Roald Dahl – Billy and the Minpins [REVIEW]

October 17, 2025
Authors A-E (By Surname)Fiction

Title: Billy and the Minpins

Author: Roald Dahl

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 104

Rating: 4/5

This is the last of Dahl’s short stories and one which was first published at the end of his life, and so reading it is a bittersweet experience, even with the stunning illustrations by his long-term collaborator, Quentin Blake.

Little Billy tells his mom that he’s going to be good, but then he goes off on an adventure, gets chased by an ‘orrible beastie and ends up climbing a tree and discovering a race of small people living there. Cool!

Learn more about Billy and the Minpins.

Albert Camus – The Rebel [REVIEW]

October 17, 2025
Authors A-E (By Surname)Non-Fiction

Title: The Rebel

Author: Albert Camus

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 320

Rating: 3.5/5

I’ve read a fair few of Camus’ books by this point, and I’d have to say that this one was probably the hardest for me to wrap my head around, though that’s not necessarily a criticism. It’s just that some of the concepts here were pretty tricky, and so I’d have to say that I probably only appreciated about 40-60% of what Camus had to offer here.

Still, there were some sections of it that I loved, and a few little distinctions between the different types of rebellion that I’ll be thinking about for a long time to come. For example, I loved Camus’ take on the difference between rebellion and revolution, which I’ll try to summarise here.

Basically, Camus thought that when someone rebels, they’re saying no to oppression while saying yes to other things. Rebellion has limits and is all about solidarity. For example, when slaves rebel, they do so because they believe in individual freedoms and liberty. Revolution often starts with rebellion but goes on to betray the original spirit behind the rebellion, such as if slaves rebel and seize power, then end up taking on slaves of their own.

Camus also argues that many revolutions essentially aim to kill God, such as we saw during the French revolution that aimed to kill the idea that the monarchy were divine rulers—or, at the very least, that they were divinely appointed.

This key distinction is super important, because it shows us why Camus called his book The Rebel and not The Revolutionary—or in his native French, L’Homme Révolté (“The Rebellious Man) and not L’Homme Révolutionnaire.

I could write a lot more here, but I’m limited by my rule of keeping my reviews to the same number of words as the book has pages. That’s a shame.

Learn more about The Rebel.