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Toria | Bookstagram

@v.big.bookstack

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📚 Elegant prose & existential dread
✨Currently accepting recommendations that will ruin my week.
🎯2026: 110/100
📖CR: The Bedevilments
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AUTUMN 🍂 | ALI SMITH The first book in my seasonal Ali Smith buddy read, and what a gorgeous place to begin. At the centre of Autumn is the friendship between Elisabeth and Daniel, separated by generations but connected through art, stories, curiosity and a kind of deep, sustaining companionship. Their relationship gave the novel its warmth, but what I loved most was the way Smith places that intimacy against something much larger: a Britain fractured by Brexit, suspicion and bureaucracy, with the present constantly rubbing up against other moments in British and European history. The Profumo Affair, Pauline Boty, pop art, political division, borders, identity. Smith lets history echo rather than sit neatly in the past, so that Brexit becomes not an isolated rupture but another moment in a much longer story about who gets to belong, who gets listened to, and what a country chooses to remember. Formally, this was such a pleasure too. The analepsis, the dreamlike passages, the slips between memory and reality, the strange associative leaps. It feels fragmented without ever feeling careless, more like memory itself: one image opening a door into another. And throughout it all, that extraordinary juxtaposition of beauty and brutality. Art. Friendship. Nature. Freedom. Alongside xenophobia, hostility, borders, institutional absurdity and the uglier edges of modern Britain. It’s a book about division, but also about the things that resist it. About continuing to notice beauty. Continuing to make connections. Continuing to imagine something better. Thank you to all of my lovely reading buddies. A genuinely gorgeous reading experience, and I’m already very glad we’ve decided to read all four books as the seasons change. 🍁 Next stop: Winter. ❄️ by @v.big.bookstack
11
9 hours ago
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QOTD: which author would you happily buy on name alone? 👀 Day three of my 5x5, 4x4, 3x3, 2x2 reading challenge, and today it’s all about authors. For my 3x3, I’ve picked 3 auto-buy authors, 3 authors I want to read more by, and 3 debut authors you need to know. A little mix of loyalty, curiosity and new voices I’m very excited about. I’ve tagged 3 creators who I thought might enjoy putting together their own 3x3 too, because apparently I’ve now turned this into a small numerical contagion. Tomorrow: 2x2, and then I’ll have to come up with something else to do...🤷🏻‍♀️ #BookstagramUK #AuthorRecommendations #BookishChallenge #ReadingLife #BookCommunity by @v.big.bookstack
18
a day ago
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QOTD: which book here would you pick up first? 👀 A very botanical little Friday flatlay this week 🌿 Apparently I’ve accidentally assembled a stack full of roots, trees, flowers, bodies, myths and things growing slightly wild around the edges. Some I’ve read, some I haven’t, but aesthetically? Extremely satisfying. #FridayFlatlay #BookstagramUK #BookStack #BookRecommendations #BooksAndNature by @v.big.bookstack
21
a day ago
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What’s your biggest red flag as a reader? 🚩📚 I spend a lot of time on here talking about the transformative power of literature, championing independent publishers and generally presenting myself as a reasonably thoughtful, well-adjusted member of the reading community. I think. But, dear reader, we each have two wolves within us. And while one of my wolves is the sort of person who would (hopefully) make Donald Trump sick up a bit in his own mouth, the other would probably have much the same effect, albeit for very different reasons. Apparently, self-awareness is the first step towards personal growth. While I have absolutely no intention of changing, in the interests of transparency, I’ve decided to air my literary dirty laundry. Let my goblin wolf howl at the moon for a bit. I rarely let her play out in public. Your turn. Confess your most embarrassing bookish red flag in the comments. The more unhinged, the better. (And I’ve tagged a few of you just for the fun of it.) This is a safe space. Ish. #BookstagramUK #BookishConfessions #ReaderProblems #BookishHumour #ReadersOfInstagram by @v.big.bookstack
76
2 days ago
