A very different kind of book to my normal choice. But I absolutely love Lionel Shriver and these essays are challenging and will leave you contemplating some of her thoughts that are not always popular.

These days it's dangerous for a writer to be too outspoken. One wrong word and it could be the kiss of death, instant cancellation, career suicide. But Lionel Shriver doesn't seem to have got the memo. This entertaining collection of the We Need to Talk About Kevin author's output as a journalist and non-fiction writer, showcases her at her provocative best.

Acerbic, outrageous, thought-provoking, brilliant and always controversial - this is vintage Shriver.

It has been a long time since I read ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin”, but I remember really liking the book and so I took the opportunity to read this collection of essays by Lionel Shriver. I didn’t know whether I would agree or disagree with her “under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous” points of view, but I didn’t mind either way, if they were thought-provoking.

Let me start by saying that this isn’t a badly written book, however, the essays lacked so much for me. I didn’t realise that some of the essays were up to 20 years old (maybe they haven’t aged well). I felt that the same points were laboured again and again and, despite reading 25% of the book, it just didn’t catch my interest and so I had to DNF.

Clearly, from looking at Goodreads, this book was not for me because it has so many positive reviews.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Shrivel is unquestionably interesting and it is refreshing to read an essay by a clever woman on the political right (given we are subjected to such a left-leaning instinctive bias in publishing normally) - but there are times when her argument doesn’t quite add up the way she so clearly wants it to. I wish she were more neutral.

DNF
I completely appreciate the message that Lionel Shriver is trying to get across and she doesn't hold back on many different contentious subjects of the day.
However, I found it hard work and not the escapism I look for in a book. For that reason I decided to call it quits around a quarter of the way through.

This is one of those books that, unfortunately, the people who need to read it are not the people that will actually read it. Some brave views in today's climate, that probably a lot of people will agree with, but will not be prepared to stick their head above the parapet and say them out loud or in print.
This is a collection that is not an easy read, and I read it in small doses, but I think that it is very important that a lot of these things were said. I do like the idea that there are still people out there who understand that debate is necessary.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5011385008
Lionel Shriver is one of my favourite novelists, but I have read very few of her articles, probably because I don't live in the UK where most of them are published. I had, of course been aware of her controversial comments on the ''Other voices' debate, and while I don't agree with all her opinions on this or other issues, I do agree with many of her arguments (especially more generally on the absurdities of being overly 'politically correct' and 'woke' and cisgendered!!) And on the 'other voices' issue as a novelist, oh how true it is: if writers can't write in the voice of anyone other than their own 'identity' then we are set to lose a lot of great writers and ideas. The best writers do not want to stick to a world where everyone is just like them. But whether one agrees or not with Shriver's opinions an arguments, her provocative, intelligent, amusing (laugh out loud in places), sarcastic and quite superb writing is a total pleasure to read. This is not a book to read to lull one to sleep; read it in bed and expect to turn the light out at 3am if you're strong enough to resist reading until daybreak! Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and indeed to Lionel Shriver for the ARC. She is a brave woman and good on the publisher for supporting this book.

We Need To Talk About… Free Speech. Abominations is a collection of 35 essays by author/journalist Lionel Shriver, who is best known for 2003’s Orange Prize-winning We Need To Talk About Kevin, and next best known for winding up progressives at book festivals. She’s also been a regular columnist for The Spectator and has published works of literary fiction on a wide range of topics. I had only read WNTTAK, but was intrigued enough to ignore the deliberately provocative cover image, and found myself admiring her willingness to court controversy by tackling all sorts of inflammatory topics.

An American who moved to the UK in her twenties, first living in Belfast during The Troubles, then relocating to London, where she still lives, Shriver begins by explaining that this represents only a fraction of the non-fiction that has accumulated on her hard drive over the years. The articles have all been previously published, or delivered as an address to some writers’ event, in places as diverse as The Guardian, The New York Times, and Harper’s Magazine. She covers an array of controversial topics, such as immigration, euthanasia, gender politics, and taxation. In the UK she is considered Right-wing: “Still, I don’t apologize for these positions, especially as the preponderance of my literary colleagues lean far to the political left, and the world of letters could sorely use counterbalance.” but observes that in the US her views would be considered Left of Centre.

