Northern Soul’s Best Reads of 2021

Thank you Henry Normal for selecting What Girls Do in the Dark for Northern Soul’s Best Reads of 2021!

Books: Northern Soul’s Best Reads of 2021
Henry Normal, poet and writer
What Girls do in the Dark (Nine Arches Press) by Rosie Garland is my favourite poetry book of the year. Garland was a singer in the 1980s post-punk/goth band The March Violets. More recently, she’s established herself as a poet and novelist with several titles. I had the honour to read with her in Birmingham a while back, so when her new collection was released I was already interested. From the first poem I was captivated. She has a way of keeping one foot tentatively in the world we know with the other searching for a foothold in an unseen or imaginary world. I was inspired and transported by these poems in a way I’ve not experienced since first getting excited by the possibilities of poetry in my teens. I suspect it would not be good form to choose one of my poetry books for this feature but even if it was, I would choose Garland’s What Girls do in the Dark.

https://www.northernsoul.me.uk/books-northern-souls-best-reads-of-2021/

An unexpected & encouraging piece of news!
Northern Soul has selected 'The Night Brother' as a Best Northern Read

Desmond Bullen, Northern Soul writer
“In days that can seem desolate and uncertain, there’s a lot to be said for windows into a better world and, ultimately, joyfully, that is exactly the view that The Night Brother by Rosie Garland affords. Not that its window seat is cheaply achieved. Far from it.
Rooted with disbelief-suspending specificity in Manchester at the end of the 19th century, Garland’s novel blossoms compellingly from the exquisite simplicity of its central conceit, one which owes the tiniest debt to the 1971 horror film Dr. Jekyll And Sister Hyde. Edie and her brother Gnome are joined in a very particular symbiosis, so that their singular sibling rivalry threatens to be the undoing of both. Themes that could be leaden in other hands emerge from the premise with a beautiful lightness of touch, developing into a persuasive fable of inclusivity and self-acceptance. This is a book that sings a rainbow at its end.”

https://www.northernsoul.me.uk/books-best-northern-reads-part-one/

TWO reviews (in Historia Magazine & Northern Soul) of ‘Making Thunder Roar’ at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and both say great things about my commissioned poem: “Stand-outs are Rosie Garland’s fiery poem, which perfectly captures Emily’s small world and her all-consuming creative drive”

Plus - here's a picture of the display case and my poem in-situ. Enjoy!

http://www.northernsoul.me.uk/review-making-thunder-roar-at-the-bronte-parsonage-museum/

http://www.historiamag.com/review-making-thunder-roar/