Tom's treasures of fiction, poetry, literature and more...

Hello everyone. Today I am going to tell you about a boy's life growing up with an alcoholic mother who is left by everyone. This is my review of Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain.

Welcome to my blog people. Now towards the beginning of the month, I announced that I would not be doing a weekly Sunday post of what I have read each week. Instead I stated that I would do one post at the end of the month to give in an overview in some of what I have been reading during the month. This avoids having repetitive posts and allows me to focus on creating content for you that you can enjoy reading. So... Here I am going to delve into some of what I have been reading this month. 1: French. For those of you who have been checking out my blog week in, week out then you will be aware of these posts. You will be aware of what crops up on these posts... I have been reading, listening, typing, speaking and responding to French as I learn the language. I am slowly on my way to having achieved 500 days of practicing my French. I have less than a month to go. 2: Waitrose Magazine, 'May Edition'. There are a select few reasons I go to Waitrose. One of those is for this incred...

Hello everyone. Sorry I forgot to upload my post yesterday as I have been away. So here is my post for yesterday. I hope you are all doing well. I know how testing society can be. Anyway... If you go down to the Birmingham suburb of Kings Heath. You will find a nice little bookshop known as The Book Tower down Poplar Road. I visited it last month when it was mentioned to me by someone working in another bookshop. I do love that when you cannot get a book in a bookshop so they point you else where. They really do not have to... So. Back to The Book Tower. I visited this bookshop when I was in Birmingham. Seeing it painted purple outside was enough of a reason for me to go inside. Now it is on the smaller side but that does not matter where The Book Tower is concerned. I like to consider this bookshop small and mighty. I use mighty because they sell other things aside from books. I saw some cute candles there when I visited. You would not think such a small shop would sell so much! Now i...

Today blog readers I am going to be revealing some of my favourite books that happen to be LGBTQIA+ for one reason or another. Currently I am loving, celebrating LGBTQIA+ books and authors because the LGBTQIA+ needs positivity and uplifting more than ever now. I want to point out first that these are not in a specific order of most favourite first for example. These are random and with the exception of the first book, I have not favoured them in particular. 1: Girl, Woman, Other  (2019) by Bernardine Evaristo. Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other  is my favourite novel ever, which I have mentioned on some occasions before. The novel has LGBTQIA+ characters and Evaristo deals with how these characters cope in society both past and present. If you have not read the book and want to gain an opinion on it then do check out my review. Womanhood, feminism and LGBTQIA+ acceptance are things I consider to be present in the book. They are also three things we need more of in our cu...

Welcome to my blog again people. I just wanted to start by saying that I found out the other day that it is Agender Pride day today. I thought it seemed fitting after mentioning it in my definitions part one post. For today's post I am giving you my second review of May's author of the month - Douglas Stuart. I decided to read and review his essay he did that is on Literary Hub. The essay  ‘ Poverty, Anxiety and Gender in Scottish Working-Class Literature ’ was a eye-opener in what there was to offer. I must admit that out of all the books that Douglas Stuart was recommending, there was only one I had heard. This was the whole premise of his essay - highlighting books that dealt with "the Glasgow effect" and the lives effected. Having read this article, I understand more behind what is happening in Stuart's own novel Shuggie Bain , which I am currently reading. Keep checking on my blog to see what I have thought of it when I have finished reading it. Of the other ...

Do you ever ask yourself where the good news of trans, non-binary or intersex people are? why is it always negativity and badness? These pathetic transphobic/non-binary-phobic/intersex-phobic comments such as "trans men are biological women", "people cannot be non-binary" or "intersex people just get corrected". These are just some of the negative comments I have heard or read. Maybe like me, you want some trans joy. Maybe you want people talking of intersex people in a positive light. Maybe you want happier stories  of non-binary people. Well it is a good job I am here to provide you with an "antidote" to all the negative and hateful juju. Yes this is another insightful blog post for you, my readers... Here I am bringing you of an anthology book of essays entitled Gender Euphoria  which funnily enough sums the book up well. I have forgotten how I came to pick this book up but it has been such a beautiful read. With all the hatred and negativity ...

