It’s a rainy day in Newcastle today and lockdown is really starting to pall (God, I miss people – and the stupid rain means I can’t even have a garden gate chat with my cousin – which is making me realise how much I was depending on them for company) so it was lovely to get these treats in the post today.

A kind Twitter friend saw me asking for recommendations of Black authored books as, like many people, I’ve realised that I need to diversify my reading. It’s something I have been trying to do for a while, but I admit that I am too often distracted by a pretty hardback and don’t give as much thought as I should sometimes to the voices I support with my purchases. Anyway, some of these are out of print, so I was doubly thrilled to get them, and all of them are unfamiliar to me. (Also: love that Globe postcard!)

I also bought some new titles that have been on my wishlist for a while (notably Booker-winner Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, which I already started and am loving, and Queenie, by Candice Carty-Williams).

I’ve also been doing some rereads as I’m on a big reread kick at the moment – unfortunately since I tend not to keep books, I might have to rebuy Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, which I found incredibly enlightening and think I’d like to read again, but I did discover that I had Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele on Kindle and read them again last week (that sounds more impressive than it is: they are v short).

And because sometimes only poetry will do, am rereading both of these – one an old favourite, one a new discovery (both gifts also, incidentally – I have great friends).