Misogyny remains pervasive and deep-seated. It is not just going to disappear like morning dew because we are shining a light on it.
This is the bit where I introduce the book to you and you get to decide whether it’s a s**t idea to read it or not.
If you had set out in the summer of 1660 to travel the four miles from Boston to Cambridge, Massachusetts, the first house you would have come to after crossing the Charles River would have been the Gookins’.
In the year 1901, if a steamer with black coal-smoke pouring from its chimney were to sail south from Istanbul for four days until it passed the island of Rhodes, then continue south through dangerous, stormy waters . . .
It’s been three years, four months, two days and a handful of hours since the first moment I set eyes on her.
‘Is it a hanging?’ an eager newspaper delivery boy asked no one in particular.
If every man is guilty of all the good he did not do, as Voltaire suggested, then I have spent a lifetime convincing myself that I am innocent of all the bad.
I initially considered writing a book about resilience for personal reasons.
Number two highlight of my thirty-ninth birthday: an extremely fit policewoman calling me interesting in front of some very hard to impress neighbours.
‘I don’t need make-up,’ says Ron. He’s in a straight-backed chair because Ibrahim told him you mustn’t slouch on television.
‘Eighteen starlit nights with you.’ Joshua Bouvier’s big brown eyes were determined.
The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.