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❤️💚 A very STRANGE little parcel! 💚❤️ An enormous thank you to the lovely people at @pushkin_press for sending me this fabulous bundle of goodies to celebrate Strange Pictures by Uketsu. The cap! The sushi pin! I’m absolutely delighted (and clearly already committed to the aesthetic). 🧢 If you haven’t encountered Uketsu yet, you’re in for something wonderfully peculiar. The enigmatic, anonymous Japanese author (who has been called the Japanese Banksy) has become something of a literary phenomenon, with a series of unsettling, puzzle-like mysteries that invite readers to become detectives themselves. 🖼️ Strange Pictures was Uketsu’s English-language debut, weaving together a series of seemingly unrelated drawings that conceal a much darker story. Each image holds clues, and it’s up to the reader to uncover the disturbing connections between them. 🏠 Strange Houses turns its attention to architecture, using the floor plans of seemingly ordinary homes to reveal sinister secrets hidden within their walls. 🏢 Strange Buildings takes us further into the unsettling world of architectural mysteries, where buildings themselves hold disturbing clues.between them. And the strangeness isn’t over! 🗺️ Strange Maps is coming in April 2027, promising another deliciously unsettling mystery to unravel. I can’t wait! I’m a sucker for an unconventional narrative, a good puzzle and anything that makes the ordinary feel deeply sinister, so these are very much my sort of books. Thank you again, Pushkin, for such a thoughtful (and brilliantly strange) surprise. ❤️💚❤️ QOTD: Have you ventured into Uketsu’s strange little world yet? Or are these books still lurking on your TBR? #StrangePictures #Uketsu #StrangeMaps #JapaneseLiterature #TranslatedFiction by @v.big.bookstack
15
3 days ago
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QOTD: which four books are taking up the most space in your brain right now? 👀 Day two of my 5x5, 4x4, 3x3, 2x2 reading challenge, and today we’re down to four. For my 4x4, I’ve gone for four little snapshots of my reading life: 4 books on my TBR, 4 books I bought recently, 4 books I rated 4 stars, and 4 books I can’t stop thinking about. There is, as ever, very little genre loyalty and absolutely no discernible system beyond “these are the books currently rattling around in my head.” And I’ve tagged four lovely creators who I think will do a great job of this. Some are waiting patiently to be read, some have only just arrived, some were very good but not quite five-star territory, and some have apparently moved into my brain without signing a tenancy agreement. Tomorrow: 3x3, and we’re moving from books to authors. 📚 #BookstagramUK #BookRecommendations #ReadingLife #BookishChallenge #BookCommunity by @v.big.bookstack
26
3 days ago
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Review - Huna by Abdelrahman ElGendy In 2013, seventeen-year-old Abdelrahman ElGendy was living in Cairo, two years after the Egyptian revolution that promised democracy and political freedom. Following a military coup, Egypt descended into violent repression. ElGendy joined the protests against the new regime, accompanied by his father, who was concerned for his safety. Both ElGendy and his father were arrested during a demonstration and subsequently sentenced to fifteen years in prison on fabricated terrorism charges. Huna, Arabic for ‘here’, is the account of his six years’ imprisonment. In a story of violence and brutality and dehumanisation, ElGendy manages to push back against the expectations of prison narratives. It’s political, absolutely. It’s shocking and horrifying. It’s full of resistance and solidarity. But it’s also so much more than that. It moves far away from the expectations we might have of prison memoirs of incarceration and eventual freedom. ElGendy’s literary style, his choice to write in English rather than his first language of Arabic, the choice to structure the book in the form of an ‘anbara (an Egyptian prison tradition of call-and-response between cellmates), and his choice not to translate or explain Arabic language…all of these contribute to a memoir that is challenging, immersive and intensely literary. It also asks so many questions: how does one hold on to one’s humanity when the system you exist within is determined to destroy it? What happens when hope isn’t enough? How can we document injustice and reclaim agency? What really sustains people through hardships? And what of love? If I’m honest I can’t really think of a way to adequately summarise how I felt about the book without reducing ElGendy and his book, both in its reach and in its beauty. Even if I could I wouldn’t. It resonated with me deeply. I highly recommend it. The book is released this Thursday. Thank you to OneWorld Publications @oneworldpublications and Abdelrahman ElGendy @abdelrahman_elgendy95 for the review copy. #AbdelrahmanElGendy #PrisonMemoir #EgyptianWriting #ResistanceWriting #ReadingIsPolitical by @v.big.bookstack