The pieces are not presented chronologically, but do include autobiographical elements, so we learn about her conservative upbringing in a religious Southern family, the medical issues that have afflicted friends and relatives, and the way aspects of her life have inspired various of her novels - a number of which have now climbed onto my groaning TBR. I was actually surprised by how often I agreed with her, but you don’t have to like her political views to admire her writing and ability to frame an argument. “In fact, the abundance of my natural political bedfellows don’t call themselves libertarian—though “socially liberal economic conservative” is a mouthful. We aren’t bigots, and we’re not evangelical. We are live-and-let-live about sexuality, accept human influence on climate change, and believe in evolution. But we’re also concerned about the national debt, oppressed by an arcane, punitive tax code, and unenthusiastic about widespread dependency on the state.”

The most powerful chapters for me were the one where she describes her brother’s ultimately fatal morbid obesity, and the opening address to the Brisbane Writer’s Festival on the subject of identity politics in fiction that had one young wokester walk out and run to the papers: she argues persuasively that “privileged” white middle class authors cannot create characters of other ethnicities or genders, for fear of being accused of cultural appropriation, but are then demonised for the lack of diversity in their work if they don’t. “Sorry to go all American on you, but our Constitution’s First Amendment protecting freedom of expression doesn’t come with an asterisk: “* Unless you’ve hitherto had it too good.”

The level of snark in her writing is wonderful, if you’re that way inclined. Writing about being castigated by the Fat Rights Movement for creating a character struggling with obesity in her book Big Brother, she observes: “I found this an artistic, political, and even commercial disappointment—because in the United States and the United Kingdom, if only skinny-minnies will buy your book, you’ve evaporated the pool of prospective consumers to a puddle.” The most common theme linking all of these is - you guessed it - freedom of speech. She is clearly thick-skinned enough (and, let’s face it, famous enough) to weather the storms her articles provoke, but is hyper-aware that other less mischievous authors may be deciding that it’s all too hard: “Yet in an era of weaponized sensitivity, participation in public discourse is growing so perilous—so fraught with the danger of being caught out for using the wrong word or failing to toe the line of the latest dogma in relation to disability, sexual orientation, economic class, race, or ethnicity—that many of us are apt to bow out.” and “I have an obstreperous streak a mile wide. I hate being bullied, especially at the keyboard. If even writers like me are starting to wonder if including other ethnicities and races in our fiction is worth the potential blowback, then fiction is in trouble.” being great examples.

It’s a long time since I’ve both highlighted so many quotes, or had to look up so many words. I don’t mind this with an ebook - the wonder of Kindle for iPad means I can instantly learn the meaning of words like picayune & polemical, what an em dash is (= — ) or the meaning of predicate nominative… Don’t think that this makes the book hard work - it really isn’t, and the format makes it easy to dip in and out of as none of the articles are too long. At times the complaints about, for example, making too much money from her one big commercial success, will have you rolling your eyes - first world problems indeed, but she is quick to comment that she isn’t looking for sympathy. Oh and I am 100% with her on the recent fashion for leaving out quote marks for dialogue in fiction - it’s arrogant, annoying and horrible to read. 4.5 rounded up for brilliant honesty. Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for the ARC. I am posting this honest review voluntarily. Abominations is published on September 15th.

Abominations by Lionel Shriver is a collection of opinionated provocative essays on a wide variety of topics.

I suspect readers of Lionel Shriver’s collection of essays, Abominations, will have polarised views. Stating that Shriver is highly opinionated is akin to saying that the Pope is mildly religious. She follows in the tradition of the eighteenth-century essayists and cartoonists, espousing a strong view to provoke a reaction, whether that is “The woman’s absolutely right, make her Prime Minister” or “I cannot believe anyone could ever think like that! Burn the witch!” However, whether one agrees with her views or not, most people would agree that Shriver is erudite and writes coherently argued essays. (I’ve never read any of her fiction, so I can’t comment on that.) This book contains pieces that she states “brought hell and damnation down on my head”. So, the most controversial essays by a highly controversial writer? Hurray, this isn’t soporific bedtime reading, then!

