The Lonely Londoners | 
pick#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #TrinidadAndTobago ??
Written in 1956, The Lonely Londoners is a contemporary account of the experience of the Windrush Generation, invited to the "Mother Country" to be despised, abused, feared and, for some, captivated by.
Yet again you can read how the, "Coming over here..." rhetoric continues to be deployed today to excuse low pay and to blame immigration, rather than fiscal and social policy, for problems.
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"One grim winter evening, when it had a kind of unrealness about London, with a fog sleeping restlessly over the city and the lights showing in the blur as if is not London at all but some strange place on another planet, Moses Aloetta hop on a number 46 bus at the corner of Chepstow Road and Westbourne Grove to go to Waterloo to meet a fellar who was coming from Trinidad on the boat-train."
#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
The last book from Book Depository .😔Came on Saturday.
This GR list is a great find for those of us doing the #192025 challenge hosted by @librarybelle
The tagged book is in my slot for 1956, came to my attention as part of the #bigjubileeread review on BBC's Between the covers show.
https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/2304-100-years-of-popular-books-on-goodreads...
panMeh. This was a 3* read that became a 2* read when I hit a stream of consciousness 2/3 of the way into the book that I was not invested enough to deal with. It is only 140 pages long but it was a slog. This was the first book from the Jubilee Reads selection and has put me off trying another one for a while.
pickOne of the big jubilee reads ; if I hadn‘t have been so busy I could have easily finished in a day or two ; it‘s a wonderful modern classic of the wind rush generation first coming to a cold bleak post war London with rationing still in place. Funny and poignant it‘s a great read
pickNext week's rdg grp is open water +this classic abt the experience of West Indian men who move to England, the apparent mother country, in search of work, shelter, love + a new life. However life is a scramble to survive despite hostility purely due to colour. The comedy of characters seems laced with contradiction + poignancy of individuals making the best of bad situations. Definitely worth reading + shd be a gd discussion with open water.
pickLess a story than an introduction to a world, that of the Black immigrant in 50s London. At the center is Moses, a Trinidadian who has been in the UK the longest. He befriends (and somewhat begrudgingly mentors) the newbies as they discover the reality of the hustle and racism of London for a Black man. They laugh but below is sadness and struggle. Published in 1956, this brilliant novel sparkles with life. A classic that deserves more attention!
The difference between racism in the US vs. UK. It's more "polite" in England.
Next up this short classic and my #bookspin pick for September.
@TheAromaofBooks
#integrateyourshelf @ChasingOm
For this prompt I thought I‘d have a think about the same time in the UK and rec a book to honour our Windrush Era (1948-70) and the Afro-Caribbean community in Britain who have been treated appallingly, then and now and all the times in between. The tagged book is a surprisingly funny but also heartrending novel about Caribbean men in London in the 60s. I loved it for exploring that era of civil rights in the UK
pickI can‘t believe I haven‘t read this before and it‘s not shouted from the rooftops as a british classic! Very short but beautifully written book about the lives of a handful of Caribbean men arrived in London in the 50s. It‘s rare to read a novel about a difficult time/situation that isn‘t lying about anything serious (poverty & racism mainly) but is also so funny and a joy to read. This one never felt difficult in any way. Recommend so much
Definitely a #blameitonLitsy or I wouldn‘t have known this book, which I‘ve promptly stacked. Caribbean immigrants flocking to London post WW2, in search of a prosperous future but instead encounter harsh living conditions and racism in this book which follows a few characters through their daily lives in the capital.
#WanderingJune #LondonCalling
The last time I mentioned this book was two years ago, also for a @Cinfhen photo challenge, in May 🙂
A brilliant book that touched me deeply. I read it when I took a summer course in college on British lit with a professor I respected a lot and didn't regret it; his reading list was 🔥 #ImmigrantSong #MayMovieMagic @rohit-sawant
#LondonCalling #Marchintothe70s
London was calling to Caribbean migrants in the 1950s. The reality was a little different to that they imagined.
I'm in need of your help #littens!
I'll be in Oxford and London next week.
Oxford will be a Tolkien full immersioni. All organised already. But l'll have an antire day in London and l don't know what to do.
Yes, of course l know how stupid this sounds, but the thing is l'd like to do something bookish. Any suggestion?
I've already visited Baker Street. Anything Dickens, for example?
Any bookshops l should visit?
Hi Littens! I‘ll be mostly absent from Litsy for the next two weeks because of our #Europe trip, but here are some highlights from our first day in #London 🇬🇧
We are staying at the Hotel Indigo in Earl‘s Court and each floor has a little free library (like the bottom right picture). It‘s such a cute idea for a hotel. The sign (not pictured) reads: “Borrow me, read me, and immerse yourself!”
#freelibrary #hotellibrary #jpvacation #JPEurope
A loan from a friend who read half then abandoned it.
Plus some Sleepy cream from Lush :) #bedtimeread
Some sights around London...Hey London Littens: anyone up for a Foyles meetup? We will be in the vicinity of Foyles Sunday, visiting the British Museum and National Gallery. Would anytime work Sunday for a meetup? We can also aim for Monday or Tuesday if one of those days is better.
Trying to catch up with a few challenges.
This is for #JuneBookBugs Maybe not really about #Refugees but certainly about immigrants
Haven't read it yet. Hope to come to it soon
Brilliant book. #LondonCalling #rockinmay @Cinfhen
My copy got lost (along with a whole box of books) during my move back here ... Long story. 😭 I really need to get a copy of this. I believe this is the cover for the 1956 US edition from St. Martin's Press.
This has been in my TBR list for a while now.
Anybody read it?
#RockInMay #ImmigrantSong
A classic - my library copy has a price sticker less than a quarter of a paperback price now!
Oof. This one is tough to read. British racism: insidious then, insidious now.
Written in 1956 and still so many disturbing parallels today :-(
Selvon's word-pictures vividly bring his characters to life, and the steam of consciousness section towards the end is a vernacular prose poem. (BTW, why are stream of ⬇️ (edited) 2y
Although set wholly in London, Selvon was from Trinidad and Tobago, and the Caribbean émigré culture he describes seems to fit the reading challenge criteria 😊
@BarbaraBB @Librarybelle (edited) 2y