Wednesday is World Sloth Day*
What I read
Samanth Subramanian, A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane (2020), about which I posted at some length here. I read a review somewhere which somehow led me to expect a bit more from this than it delivered, but will concede that Haldane was a complex and confusing character and the archival record is madly scattered. Still think there should have been more about his sister Naomi Mitchison (who in small-scale grass-roots ways probably achieved more, politically, than he did? would like to see a joint bio, but that would be a mammoth endeavour.)
Sherwood Smith, Fledglings (The Phoenix Feather #1) (2021), which was a nice change from the previous - perhaps a little bit setting up for the following volume (which have just started).
Ann Oakley, Forgotten Wives: How Women Get Written Out of History (2021) - declaration of interest that the author asked me for info on one rather minor point (and I wish had actually asked me, or indeed any archivist, for an archivist's point of view on archives and archival research, for which I slightly marked this down). But is very good on how women, in particular married women who were active collaborators with their husbands, got written out of the record or at least their contribution diminished. Not to mention actual illness (quite apart from exhaustion from domestic strains) being constructed as hypochondria/neurosis. Focus on 4 women involved in social surveys/science/policy-making and the London School of Economics (who were not B Webb). Also how they could get monstered/blamed on sometimes very slight/biased grounds (e.g. one who was considered frightfully bad housekeeper when her husband sounds like a chaos demon that no-one could have kept a tidy domestic interior around).
On the go
Sherwood Smith, Redbark (The Phoenix Feather #2) (2021) - this is really moving the story along and out into new places.
Up next
Not sure. See Oliva Dade's follow-on from Spoiler Alert, All the Feels is out next week. But otherwise, dunno.
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*It celebrates the adorable South American arboreal mammal, and as far as we know there are no World Days for this deadly sin or for Wrath, Envy, Lust, Avarice, Gluttony and Pride. (Possibly all days belong to them.)
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