V5R6: Olga Perovskaya
Readathon 2025 Week 6, also featuring Bee Rowlatt, Ria Chopra, Alexander Raskin & Kevin Dickinson
Dear Reader,
Welcome to another edition of our Readathon, delivered on Thursdays, straight to your inbox.
Choose your next read from an eclectic menu of 5 handpicked pieces of writing. Happy reading :)
Read #1 - ‘Dianka and Tomchik’
Treat your inner child (or an actual one) with this story from Olga Perovskaya’s Kids and Cubs dating back to the Soviet-era sixties.
We had the pleasure of reading this along with Nilanjana Roy at a Guided Reading Meditation at Kunzum last year.
Fun fact - Her first novel The Wildings (a must read) was inspired by multiple readings of Kids and Cubs in her childhood :)
Read #2 - ‘A Monument to Mary Wollstonecraft’
Bee Rowlatt writes:
“Mary Wollstonecraft was born in 1759 and died a mere 38 years later. In this short time and against unpleasant odds, she changed the world and the way we live in it. But how well is she known? Here’s what you may have heard: she was a ‘hyena in petticoats’, a ‘voluptuary’ and, yes, ‘Frankenstein’s grandmother’.
What’s less known is that she was a ground-breaking Enlightenment philosopher, educational pioneer and early champion of what we now call human rights. Her Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) was the first call in the English language for equality of the sexes, and is still considered a transformative manifesto. She was also an influential travel writer and the world’s first female war correspondent.
Why, then, is she not more famous?…”
Also watch:
PSA - Bee’s first novel One Woman Crime Wave is out now. Add it to your reading list.
Read #3 - The perils of classifying everything on the internet as ‘content’
A
essay.Follow her work decoding internet culture here.
Read #4 - ‘When Daddy was a Little Boy’
A childhood favourite, revived for kids of all ages.
Remember reading this one as a child?
Read #5 - ‘The value of owning more books than you can read’
One of our go-to pieces of writing to justify every additional book brought back to the bibliocave :)
That's all for this week. Till next Thursday, folks. If you enjoyed this edition, consider helping us spread the word :)
Cheers! - N&N
The reason that the BiblioTherapists are so good at what they do is that they are eclectic: I find that even when I fiercely dislike one writer they include in their lists, another five authors are wonderful. Of course, I will never change my opinion of the Unloved Ones!! But the newly discovered are often keepers of the best kind.