In all three cases, Hae-on’s beauty negates her humanity, elevating her into something supernatural or reducing her to an object. Either way she is portrayed as malleable, unfeeling. Whether Hae-on is worshipped or resented or punished has little to do with her, and this is clearest in Kwon’s constant shifting of her characterization. Each character ascribes intent to Hae-on’s appearance, justifying whatever reaction it inspires. Her beauty becomes inseparable from violence, but the violence goes both ways. If Sanghui is the stand-in for the true-crime consumer, Taerim is the voice of anyone who’s heard about a sexual assault and wondered, What was she wearing?

This fascinating, psychologically astute vignette about grief, blame and searching for the truth delivers piercing emotional depth in unique and elegant style' LoveReading Sadly and ironically, the patriarchy conspired to eject Etta Lemon from both her position and the annals of the RSPB until Tessa Boase revealed her full story here. We even discover many other women’s views about ‘Murderous Millinery’ and the Suffrage movement. For instance, Virginia Woolfe both RSPB supporter and Suffragist, refused to wear feathers but baulked at blaming women for the fashion trend when she vehemently exclaimed: ‘the birds are killed by men, starved by men, and tortured by men - not vicariously, but with their own hands.’ He is now better known for his autobiographical books, Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia (1999, ISBN 0-9535227-0-9) and the sequels, A Parrot In The Pepper Tree (ISBN 0-9535227-5-X) and The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society (2006, ISBN 0-9548995-0-4), about his work farming in Spain. All three are also available as audiobooks (Lemons ISBN 0-14-180143-3; Parrot ISBN 0-14-180402-5), and Almond ISBN 0-7528-8597-9, narrated by Stewart. I had absolutely no idea about what a "thing" feathers were for Victorian-era women, or what a huge business they were -- or what a toll they took on bird populations around the world, with some species hunted to the point of extinction. Boase lays out the facts here in horrifying detail. I was reminded of how both the beaver and the buffalo here in North America were hunted and slaughtered in massive numbers -- primarily for their pelts -- between the early 1600s & late 1800s, almost to the point of extinction.

Almost 20 years after the brutal murder of her then 19-year old sister, Da-on is still living with the consequences. Kwon Yeo-Sun's Lemon explores the long-term effect of this trauma. With no one ever arrested for the crime, Da-on continues to look for suspects and answers. In the meantime, she changes in fundamental ways. Not only does she gain weight, but she wears clothes that make her look inconspicuous, has mental health problems and becomes devoutly religious. Years later a sister, Da-on, who never recovered from her sister’s death, is still obsessed in finding out the truth; she wants no details spared. At the recommendation of Jonathan King, Stewart was asked to leave the band in the summer of 1968 due to poor technique. He was replaced by John Silver. After travelling and working throughout Europe, Stewart settled and bought a farm named "El Valero" in the Alpujarras region of Andalucia, Spain where he lives and works with his wife Ana Exton and daughter Chloë. He came in last place for the position of local councillor in the 27 May 2007 local elections in Órgiva representing the Green Party, where he received 201 votes (roughly 8%). Chilling, suspenseful and disconcerting. A story of taking things into one's own hands, when driven to despair by injustice and grief. I couldn't put it down and read deep into the night until I finished it, with my heart hammering A piercing psychological portrait that takes the shape of a crime novel and is a must-read novel of 2021

Maybe I should have known. After all, the title says "an optimist in Andalucia." That optimism definitely permeated the book. The problem was it wasn't just over Stewart. You could feel it over every moment and every character. It watered it down and even though he was writing about an area of the world near and dear to my heart, I found myself just not caring. This is the setup, but Kwon makes it clear that discovering the truth of who did it is not her aim. Instead, we follow the three women most affected over the 17 years that follow Hae-on’s death: her younger sister, Da-on; her classmate and Da-on’s literature club mentor, Sanghui (who’s referred to in the novel by the affectionate term “eonni”); and the second-prettiest girl in school, Yun Taerim. Each has their own trauma from the event, a catalyst that caused their lives to splinter off into drastically different directions. The novel jumps between the perspectives of the three women in the years after: Taerim in therapy, Sanghui trying to move on, and Da-on seeking truth. Charming, beguiling, and unique. At the heart of this 'mystery' is a poetic meditation on grief, guilt, and the meaning of life. In the end, Lemon, like a great painting, makes you see the world differently Emmeline Pankhurst, her daughters (Christabel and Sylvia), and the suffragette movement they led (under the banner of the Women's Social and Political Union, or WSPU) are very well known. But the childless Etta Lemon and her crusade to save the birds has been mostly forgotten by history -- until now, thanks to Tessa Boase and this book.