I’m delighted when I see Lionel Shriver’s name under an article in a magazine or newspaper. I know that I need to engage fully in order to appreciate her argument. As Shriver writes in the essay, “Liberals now Defy the Etymology of the Word”, she has been attacked by people who either haven’t actually read what she’s written (at all) or those who have simply picked out a few words and implied a view that is the opposite of what she has actually stated.

I think Shriver upsets many self-important people by exposing the logical but ridiculous consequences of their ill-thought posturing. For example, the theory of “cultural appropriation” states that a white person shouldn’t write a novel using a non-white person as a narrator because they cannot possibly understand the latter’s perception of the world. However, it follows that a young person shouldn’t write in the voice of an older person; an American shouldn’t write a book with a British narrator; and a Londoner shouldn’t write a book set in Birmingham. The final consequence is that people should only write auto-biographies. Also, why won’t a rule that applies to writers start to be applied to readers? That means that I should only read books written by stale pale male authors, who write for people like themselves. All the rich diversity and colour fades from my reading material. I cannot be shown – and thus come to appreciate - alternative points of view and so I descend into an echo chamber where I only read and hear views that echo my existing Weltanschauung. Is that a good direction for the world to take?

Shriver is a vehement defender of free speech. I don’t agree with everything she writes, but I do believe she’s right about that. While I’m still allowed to cite a nineteenth-century female historian (Evelyn Beatrice Hall) who freely translated an eighteenth-century French philosopher (Voltaire), I may disagree with Shriver, but I defend her right to say it. Dictators ban books with which they disagree. Isn’t it better to permit those books to be published but also allow better writers, like Shriver, to demolish dubious arguments?

Shriver? Not for bed-wetting snowflakes!

I understand that to comply with US law, I have to state that I received a free Advance Reader's Copy of the book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an unbiased review. Thank you, HarperCollins.

#Abominations #NetGalley

Shriver is one of those authors that is interesting to read and discuss with others. Much of her writing is topical and unashamedly abrupt; she makes a point of voicing her opinion regardless of whether she's the only one in the crowd who will do so. For this, she is an individual to be admired as an excellent example of a contemporary writer.

However, this is a strange essay collection. Primarily, it feels this way because it’s difficult to see why these are the essays chosen. Shriver is a prolific writer, having been featured in numerous papers for her non-fiction work and is well-regarded for her fiction. Yet, the essays featured in this book do not feel like a true reflection of her work. They lack charm and nuance. Potentially the time-sensitive nature of her articles means they were more impactful at the time of their creation or publication, meaning they lose their edge when read twenty years later.

They may represent her as a person but these are not the compelling, captivating works that one expects from such a collection, especially the first collection of this author's work.

4.5★s
Abominations is a collection of thirty-five essays about a wide range of topics by prize-winning best-selling American author, Lionel Shriver. She applies her insight, her talent for argument and her succinct prose to subjects like her teenage diary, a dying friend, cancel culture, writers blocked, the fashionable argot and privilege, semantics in arguments about gender, the laziness of buzzwords, patriotism, nationalism and loyalty to one’s birth or adopted country, Brexit, immigration, and paying tax.

She offers a sermon rejecting religious faith, a letter to her younger self about what makes one happy, a tribute to her older brother, and she outlines the inspiration for her novel, Big Brother. She describes being an American ex-pat in Belfast, and film festival humiliation at Cannes.

She comments on playing tennis: “It’s fabulous to be able to thwack anything that hard, over and over, and not get arrested”; on fitness junkies, libertarians and the 2016 US election, Ikea’s real genius (“sooner or later, it falls apart”), an oppressively gendered world, the drive to politically decontaminate public memorials, and what happiness is (not a position, a trajectory).

On cycling in London: “I’ve biked dozens of American states and all over Western Europe, and nowhere have I encountered a cycling culture so cutthroat, vicious, reckless, hostile, and violently competitive as London’s”. On diversity quotas: “unfair, antimeritocratic, and culturally destructive”.