Welcome to my blog everyone. If you are new, I hope you enjoy reading my blog posts. If you have returned then I thank you. Today I am delving into Douglas Stuart's short story  ‘Found Wanting ’ from 2020. Douglas Stuart is my author of the month and this is his first piece of work.  I will say that after I had read this I was left a little confused. I did not expect what happened to actually happen. I guess I found it odd. Not bad. No, I liked it. The story takes place in 1990s Scotland, namely Glasgow and is told from the perspective of this seventeen-year-old. He is secretly gay because being gay was not widely accepted. As it was people within the LGBTQIA+ community were treated differently in the 1990s. This is unsurprising following the HIV/AIDs pandemic of the 1980s. What I liked about this story was the narrators quest to find someone like him. The narrator is innocent and has to make do with what he can. I notice how Doulas Stuart set up the story to give readers the ...

Welcome back everyone. Today I am bringing you part two of my list of LGBTQIA+ definitions. I decided that to have it as one post would be too long. Here is the rest of the terms with their definitions, that I felt were relevant to share. You might consider some meanings to be similar but each term has its own definition and is still a valid identity. This might be for example omniromantic, panromantic and polyromantic. All of these are different and valid in their own way. Multiromantic is the umbrella term for all of the these. This is the same as multisexual being an umbrella term for omnisexual, pansexual and polysexual. Lesbian:  ‘ 'Lesbian' refers to a woman who is attracted to women. Some non-binary people may also identify with this term. ’¹ Lithosexual:  ‘Lithosexual  refers to a person who may experience sexual attraction but does not want it reciprocated. Also known as Akoisexual. ’² Lithromantic:  ‘ A  lithromantic  person is someone who may exp...

Hi all! Today I want to take a post to mention my weekly 'what I have read this week posts'. I have been thinking about these for some weeks now. I came to realise how they were often similar. When something is repetitive, it can get a bit boring. Therefore, I have made the decision to lose the weekly blog post on Sunday, informing you all of what I have read.  Instead I will give you a monthly update on some of the stuff I have been reading. This will help make the blog more interesting. Now the Sunday blog posts are not going to appear and this is starting from this month. I do apologise if you did enjoy reading them each week. Nevertheless, I shall have my posts every week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for you to enjoy. So here's to a good book, a great character and an incredible author. Until next time, Thomas.

Hello everyone. As the theme of the month for this month and June is LGBTQIA+, I wanted to post some words with their definitions. I know sometimes people do not necessarily understand what certain words mean. But if we know more then we can be more understanding. It can also help us to better support people who may face challenges such as the LGBTQIA+ community. It does not matter how you identify or what labels you choose to use, if you do choose to you any. You do not have to but any labels and identity of either sexuality or gender is valid. For example you might decide you are gynesexual or gyneromantic where you sexual/romantic attraction women and femininity. You could identify as multigender where you experience multiple gender identities. Polygender could be an alternative term too. If you experience all genders then you might use either omnigender or pangender for any gender. There might be words here that are familiar to you, maybe some that are new to you. However, it is no...

Good evening everyone and welcome back to my blog. I may have been away but I did make it clear that I would return. So here I am ready to give you more insightful reviews and whatnot for the month of May. As we are in a new month I will be having a new author. Also as I have mentioned before, every two months we have a new theme of the month. The theme of the month for may and June will be LGBTQIA+ authors and works. This is because June is LGBTQIA+ history month and I wanted to celebrate a community I am part of. Not only that but I feel it is needed to celebrate incredible LGBTQIA+ authors and characters at a time when attacks against our community are so frequent. The allies are showing up though and that is a good thing. It can be tough mentally when people want to try and take away freedoms/rights that you have. Or even other people who do not deserve. But we must be strong. That is why I picked this as theme of the month. For May, my first author of the month is going to be gay ...