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4 days ago
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QOTD: which version of you is choosing the books at the moment? 👀 I’ve set myself a little numerical reading challenge this week: 5x5, 4x4, 3x3, 2x2. Each post uses the number in a different way, so naturally I’m starting big with five reader personalities and five books for each one. Apparently I contain multitudes, and most of them want different things from a book. Sometimes I want something feral enough to feed my inner goblin. Sometimes I need to channel the feminine rage, soothe my nervous system, indulge my inner agitator or hand the reins over to the literary snob who thinks a slightly difficult novel is a personality trait. I’ve tagged some of my lovely Book Coven, who I thought might enjoy coming up with their own five reader personalities. I am, obviously, extremely nosy about what yours would be too. Each day I’ll tag different people (five, then four, then three etc). #BookstagramUK #ReadingLife #BookRecommendations #BookishChallenge #BookCommunity by @v.big.bookstack
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6 days ago
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QOTD: what’s the last book you bought? 👀 I can never resist a weekend mooch around a bookshop, and Morpeth didn’t disappoint this week. Being the neurospicy Gemini that I am, I have absolutely no genre loyalty. I’m also highly susceptible to a quick and dirty hit of retail dopamine, so this is a bit of a magpie bookstack. Eclectic? Yes. Regrettable? Never. ‘Don’t you have enough books?’ Mind your business. I’m also definitely counting this as my Day 10 post from the booktober challenge put together by @_booksnug 📚🛍️ #BookstagramUK #BookHaul #NewBooks #BookStack #OopsIDidItAgain by @v.big.bookstack
47
6 days ago
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Saturday Stack A-Z Series: J is for JUSTICE ⚖️ Justice is one of those words we use so often that it can start to lose its edges. We talk about justice in books because literature is full of its absence: people failed by institutions, crimes ignored, voices disbelieved, power protecting power. We read about who gets heard, who gets protected, who gets punished, and who is expected to quietly carry what was done to them. And lately, it feels particularly difficult to treat any of that as theoretical. The case now widely referred to as the Cornell 7 has once again forced questions about sexual violence, consent, institutional accountability and what happens when the systems supposedly designed to protect people appear to fail them. Whatever emerges through the process, the call for a serious, transparent pursuit of justice matters. So does protecting the dignity and anonymity of the woman at the centre of it. Justice is not vengeance. It isn’t a hashtag, a performance or the court of public opinion. It is truth being taken seriously. It is institutions being held accountable. It is power being questioned rather than automatically protected. It is survivors being able to speak without becoming the ones placed on trial. Maybe that’s why I keep returning to books about justice. They remind us that injustice thrives when we become accustomed to it. And right now, the call for justice feels louder than ever. J is for Justice. Keep reading. Keep questioning. Keep refusing to look away. #JForJustice #ReadingIsPolitical #BooksForChange #PoliticalReading #BookstagramUK by @v.big.bookstack
14
7 days ago
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It’s time for a Friday Flatlay! My theme this week is the silver screen. Nine books that share a focus on cinema, film, performance and spectatorship. 🎥🎞️ I was surprised by how few books I owned for this week’s theme to be honest. Managed to add another ten or so to my wishlist though 😆 #booksaboutmovies #cinemabooks #flatlayfriday #bookflatlay #booksta by @v.big.bookstack
16
9 days ago
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It’s a while since I’ve done a post like this, but I’ve been reading so many books lately there were very BODILY and my brain was itchy over why. #booksaboutbodies #bodybooks #thehumanbody #thebodyinliterature #literarymotifs by @v.big.bookstack
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9 days ago
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