She gives the reader a very tongue-in-cheek list of her activities during pandemic lockdown, an opinion on the cost of health care in an ageing population, and an account of friendship, ongoing, fractured and mended. She muses on end of life and where one might draw the line with acceptable debility.

She bemoans the deteriorating standards of prose and speech, explaining her tendency to mark up casual conversation with a red pencil, and theorises on civil unrest during lockdown, BLM zealotry and the economy.

Her controversial essay on fiction and identity politics, on authenticity, is particularly well thought-out with many valid points. And her essay on quoteless dialogue in literature will resonate with most readers and many in the publishing trade: “I’ve yet to hear any reader despair, ‘This would have been a great book, if it weren’t for all those pesky quotation marks!’”

Her thought-provoking opinions pull no punches, and while many will disagree with what she says, this is a worthwhile read, even if some of the topics are of little interest to some, thus tempting skimming. Diverse, provocative, interesting.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Collins UK.

I’ve enjoyed the novels I’ve read by Lionel Shriver and was interested to read this collection of nonfiction pieces written over the last twenty years or so, even knowing I probably wouldn’t agree with her on everything. It was an entertaining and thought provoking read, she obviously writes well, some of it is funny, some parts made me roll my eyes and I was even bored by one (I’m really not into tennis). The best pieces for me were about her family and the articles about death and dying.

I frankly could not pull through this collection of essays. I found the author strongly opinionated which is a not wrong thing but I could not align my opinions with her and at the end I stopped reading. I hope the book finds its apt readers.

I am grateful to NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Lionel Shriver is best known as a novelist but probably less well known as a short-form writer for magazines and other outlets.

This is a collection or her writings mostly from the last decade with a couple of earlier pieces. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. In broad terms the articles reflect her views on major cultural and political issues, on both sides of the Atlantic. As well as smaller day to day issues that affect us all. She is a long-term UK resident, born in the USA and still spending time there each year. In addition to these topics, the articles are also about her life as a fiction writer, providing insight into her books, plots, characters and the business of being a writer of novels.

The articles are thoughtful, presented with clarity and honesty. Her views are perhaps not those we hear from many authors and writers who often come across as either above politics or have personal views which frequently embrace a left of centre view regarding the political & cultural issues of the day. Woke is the word that clearly, concisely and unambiguously captures this mindset. Lionel Shriver is not Woke.

She is courageous to hold and express possibly ‘unpopular’ views considering her potential customers, the book-buying public, covers the whole cultural & political spectrum. Nevertheless she presents her views in a coherent and compelling manner, often supported with facts, evidence and anecdotes. One gets to know the author as a person better from these articles. Better than the person we imagine or assume her to be from her novels.

The articles also allow us to understand how certain of her books have evolved from her ‘lived-experience’; an expression she probably would never use. I suspect she would simply refer to her ‘life’. She lived in Northern Ireland. She had a larger-than-life big brother. She had parents who suffered physical and mental decline in their last years. Whilst not direct topics of her books, one comes to understand how people and events have influenced her plots, characters and books.

Her articles, which also include letters and speeches, are sometime serious although often humorous; they provide compelling arguments for her particular point of view. They are honest. Shriver readily admits she may be wrong or misguided at times
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Some of these articles, although commissioned by various outlets, were not accepted for publication or have been severely edited. Shriver provides in this book the original articles, sometimes with minor editing or commentary, such as updating statistics.

Not all articles are serious or on contentious topics. As well as gender and cultural politics and mainstream politics, we also hear Shriver’s views on playing tennis, cycling, fitness, friendship, happiness, punctuation and grammar. One can’t help but agree with many of the points she is making. Many anecdotes are laugh-out-loud funny.

I think this book will be a delight for anyone who is curious about the woman who has written so many wonderful novels. Also for anyone who may be skeptical of (apparently) popular views on many issues of the day including gender politics, culture wars, covid, race, diversity, free speech, censorship, taxation, immigration, cancel-culture and health care to name a few. More than a few ! As well as a great novelist, Shriver is a well-grounded individual, facing and questioning day to day events and issues. Honest and compelling in her views. She is brave and courageous in compiling her articles for this collection, which some people may automatically dislike and dismiss. Those not willing to hear or consider other points of views will be missing the stimulus of well presented ideas, the richness that comes from diversity of thought and the compelling views which Shriver brings to many topics.