This was an interesting read overall -- a little dry/academic in tone, and perhaps a little more detail than most of us ever wanted or needed to know on these subjects...! It did take me a little while to get into it. But once I did, it was a pretty fascinating piece of social history. The author has certainly done her homework and knows her subject...! Etta Lemon is yet another unsung woman who did great things and whose story has been overlooked until now. Thank you, Tessa Boase, for (re)introducing her to us! The other half of the story follows the suffrage movement, especially Mrs Pankhurst's militant suffragettes who used fashion to further their cause - whether through their symbolic colour code, their expensive dresses used to denote respectability, or their penchant for a nice feathered hat... Finalmente la espantosa sesión llegó a su fin. "Maravilloso.", dije con un suspiro, "¿No conocen otras tonadas?". Eduardo y Manuel me analizaron frunciendo el ceño. "De acuerdo, vamos a tocar otra". Me estaba bien empleado. A haunting literary crime story... Razor-sharp observations of class, gender and privilege in contemporary Korea' Cosmopolitan Por mucho que me hubiera gustado describir cómo los dedos encallecidos por el trabajo del viejo Eduardo punteaban las cuerdas de guitarra como ni siquiera el mismo Orfeo hubiera podido hacer jamás, y cómo me había quedado embelesado por el dominio que los campechanos músicos tenían de sus instrumentos y por la sencilla belleza de la canción, no puedo negar la verdad: la múisca era un horroroso canto fúnebre, estropeado por los juramentos ponzoñosos de Eduardo cada vez que, invariablemente, Manuel perdía el compás. Padre e hijo se pasaron toda la actuación mirándose con el ceño fruncido, consumidos de cólera por la incompetencia del otro.

It's a sly, subtle piece of literary crime, carefully playing on its shifting perspectives to unsettling effect. An intriguing read The book is actually only half about Etta Lemon, a woman who felt passionately that feathers/whole birds shouldn't be used to decorate hats and who was central to the founding of the RSPB. She took on the trend for 'murderous millinery' and made it her life's work - and good on her! Hace tiempo que no ME COMÍA un libro. Lo empecé en un finde relajado y de repente... se acabó el finde. Es una gozada de principio a fin, exceptuando quizá las partes donde se faenan a los animales, aunque al menos están en el campo y literalmente se los comen y viven de ello. Had me gripped from the start... The author's skill is to drop a hint as to who did the deed, but then retain our interest through deft portrait-painting of the different characters in the story (narrators and otherwise), presenting us with motivations and suspicions that conflict with our provisional view' Both crusades were eventually eclipsed -- and yet at the same time bolstered -- by the First World War. During the war years, women stepped into men's roles and proved themselves entirely capable, while importing feathers was banned and domestic bird populations flourished in the absence of hunters. In 1921, after the war ended, the feather ban finally became permanent law. Some women gained the right to vote in 1918, and the vote was extended to all women age 21 and older in 1928.Stewart's publisher, Sort of Books, announced plans to release yet another Stewart memoir in 2009, this one focused on sailing, entitled Three Ways to Capsize a Boat: An Optimist Afloat. But I was pleasantly surprised by the book; indeed, by the end I was thoroughly charmed. Stewart does not idealize the inhabitants Andalucia; for him, they are individuals, not bearers of ancient tradition. He enjoys farming and herding, but he knows it can be rough, tedious, and thankless work. Certainly he plays the role of the inept foreigner—this is inevitable if you’re moving someplace new—but he does not dwell on this overmuch. For somebody who began writing fairly late in life, he is a tasteful and skillful author. He is capable of rich prose, he has a good ear for dialogue, and best of all he does not stretch any subject beyond interest. However, it’s very hard to know whose voice you are hearing through the various years and I find some are baffling. This is particularly true when one of the characters talks to a doctor on the phone and you only get one side of a very strange conversation. The book doesn’t really have any structure as such, meandering through the nineteen years and you have to piece a lot together yourself which is fine but it takes a bit of sifting through and figuring out. The short length means that apart from Da-on and to a lesser extent Han Manu you don’t really get to grips with the other characters. What I especially liked about the book was the well-rounded and holistic picture it paints for us—we see the perspectives of the young girls who worked with feathers and for whom they were a symbol of respectability, to the suffragettes like Mrs Pankhust to whom too, these were a symbol of their femininity which was the basis on which they sought the vote; we peep into glamourous boutiques, and also into a hunt for egrets—the hunter thrilled with the money he makes from one trip (as indeed did the traders who interests weighed with politicians for a long enough time to see the plumage bill shelved many times for over a decade); and of course those, like Mrs Lemon who felt for the birds and could not bear to see them adorning the hats of the fashionable ladies of the day, to even Winifred Portland who had to tread a middle way for while she was a passionate animal lover, a vegetarian and hated blood sport, her husband hunted with equal passion, and she had to balance her role in the RSPB with her role as society hostess.