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The Library Is Open

A blog about books and writing, through rainbow-tinted glasses. Every book gets a gay rating.

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Category: Reviews

Five films from the Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2023

Queer films to add to your watchlist (or not!).

Film, Melbourne, MQFF, queer

Review: The Jaguar by Sarah Holland-Batt

Poetry as still life.

Australian, Poetry, Stella Prize

Review: Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Spartacus meets Never Let Me Go.

Black writers, Contemporary, Fiction, Novel, Prisons, Racism, speculative fiction, US

Review: The Patriarchs by Angela Saini

No, patriarchy is not ‘natural’.

Anthropology, Feminism, History, Nonfiction, science, Sociology

Review: What Have You Left Behind? by Bushra Al-Maqtari (translated by Sawad Hussain)

A record of the atrocities of war in Yemen.

Journalism, Middle East, Nonfiction, War, Yemen

Review: Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay

The third in the Neapolitan series broadens the scope.

Classics, Fiction, Italy, Novel

Review: Chai Time At Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran

A sharp retort to Australia’s arbitrary rules about who belongs and how.

Australian, Contemporary, Fiction, Historical, Miles Franklin Award, Novel, Sri Lanka

Review: If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga

A bruising novel investigating how love and desire operate under systems of power.

Colonialism, Contemporary, Egypt, Feminism, Fiction, Novel, Racism

Review: August Blue by Deborah Levy

A breezy but potent novel of doublings and troublings.

British, Contemporary, Deborah Levy, Europe, Fiction, Novel

Review: Here Be Leviathans by Chris Flynn

Amusing, playful and inventive short stories.

Animals, Australian, Contemporary, Fiction, Short stories, Speculative, speculative fiction

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