In this series we ask authors, Guardian writers and readers to share what they have been reading recently. This month, recommendations include a searing poetry collection, a brilliant history of dancefloors and unputdownable novels. Tell us in the comments what you have been reading.
Victoria Adukwei Bulley, poet
I have endless admiration for artists whose work transcends the borders of disciplines, so I was stunned by Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa’s debut poetry collection Cane, Corn & Gully, published by Out-Spoken Press. Through a rigorous blend of choreography, poetry and historical research, Kinshasa has constructed a body of poems that listen for and revivify the physical movements of the enslaved women of Barbados’s past. It is a book of searingly virtuosic ancestral reverence and healing, a recalibration of the terms on which we listen for those whose lives were reduced to property. In doing this, much in the spirit of M NourbeSe Philip, Kinshasa exorcises the dead from the bounds of that monstrous category, a liberatory intervention that restores their agency and dignity.
In a similar manner, Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe (out this April) has stayed with me since I first read an advance copy. Sharpe’s previous work In the Wake: On Blackness and Being has become a kind of critical touchstone, a reference point for considering what the stakes are for Black life and cultural work, and the kinds of refusals that are necessary in order to engage truthfully with a past that is not past at all. Ordinary Notes builds upon the autobiographical foundations that Sharpe’s In the Wake opens with, comprising hundreds of entries of various lengths. Both individually and in their totality these entries exemplify what it looks like to care and be cared for, to mother, to be mothered and to mourn fiercely, and at all times to bear witness: to behold and be held by what beauty persists even within the enclosure of an anti-Black world.
Victoria Adukwei Bulley is the winner of the 2023 Rathbones Folio prize for poetry for her debut collection, Quiet (Faber £10.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Safi Bugel, Guardian writer
My book of the month is easily Emma Warren’s Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through the Dancefloor. Part social history, part love letter, it digs through the individual and collective powers of dancing via the lens of different subcultures and scenes. We’re transported from Anglo-Saxon churchyards up to late 2010s jazz jams in Deptford via reggae dancehalls, Chicago house sets, New York’s ballroom scene and grime and dubstep nights. There are detailed descriptions of dance moves, music styles and soundsystems, as well as the wider political contexts, from gentrification and ever-increasing club closures to hostile policing and door policies. Here, dance is taken seriously; it’s about more than just hedonism and letting loose, but also community, self discovery, health and history.
This is not just a book for devoted clubbers and professional dancers: Warren also explores the importance of dancing round the living room as a new parent, taking up space as a middle-aged woman and making sense of dyspraxia through movement. The depth of research is fascinating, but it’s written by a fan as much as an expert. Statistics and laws are bolstered by Warren’s own feelings and stories, offering a warmth and authenticity that could only be achieved by someone who has spent many hours on various dancefloors.
The bulk of Dance Your Way Home was written during the height of the pandemic, when collective and public dancing was off limits, and that sense of longing is felt. But despite the wistfulness, and the journeying across place and time, the book does not overindulge in nostalgia. It’s a living history that also looks forward, imagining a future where dancing and movement are valued – by schools and healthcare professionals, by property developers and the government. It’s also a polite but firm call to arms: to protect dancefloors and the opportunities they offer at all costs.
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Henry, Guardian reader
I found Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton impossible to put down. It contains wonderful characters and a fascinating political commentary on New Zealand’s political failings, as well as an ultimate moral question around how power is shared in society. Brilliant – 10/10!
Cath, Guardian reader
I am reading Sarah Winman’s beautifully crafted story about loss, love, war and the polar opposite cities of Florence and London, Still Life. If I had to describe the best embrace I’ve ever had in written form, this book would be it. Contrasting perfectly the greyness and smog of London’s post war East End with the colourful beauty of Florence and Tuscany, Winman is taking me on a journey with characters so beautifully crafted that I can almost feel their triumphs, losses and loves as they experience them. I usually find myself racing to the end of books to finish them but I’m taking this slowly as I honestly can’t bear to finish it. And if that weren’t enough, there’s also a talking parrot!