Tuesday, 22nd September
A Short History of the Gaza Strip by Anne Irfan
From a leading scholar of Palestine-Israel, a brief, essential history of the besieged strip of land, revealing the long-term roots of Israel’s destruction of Gaza.
Since October 2023, Israel has carried out one of the most brutal military onslaughts in modern history on the Gaza Strip, in response to the Hamas-led attacks of October 7. But Gaza had long been in crisis even prior to the current violence, now widely recognized as genocidal. For seventy-seven years, the Palestinian people have endured displacement, occupation, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing―with those in Gaza often bearing the brunt of it.
With remarkable clarity and compassion, historian Anne Irfan tells the story of the Gaza Strip through six pivotal moments in its modern history, beginning with Israel’s expulsion of the Palestinian people upon its establishment in 1948, when Gaza absorbed more Palestinian refugees per head than anywhere else―a demographic shift that became central to its identity. As Irfan takes us through Israel’s occupations of Gaza, the Palestinian national struggle and formation of the PLO, the first intifada, the creation of the Palestinian Authority, and the rise of Hamas, she tackles widespread historical ignorance and untangles contradicting narratives. Drawing on a decade of research, Irfan weaves in the voices of everyday Palestinians, from farmers who became refugees in Gaza to poets and activists who grew up in the Strip. Featuring a foreword from Gazan writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada, A Short History of the Gaza Strip is an indispensable read for anyone seeking to understand Palestine and its impact on the world.
Thursday, 24th September
The House of Cromwell by Miranda Malins
THOMAS MADE ENGLAND. OLIVER MADE BRITAIN.
Within a century, the Cromwell family produced two of the most powerful, impactful and controversial commoners in British history. Thomas served the Tudors, helping to forge Henry VIII’s autocratic state and the Church of England; Oliver led a revolution that executed a king, abolished the monarchy and established a republic, before founding a ruling dynasty. Each rose from obscurity to the very centre of power. From a Putney brewhouse to the throne and back again, their rise was improbable, their fall dramatic. Both changed Britain forever.
In The House of Cromwell, Miranda Malins brings these two giants blazingly to life alongside the remarkable cast of family members who shaped them – the ambitious wives and mothers, the loyal siblings, the scheming allies and the forgotten children whose stories illuminate everything we thought we knew about Thomas and Oliver, and about early modern Britain itself.
Ranging across two centuries of history, from the Wars of the Roses to the Hanoverian succession, this is history at its most intimate and most sweeping – a book to captivate everyone who loved Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy and who wants to go further, deeper and wider into the world that made and unmade the Cromwells.
Family mattered above all else to the Cromwells. To understand them, we must understand that family. This is their story.
Sisters of the Midnight Sun by Fiona Valpy
Two women, decades apart, are torn apart by grief but brought together through hope.
Shetland, 2001: Ruby Reid is running from a decision she doesn’t want to make. Finding herself on a remote croft caring for a mysterious old woman she discovers that Hanna has her own reasons for hiding from the world. Slowly, Hanna reveals her story to Ruby…
Norway, 1940: Hanna Kristiansen’s world is overturned when Norway falls into the hands of Germany.
She’s determined to keep her twin sister, Liv, safe but as Hanna fights for her country, she must make unthinkable personal sacrifices. The war may take everything from her, but ensuring the freedom of her people demands it.
Decades later, Hanna is still haunted by the scars of war that mark her arm. The numbers that will forever signify where one life ended and another began.
But as the two women bond through their shared loss, they learn to find strength in fragility and discover a new hope in the most unlikely of places.
