Author: rrn69

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Lessons from the time loop saga

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In the fourth instalment of Balle’s expansive, Danish writer Solvej Balle’s speculative fiction septology, we pick up with Tara Selter, former antiquarian book dealer, who has been repeating the 18th of November for 1,892 days, over five years, According to her calculations, she is now about 35 years old and teems with new faces, new people and voices from every corner of the western world. She is no longer alone in her repetitions. In Book III, Tara met other people also trapped in the same repeating day, first sociologist Henry Dale, whom she encountered at a University lecture on Roman supply … Continue reading Lessons from the time loop saga

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Dispossessed, displaced, politically homeless and economically excluded immigrant

rrn69

Ever wondered what is it like to be an immigrant- without a home in a world where people with home make the rules? Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-fiction from the internationally acclaimed Turkish Ece Tmelkuran author of How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Fascism: A personal exploration of exile and a galvanizing new vision of home. Dear stranger. Are you home? Do you feel home? For how much longer? Across the world the number of refugees and exiles, the dispossessed and displaced, the politically homeless and the economically excluded is growing. In the … Continue reading Dispossessed, displaced, politically homeless and economically excluded immigrant

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Kimi Antonelli (19) wins Japanese Grand Prix

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Italian, Kim Antonelli (19) won his second F1 in succession and the lead of the world championship after being helped ot victory in the Japanese F1 Grand Prix by a safety-car Period, after Oliver Bearman’s Hass crashed heavily. Antonelli has not yet made a pit stop while his rivals for victory McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Mercedes team-mate George Russell had, and the crash gave Antonelli a pit stop that cost him less time than the others and ensured he could retain the lead. Russell finished fourth behind Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli the youngest driver in history to head … Continue reading Kimi Antonelli (19) wins Japanese Grand Prix

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 Insight into India’s economic prosperity and dramatic growth

rrn69

Arvind Subramanian, a former chief economic adviser to the Indian government, and Devesh Kapur, a professor at John Hopkins University, provides a definitive guide to India’s 75-year development odyssey and dramatic growth. Democracy took root upon its independence in 1947, before significant development, social change and nation-building efforts. India’s development path skewed towards high-skilled service jobs, while a majority remain in fragile informal work. The authors compare relatively successful states such as Kerala with those that have struggled, including West Bengal and Punjab.  They reveal diagnosis of a country that has achieved impressive growth while struggling to translate it into broad-based … Continue reading  Insight into India’s economic prosperity and dramatic growth

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The Chemistry that made the iconic movies with an empire of their own

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The Last Kings of Hollywood is the untold, intimate story of how three young visionaries – Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg – revolutionised American cinema, creating the most iconic films in history while risking everything, redefining friendship, and shaping Hollywood as we know it.  In the summer of 1967, as the old Hollywood studio system was dying an intense, uncompromising young film school graduate named George Lucas walked onto the Warner Bros backlot for his first day working as an assistant to another up-and-coming, largely-unknown filmmaker, a boisterous father of two called Francis Ford Coppola. At the … Continue reading The Chemistry that made the iconic movies with an empire of their own

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Subversion of old Africa by the ways of the outside world

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Nobel Prize-winning author, Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul’s The Masque of Africa is all about African belief, begins in Uganda, at the centre of the continent, do Ghana and Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and Gabon, and end at the bottom of the continent, in South Africa. My theme is belief, not political or economical life, and yet at the bottom of the continent the political realities are so overwhelming that they have to be taken into account. “Perhaps an unspoken aspect of my inquiry was the possibility of the subversion of old Africa by the ways of the outside world. The theme … Continue reading Subversion of old Africa by the ways of the outside world

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Terry falls for “Pixie Pamela”

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Pamela Pixie Colman Smith is young woman of stark contradictions:  plucky yet naïve, artistically gifted despite lacking classical training, fascinated by the esoteric but skeptical of the world around me. After the deaths fo her beloved mother and her troubled but well-intentioned father, Pixie finds herself in the complex, political world of fin-de-siécle art, trying to get her stunning work seen and to forge a name and a path for herself in life. Across Jamaica, Devon, London and Brooklyn, Pixie is a novel of epic proportions, a tale of the twists and turns, séances and secrets, successes and devastation, of one … Continue reading Terry falls for “Pixie Pamela”

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Economic downturns testing

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Tyler Beck Goodspeed, a top economist, analyses economic contradictions over the last four centuries, explains why recessions start, how long they last, and how to avoid them in the first place. Do recessions end on their own, or do they require external intervention? Does a recession in one country mean the rest of the world will follow?  Are we in recession now? Contrary to popular perception, recessions are not the inevitable bust that follows an unsustainable boom, and they do not operate like wildfires that clear out economic deadwood. Recessions are caused by adverse shocks like war and energy price … Continue reading Economic downturns testing

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Hunting the Hunted

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A Rebel and a Traitor is the story of a rogue consul, Sir Roger Casement, a decorated diplomat who turned his back on the British empire and instead joined the rising Irish cause and sought to forge a new nation in the middle of a war- and the mercurial spy chief who sought to destroy him by any means. The manhunt for Casement led by intelligence officer Reginald Blinker Hall, the legendary British spy chief who pioneered codebreaking early mass surveillance and media manipulation. As he did for the critically acclaimed Killing Thatcher, master storyteller Rory Carroll has scanned diaries, … Continue reading Hunting the Hunted

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Five repressed women humiliated by men, discover new paths

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Women Without Men, by Shahrnush Parsipur, now 80, we follow the lives of five women against the background of revolution and coups as they find their way to a garden, drawing on recent Iranian history and transcendent elements of Islamic mysticism, Parsipur’s unforgettable novel sees women escaping strict confines of family and society. Five repressed women abandoned or humiliated by men, discover new, sometimes surreal paths for themselves. As societal expectations and the fear of spinsterhood weigh on, Iran tried and failed to silence Women Without Men ( Zanan bedun-e Mardan in Persian) exposed the brutality of Iranian regime and … Continue reading Five repressed women humiliated by men, discover new paths