Tag: book-review

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Focus on real-life injustice

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John Grisham the master of legal thriller teams up with Jim McCloskey, who has dedicated his life to exonerating innocent people, to uncover stories that shine an astonishing light on miscarriages of justice. Joe Bryan suffered the unbearable tragedy of his wife’s murder, only to be tried and found guilty of the crime himself – despite being 120 miles away at the time of the murder. Clarence Brandley spent nine years in Death Row, coming to within six days of execution, before new evidence emerged clearing him of all charges. The case of Norfolk Four, police and prosecutors continued to … Continue reading Focus on real-life injustice

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Paula’s vulnerability and strength that radiates energy and life

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Booker Prize-winning Roddy Doyle first introduced “ The woman who walked into doors’ a mid-90s TV show whose subsequent novels featured woman’s story  and the second of which is Paula Spencer. The initial response was relentless and polarised with some critics outraged by his representation of domestic abuse and sceptical that such grim phenomenon could exist in modern Ireland. At sixty-six, Paula Spencer – mother, grandmother, widow, addict, survivor – is finally living her life. A job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, a man – Joe – with whom she shares what she wants, friends who see her for who … Continue reading Paula’s vulnerability and strength that radiates energy and life

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Lust while the daylight dims

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Alan Hollinghurst, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of Beauty, brings us a dark, luminous and wickedly funny portrait of modern England through the lens of one man’s acutely observed and often unnerving experience. It is a story of race and class, theatre and sexuality, love and the cruel shock of violence, from one of the finest writers of our age. Our evenings the flames of gutter and dwindle pleading for a snuffer. The author’s own life spanning from 1960s boarding school to the scoundrel times of just yesterday, graphic explanations of cosiness battles with lust  amid dimming of the daylight.  … Continue reading Lust while the daylight dims

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Do you make critical decisions after intuitive and rational thinking?

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Why do we make critical decisions we do? Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, the godfather of behavioural science, whose work on prospect  theory won him a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002, an award he acknowledges he would have shared with collaborator Amos Tversky, had Tversky lived.  Prospect theory means that investors value gains and losses differently, placing more weight on perceived gains than perceived losses. His research come to a conclusion that women make better investors than men because they hold on to their investment  where as men panic and sell when the market dips, thereby missing out on upswings. Kahneman … Continue reading Do you make critical decisions after intuitive and rational thinking?

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Embrace our non-negotiable limitations

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British journalist and columnist, Oliver Burkeman in Meditations for Mortals takes us on a liberating journey towards a more meaningful life – one that begins not with fantasies of the ideal existence, but with the reality in which we actually find ourselves. Ask yourself why you should spend huge amount of money in the pursuit of wellbeing, but when you sign up for a meditation class you’ll no doubt be bombarded with online adverts for crystal water bottles, nutritional powders, branded workouts and self-help books. Addressing the fundamental questions about how to live, it offers a powerful new way to … Continue reading Embrace our non-negotiable limitations

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Roald Dahl, a new play

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A new play at the Royal Court in London is set to explore World’s No 1 storyteller, Roald Dahl’s legacy and contradictions. Giant by Mark Rosenblatt takes place over the imagined course of an afternoon in 1983, in which Dahl must decide how to handle the scandal that could sink his career. A book review he has written for a literary magazine, comparing Isarel to Nazi Germany and called all Jews cowards if they don’t condemn the Israeli state, has caused quite a dismay. The Witches by Roald Dahl could well be his masterpiece, is about o come out and … Continue reading Roald Dahl, a new play

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Overwhelming incandescent rage

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Zoe Stamper, Junior researcher in Ancient Greek Tragedy, the younger partner in a same-sex marriage which has produced two children, Zoe is, after almost 20 years, now messily attempting to separate from her spouse, Dr Penny Cartwright. Complications are added by the fact that Robin, the children’s biological father, who donated sperm to both women and is fully present in their lives, occupies the flat below theirs. Robin’s uncompromising parental role, rigidly set out before either child was even conceived, is amplified by a fourth party, his sister Justine – who also happens to be Penny’s-ex. Zoe, down the academic … Continue reading Overwhelming incandescent rage

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Struggles of America’s white working class

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Donald Trump’s 2024 Vice-Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance  who grew up in the hills of Kentucky. His family and friends were the people most of the world calls rednecks hillbillies or White trash.  In this latest memoir, Vance tells the story of his family’s demons and of America’s problem with generational neglect. How his mother struggled against, but never fully escaped, the legacies of abuse, alcoholism, poverty and trauma. How his grandparents, “ dirt poor and in love”, gave everything for their children to chase the American dream. Vance’s grandma told him: “Never be like these losers who think the deck … Continue reading Struggles of America’s white working class

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OnlyFans and Sex satire

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Twenty-year-old Margo, child of a Hooter’s waitress and an ex-pro-wrestler, got money troubles, but she’s always known she’d have to make it on her own. When she finds herself pregnant by her college English professor, naïve and drifting – who is very keen not to be involved – she realizes she will need cash fast. She hadn’t thought through the consequences of having a baby- now  she’s lost her waitressing job and it looks unlikely she  will be able to afford her rent. Although Margo lacks in options she makes up for in ingenuity, and soon she has a plan. … Continue reading OnlyFans and Sex satire

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Poetry in Scotland

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Writing about writers – with the skills only a writer knows!The novel of a Sestineer and the descendants of a Victorian novelist.Review of “Lettersgait” – her new novel by Sally Evans. Published byFiction Direct – a new branch of Diehard Callender press (established 1990). £8 in person, £10 posted. http://www.readfictiondirect.co.uk for this and other books. Sally Evans – now with a PHD in Literature follows up her very popular novel“Wild Goose” with new novel – “Lettersgait”, and so this is Sally’s secondnovel focussing on the environment of a literary world. The likeable and wellportrayed characters engross us in a story … Continue reading Poetry in Scotland