Alphareader - Danielle Binks

oh my goddd i am fucking oBSESSED with this art for the ministry of time seriously i need y'all to please read this book. i need y'all to swoon over graham gore with me. it's not just a gorgeous romance novel, nor just a spy thriller, nor just a fantastic twist on time travel, nor just a way to obsess over the franklin expedition (for all you the terror girlies) but an incredible evisceration of the british empire that follows a British-Cambodian character by a British-Cambodian author. just. GOD. and graham gore is so dreamy. have i said that yet? he’s so dreamy and i adore the narrator (she’s a crunchy character with some incredible flaws and i adore her for them) and it's so good. 5/5 stars. if i could give it more i would. (also contrary to what i'd said before based on what i'd heard, it does end happily imo!)

That’s what I love about reading; one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive – all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Every time you look up at the stars, it’s like opening a door. You could be anyone, anywhere. You could be yourself at any moment in your life. You open that door and you realize you’re the same person under the same stars. Camping out in the backyard with your best friend, eleven years old. Sixteen, driving alone, stopping at the edge of the city, looking up at the same stars. Walking a wooded path, kissing in the moonlight, look up and you’re eleven again. Chasing cats in a tiny town, you’re eleven again, you’re sixteen again. You’re in a rowboat. You’re staring out the back of a car. Out here where the world begins and ends, it’s like nothing ever stops happening.

‘Lost At Sea’ by Bryan Lee O’Malley

What I Will

by Suheir Hammad

I will not

dance to your war

drum. I will

not lend my soul nor

my bones to your war

drum. I will

not dance to your

beating. I know that beat.

It is lifeless. I know

intimately that skin

you are hitting. It

was alive once

hunted stolen

stretched. I will

not dance to your drummed

up war. I will not pop

spin break for you. I

will not hate for you or

even hate you. I will

not kill for you. Especially

I will not die

for you. I will not mourn

the dead with murder nor

suicide. I will not side

with you nor dance to bombs

because everyone else is

dancing. Everyone can be

wrong. Life is a right not

collateral or casual. I

will not forget where

I come from. I

will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved

near and our chanting

will be dancing. Our

humming will be drumming. I

will not be played. I

will not lend my name

nor my rhythm to your

beat. I will dance

and resist and dance and

persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than

death. Your war drum ain’t

louder than this breath.

All children, except one, grow up.

'Peter Pan' by J. M. Barrie

The last thing he ever said to me was, "Just always be waiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing."

'Peter Pan' by J.M. Barrie