Eric Lawton reviewed Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran
Review of 'Moranifesto' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
I've read all but one of Caitlin Moran's books. This is the best. I bought it new in hardback as soon as I arrived in the UK on a recent trip, because it is not yet published in North America, though you can get it through Amazon marketplace or other routes.
It is a collection of her Times articles, plus some original material. I hadn't read any of them before as Times has a paywall and Moran's column is all I would read.
Her column started off being “humorous” but she later requested a move from the “women’s” section to op ed, but accepted the advice to stay where she was in order to have wider readership, but to mix her more “political” or “serious” views into the column.
As a result, we are treated to some of the best civil rights writing to come out of the UK recently. …
I've read all but one of Caitlin Moran's books. This is the best. I bought it new in hardback as soon as I arrived in the UK on a recent trip, because it is not yet published in North America, though you can get it through Amazon marketplace or other routes.
It is a collection of her Times articles, plus some original material. I hadn't read any of them before as Times has a paywall and Moran's column is all I would read.
Her column started off being “humorous” but she later requested a move from the “women’s” section to op ed, but accepted the advice to stay where she was in order to have wider readership, but to mix her more “political” or “serious” views into the column.
As a result, we are treated to some of the best civil rights writing to come out of the UK recently. She uses humour (mostly not sarcasm) to gently skewer many of the racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-working-class nonsense being uttered or practiced by the British Establishment today. By not resorting to angry polemic herself, her arguments are much more likely to either change minds among those not too attached to the haters’ rhetoric. It also contains some useful advice to those who still resort to the angry polemic. I agree with her; it doesn’t work and just makes you unhappy.
The book is fun to read, although personally I was a bit disappointed in the more trivial chapters in Part One, which did not meet the expectations I got from the introduction, but from Part Two (“The Feminisms”) on, I really enjoyed it all, and took some inspiration.
If you don’t follow British politics, you may miss some of the references. I didn’t get some of the references to TV shows but the politicians I do know, but on the other hand, if you know only one country, you will learn some of what is universal and also pick up some interesting quirks of the UK as well. Maybe knock off one star if this is you.
