'll go for the black guy first. (Prisoner)”

🧵 When Govt researchers spoke to people in prison about the use of force by officers, some identified “disgusting” targeting towards those from racialised minorities

“They’ll go for the Black guy first”