Hello,

Happy Friday to you.

How’s your week been?

We’ve had a fun half term. Although as home educators, school holidays don’t feel massively different to term-time, it was cool exploring all the activities on around here for half-term, and getting to meet up with some of Iris’ friends who are at school usually too.

Find out more about what we’ve been up to below.

My partner took Iris to Amberley Museum for the day so that I could work. It was so good to get a solid batch of work done; I managed to secure lots of great features for our Creativity special, which comes out next month. It's issue 124!

Here’s What We’ve Been Up to:

Reading the Women’s Non Fiction Prize Winners

There were 16 titles longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2025. So far, I’ve read four of them. I read Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton, earlier in the year and loved it so much. Read my review here. This week I read Agent Zo: The Untold Story of Fearless WW2 Resistance Fighter Elżbieta Zawacka by Clare Mulley. This is a phenomenal book – I was transported to 1940s Poland where the majority of the book is set, and got so bound up in Elżbieta (or Zo’s) story. This is not a book that I would have chosen, but I loved it. I thoroughly recommend it for a gripping, page-turner of a book about the resilience and power of women. I learnt so much about Poland and the Polish resistance movement from reading this. Since finishing it I've dreamed of visiting Poland to explore the country Elżbieta loved so dearly, and discovering the places in the story.

I finished Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller in 24 hours. It’s a brilliant book about David Starr Jordan (19th-century taxonomist and fish specialist) and Lulu’s experience of loss and discovery of love in an unexpected place. This is a book that I might well have chosen from the library - I do love a good scientific biography. I love the way it’s written, the humour and fact-packed, yet light style. I learnt some shocking things about eugenics that I'm still getting my head around. I finished it feeling lit up and intrigued.

Sister in Law: Fighting for Justice in a System Designed by Men by Harriet Wistrich was another book that gave me pause for thought this week. Despite the potentially dry subject matter, this book is properly riveting. Told through a series of cases that Harriet took on in the last 30 years, this is a call to arms about the injustice of the judicial system for women. Harriet is a founder of the Centre for Women’s Justice, which is working towards ending all male violence against women and girls. Again, this is probably not something that I would have read, but it’s awesome and I really recommend it!