Tag: book-review

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Abyss built on class and race, exploitation of domestic workers

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A young girl has died and the family’s maid is being interrogated.  She must tell the whole story before arriving the girl’s death. Estela came from the countryside, leaving her mother behind, to work for the señor and señora when their only child was born. They wanted a housemaid:”smart appearance, full time”, their  ad said. She wanted to make enough money to suppor her mother and return home. For seven years, Estela cleaner their laundry, wipe their floors, made their meals, kept their secrets, Witnessed their fights and frictions, raised their daughter. She heard the rats scrabbling in the ceiling, saw the looks … Continue reading Abyss built on class and race, exploitation of domestic workers

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Cursed by guilt, enchanted by the allure of mysticism

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Pemi Aguda who grew up in Lagos, a graduate of the writer’s programme at the University of Michigan, details magic and mayhem in the Lagos metropolis riven by crime, corruption and poverty, influenced by supernatural influences. In Ghostroots, unexplained powers which are both benign and malign, although their motivations are good but their impact is devastating, and in some cases act as messengers of divine retribution. The result of an environmental disarray, a place in which power cut are routine, masculinity is malevolent and pentecostal ministers hold sway with parables of salvation, as these ghosts, spirit jesters, unaccountable pestilences and … Continue reading Cursed by guilt, enchanted by the allure of mysticism

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Father of gyno-psychiarty

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Butcher is the harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr Silas Weir, “Father of Gyno-Psychiatry” as he ascends from professional anonymity to national renown. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Weir is forced to take a position at the New Jersey Asylum for Female Lunatics, where he reigns. There, he is allowed to continue his practice, unchecked for decades, making a name for himself by focusing on women who have been neglected by the state – women he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself a … Continue reading Father of gyno-psychiarty

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Agony and ecstasy engulfed by desire

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Provoking offbeat sexual acts, challenges the binary of marriage and explores sexuality in perimenopause.  All Fours is tender, hilarious and sexy. A semi-famous artist announces her  pan to drive cross-country, from LA  to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey. Miranda July in All Fours, a 45-year-old “semi-famous” artist who remains unnamed locks eyes with the young man who’s squeegeeing her . Their intense but … Continue reading Agony and ecstasy engulfed by desire

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Spectacular Opal’s Gene operation begins a new era for deaf

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In another trial at Addenbrooke’s NHS hospital, (Cambridge), Opal Sandy (18months) from Oxfordshire,  a girl completely deaf, after she was diagnosed with auditory neuropathy caused by disruption of nerve impulses going from her inner ear to the brain,  can now hear after having world-leading gene therapy.   A working copy of the fault gene that caused it  was delivered by infusion through a tube into her right ear during surgery last September. Within three months, her mum Joy 33, realised Opal could hear clapping. “ I thought it was a fluke, or something caught her eye, but I repeated it … Continue reading Spectacular Opal’s Gene operation begins a new era for deaf

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Eluded emotions

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In Sociopath,  confessions of a wife, mother and cat-choker having dark urges of stealing for thrills, joyrides, and gate-crashing at strangers’ funerals  – all a fascinating first-hand account of antisocial personality disorder. After the pencil attack she decided to steer clear of violence- not because she felt bad but because it attracted too much attention. She resolved  to finding ways of dealing with her anxiety that would allow her to fly beneath the radar. Named as the most anticipated book of 2024 by Vulture, LitHub, The Guardian, and Cosmopolitan. A fascinating and revelatory memoir revealing the author’s struggle to come to terms with … Continue reading Eluded emotions

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Revival of old dreams: unfinished love story  with America

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Doris Kearns, one of America’s most beloved historians, a genuine public intellectual whose writings were inspected by fellow scholars but also weigh on public policy and popular culture. Her history of Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, Team of Rivals, won academic prizes, and even influenced Barack Obama, who cited it after including a former primary opponent ( Hillary Clinton) and a member of the outgoing Republican administration (Robert Gates) in his national security team.  In an Unfinished Love Story, she artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history and takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband Richard (Dick) Goodwin … Continue reading Revival of old dreams: unfinished love story  with America

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“Rage” inspiring tragedies

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Stephen King who earned the title of King of Horror after publishing novels like It, Pet Sematary, Carrie and The Shining, has asked for his latest book to go out of publication because of the controversy it generated. A high school student Charlie Decker, who after an incident that sent his chemistry teacher to the hospital and insulting the principal led to his expulsion, took a pistol from his locker and shot his Algebra teacher while holding his classmates hostage. Over the next two decades several number of shooting incidents took place at high schools across the US. On several … Continue reading “Rage” inspiring tragedies

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How can you be American and Vietnamese, “both the killer and the person being killed”?

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An unconventional memoir with insight, humor, formal invention and lyricism by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen in A Man of Two Faces, rewinds the film of his own life wrestling with dual identity, entwining his family experience with racism, refugeehood and colonisation and ideas of Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son. At the age of four, Nguyen and his family are forced to flee his hometown of Ban Me Thu?t and come to … Continue reading How can you be American and Vietnamese, “both the killer and the person being killed”?

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Author whitewashed from history of colonialism and its aftermath

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A gripping literary mystery which unravels the fascinating life of a maligned Black author, based on Yamboi Ouologuem. In 2018, Diegane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer in Paris discovers a legendary book. In 1938, a novel called Labyrinth of Inhumanity ws praised as “the masterpiece of a young African Negro, but due to some obscure scandal, the book disappeared without a trace along with its author, who was TC Elimane. No one knows what became of its author, once hailed as the “Black Rimbad” the book caused a scandal. Enthralled by this mystery Diegane decides to search for TC … Continue reading Author whitewashed from history of colonialism and its aftermath