Asides

Interview: Caitlin Moran on the Working Class, Masturbation, and Writing a Novel

Aside

An interview with the excellent Caitlin Moran about her new novel.

Longreads

Jessica Gross | Longreads | Sept. 25, 2014 | 13 minutes (3,300 words)

Caitlin Moran has worked as a journalist, critic, and essayist in the U.K. for over two decades, since she was 16. In her 2011 memoir/manifesto, How to Be a Woman, she argued women should keep their vaginas hairy, said she has no regret over her own abortion, and advocated for the term “strident feminist.” Moran brings the same gallivanting, taboo-crushing spirit to her debut novel, How to Build a Girl, which follows Johanna Morrigan, a working class teenager, as she navigates her way toward adulthood. Morrigan shares a few traits with Moran, from her background and career path to her obsession with music and masturbation.

* * *

As I read How to Build a Girl, I pictured you laughing uproariously to yourself as you were writing it. But in the acknowledgments, you say…

View original post 3,045 more words

Advertisement

Month One

Aside

So, December is not the month I recommend you start a blog. Whoa. Between illness and the holidays, I kinda drop the book for this blog, as it were. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that I started re: read pages and I am looking forward to writing some more, but, not unlike the writing of my book, I underestimated the effort involved in maintaining a good blog.

Thank goodness for new years and fresh starts.

Welcome back, dear Readers, and Happy New Year!

Looking at how my first month went, I am going to revise the blogging schedule. Mondays will still be book discussion, but, for the time being, I am dropping it down to a bi-weekly update, with maybe a little commentary as I read to help keep the habit up.

So, please enjoy my take on a classic novel, A Christmas Carol, which you’ll find in the next post, and we’ll start fresh for 2014.

Christmas break

Aside

I originally planned on keeping up the blog over Christmas week but now that it is upon us, I realize that I won’t be able to give re: read pages the attention it deserves and spend time celebrating the holidays.

So please come back on Monday, 30 December for re: read pages’ regular schedule and have a safe and happy holidays!

Little delay

Aside

Hi, sorry there will be a slight delay in posting my discussion of Fifth Business. I hope to have it up later this evening, otherwise, I will do a double post on Wednesday.

Thanks for your patience,

BJL