I wish the author and publishers all the very best with this superb collection.

This is not a book you race through because some of these essays take some pondering.

Lionel Shriver seems to have turned into divisive character herself in the past few years and I've even seen comments on book club sites that say they would never read her because of her opinions. She certainly has an opinion on lots of issues. Most of which I wholeheartedly agree with. I too wonder where we go with cancel culture, the need to label "genders", old age/medical advancements amongst other subjects she covers.

What some of these essays do is to give Ms Shriver the right to publish exactly what she wrote for an article rather than what was published by the magazine/newspaper requesting it. They also give her a right to reply to some of the accusations of racism/sexism/and any other isms she's expressed a view on, that have been levelled at her over the years.

There are some lighter moments and her description of what she and her husband did during lockdown is laugh out loud funny.

Whatever you think of Lionel Shriver she is a formidable talent. I love her work and certainly wouldn't stop reading her for any of the opinions she's voiced thus far. This collection of essays is interesting, divisive, funny and thought-provoking. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy.

Well, this is...stimulating! Abominations is a collection of some of Lionel Shriver’s essays and articles: they are well written, intelligent and thoughtful, and they contain opinions which are a mixture of the subtle, the bombastic, the deliberately provocative and sometimes the just plain wrong.

Many of these pieces challenge my existing views. Although she describes herself as an iconoclast (put more crudely, she’s often a controversialist), Shriver is certainly no Katie Hopkins. I don’t agree with Shriver on a lot of things, but she has the intelligence and the nuanced approach to make me really think about what she’s saying and about what I believe. There is often more than a kernel of truth in what she says – about how someone saying that they “feel” hurt or bullied is often enough to kill any argument, or that no-one has the right not to be offended, for example. In my view she often takes these arguments too far, but she does so in straightforward, readable, often witty prose and with great clarity, so that when I disagree with something I know exactly what I disagree with and have to think carefully about why.

Shriver mainly avoids lazy or disingenuous arguments – but not quite always. She does sometimes employ the controversialist’s trick of representing wacky extremism as mainstream thought, for example, but she also makes some telling points about what some current trends may really mean for literature, free thinking and society in general. She is also, in my view, just wrong at times. For example, she says “Elaborate avoidance of words whose etymology has nothing to do with race, like “blackball” or “blacklist” serve [sic] no purpose beyond preening.” The point though, is not the etymology of the word, but the connotations it has acquired; that words like blackbird, which are simply descriptors of physical colour, may be harmless, but the panoply of words and phrases which use “black” as an indicator of wickedness, danger or similar most certainly are not, no matter what their origin. On the other hand, she has a point when she says that morally superior, blaming attitudes to language may eventually, and counterproductively, annoy people so much that it contributes to the rise of people like Trump. Like I said, it’s nuanced and thought-provoking, whether or not you agree with her.

I had to take these articles in fairly small doses, but I enjoyed reading them because they made me think, and also because I am glad to know what Shriver actually said, rather than hearing just the moral outrage she often provoked. I can recommend Abominations – but only if you don’t mind having your opinions challenged.

(My thanks to HarperCollins for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Thanks for the ARC. However, I found this dull, the style quite turgid, and the subject matter not that interesting. I really like Shriver’s fiction but these essays didn’t do much for me. So, I’m abandoning it. Sorry!

Best known for her acclaimed 2003 book, We Need To Talk About Kevin, American-born novelist, Lionel Shriver is also an accomplished essayist. This book brings together some of her best non-fiction pieces from the last twenty-five years.
Shriver is a compelling writer but also a provocative and a controversial one. She has many opinions on a range of different issues on everything from, the advantages of playing tennis and owning your own furniture to the pros and cons of Brexit, the concept of cultural appropriation and cancel culture. I certainly do not agree with her about many or indeed most things, but nevertheless found this compelling and thought-provoking throughout.
Shriver certainly has an insightful mind and a real knack for tackling the issues we need to talk about.