📚 Finished reading Having Spent Life Seeking by Kae Tempest. My copy of the book came free with my ticket to see Tempest in conversation at The Roundhouse back in April. During the interview, he spoke movingly about “the incredible technology” of a novel, which allows you to put yourself in another person’s shoes, feel what they feel, and take that with you back into your everyday life. The best things I read are always those where I get a glimpse into someone else’s lived experience that I have little concept of. This novel, about someone dealing with the complexities of having being born female but not recognising themself in that way, gets better the further you get into the book. There is a scene where the protagonist ends up in a fight with their father which is so well-written that I could viscerally feel the tension and how it escalates from calmness to all-out war. It’s excellent.