Others: Writers on the power of words to help us see beyond ourselves by Charles Fernyhough

Others: Writers on the power of words to help us see beyond ourselves Reviews

• 
  Damian

  I am giving these stars to Charles Ferynhough for imagining this powerful and vital project and for making it happen and to all my fellow contributors who have written stories and essays that are beautiful, troubling and often more revealing than they know.
• 
  Jo

  Others is an insightful, inspiring and thought provoking collection of short stories, poems and real life accounts. The central theme is that of 'other'.  Those we perceive to be different to us and how this difference can shed insight on our own prejudices and truths. We read about the 'other' who doesn't conform to our rules, our culture, and as a result we learn  how we perceive ourselves to be different. We also learn how reading can shed insight into other, as we immerse ourselves in their point of view. 
  
  This is a book that is very much time sensitive. In our current refugee crisis and the rise of the far right, this book makes you question what it actually means to be other, while making us delve deep into our own belief systems and prejudices. 
  
  All of these stories have something important to say. They each have their own distinctive voice. But, one story in particular stood out for personal reasons  ‘We Are the Champions’ by Salena Godden  explores the relationship with the author's sister who has Williams Syndrome. I found this to be emotional, empowering and a wonderful and honest insight into how others perceive disability. It's beautifully written. 
  
  Others showcases the power of words and stories in uniting  us all. Fundamentally, what we learn is that we aren't that different after all, and that difference should be celebrated, not something to be feared. 
• 
  Cristie Underwood

  This was a great collection of writing about being "other". I love how there were so many contributors to this project, as the writing styles varied. I highly recommend this book!
• 
  Suzanne Conboy-Hill

  It's very easy to rate this book because it is five stars-worth of high quality, extraordinary writings brought together to celebrate otherness. It's much less easy to review because what do you choose?
  
  Edited by Charles Fernyhough and published by Unbound, this is a Patreon funded collection of stories, poems, and essays by invited authors giving insight into what it means to be on the outside. I was tempted to take photos of paragraphs or sentences that distilled a writer's experience, but that would have made an album, and anyway there's no facility for them here. Is it enough to say that, if you know nothing of autism, you might when you've read Salena Godden's We Are the Champions? If being a refugee is outside your experience - and thank goodness for most of us that's true - then try Choosing Sides by Alex Preston. And what about being black? Colin Grant's Sounds of Blackness describes how being black comes first on any list of attributes and starts to define those attributes for you before you have a chance to correct it.
  
  There are so many more and to do it justice I'd need to talk about all of them, and include quotes, and then say what the context was, and by that time you might as well buy the book. While all the authors are different and talk about different kinds of feeling or observing the othering process, each voice speaks with the same simple elegance and economy of language that is the mark of an expert communicator. And if it all seems a bit hifalutin and worthy, I'd say it isn't. It speaks plainly and while it's not worthy in an earnest ignore-the-quality-feel-the-sympathy kind of way, it is in that walk-alongside-me-listen-and-watch way that opens eyes and ears to different lives.
  
  There are actually 278 pages in the book and the stories end on page 256 which means Goodreads has you finished before you're finished :)
• 
  Rhett Griffiths

  'Others' is an extraordinary and eye-opening collection of stories, poems and essays, of all shapes and sizes, peppered with surprises and aha moments, that reveal as much about ourselves as they do about the myriad of characters we encounter. Reading 'Others' is like glimpsing yourself in a mirror as you walk by or catching yourself in a photo you haven't controlled, it's like seeing another person and yet you know it's you, and you don't always like what you see, and this reflection can change how we relate to others. The introduction skilfully maps the territory that these tales explore, points out that words can help us empathise, as we inhabit the lives of others, and reminds us that if we notice how 'other people' are different to us, we in turn could well be 'other people' to them, encouraging humility, kindness and understanding. Will Storr's excellent 'Original Sin' cuts to core of the issue, explaining the 'minimal group effect' and the often subconscious psychological tendency we all have to favour people within a group we are part of (where people share similar characteristics or beliefs), and to be irrationally prejudiced against those outside the group. His essay calls out our cognitive biases for making us think we are righter and more morally sound than others, confronts this human behaviour as universal and invites us to be better than this. In 'Things Unspoken' Sara Novic puts us in the point of view of a deaf boy, whose parents have lazily declined to learn sign language, letting lip-reading take the strain and isolating the child in the process. The joy of a new deaf sister, a companion in his world, puncturing the loneliness, is threatened when his parents decide to get her a cochlear implant and desperate action is required. These are just two examples of the varied, nuanced and thought-provoking selection in this brilliant and timely volume.
• 
  Noelia Alonso

  This collection has a bit of everything, from fiction to non-fiction to poetry. I won't be rating it as a whole because all of my ratings for each individual story, poem, what have you, are all over the place. In terms of enjoyment, the collection is quite balanced in the sense that I enjoyed some stories a lot but I also DNFed a couple and I couldn't care less about the poetry.
• 
  Lisa Bentley

  Much like the recent release Common People by Unbound, Others is a collection of essays, short stories, and poems of what it is like to be ‘other’.
  
  What I learned from reading this wonderful collection is that there are so many relatable ways to feel other and that by sharing these kind of stories is so important because it makes you feel less alone.
  
  Please support Unbound publishers because they really do release great books and support brilliant undiscovered writers.
  
  Others – Writers on the Power of Words to Help us See Beyond Ourselves by Charles Fernyhough is available now.
• 
  Cordelia Reads

  This is such an all-encompassing, fascinating, thought-provoking collection of pieces on otherness. It will inform and challenge even the most liberal and open-minded readers to question their values and the extent to which they really accept others.