“RULE BRITANNIA” DAPHNE DU MAURIER – an eye opening strangely topical story featuring“US-UK”

.First published in 1972 by Victor Gollanz Ltd this is Daphne Du Maurier’s last novel. Du Maurier wrote many fictional books and those adapted to film include: – “Rebecca”, “Frenchman’s Creek”, “My Cousin Rachel” and “The Birds”.Ella Westland pointed out – “The author had known the story of Peter Pan since early childhood. Her father Gerald du Maurier regularly played Captain Hook on stage since Daphne was born and observed Emma plays Wendy to Mad’s Peter Pan, Mad’s boys being the six adopted lost boys adopted by The Darlings. Westland has a book in print “Reading Daphne . A Guide … Continue reading “RULE BRITANNIA” DAPHNE DU MAURIER – an eye opening strangely topical story featuring“US-UK”

Who’s “Heiffer”?

In the glorious summer of 1914, Emily Grey, a young Cambridge undergraduate is studying German in Heidelberg, where she meets Hans, a philosopher with grey eyes and long lashes, who wins her heart and asks her to marry him.  Grey, like all women at the time, has not been allowed to graduate -which may be why she has sympathies for the growing demand for women to have a vote. When the First World War intervenes, she is forced to return to England, leaving Hans behind to join the Imperial Navy. A year later, Emily is recruited to serve in fledgling Secret … Continue reading Who’s “Heiffer”?

Happiness is contentment of having enough

Paul Theroux, the bestselling novelist, travel writer and “master of the short story”  in The Vanishing Point, gives us an exotic but domestic, ranging from Hawaii to Africa and New England. Each focuses on life’s vanishing points – a moment when seemingly all lines running through one’s life converge, and one can see no farther, yet must deal with the implications. With the insight, subtlety, and empathy that has long characterized his work, Theroux has written deeply moving stories about memory, longing, and the passing of time, reclaiming his status, once again, as a master of the form. “I lost most … Continue reading Happiness is contentment of having enough

Her love…

Nigerian travel writer living in America, Chiamaka, alone in the midst of the pandemic, recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until – betrayed and broken hearted- she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Dream Count is a unremarkable story about three affluent Nigerian women, Chiamaka the writer, her best friend Zikora, a lawyer, and her cousin Omelogor, a financial executive.  They navigate their mid-thirties, wrangle with romance and manage dislocations of diasporic identity in the US.   Omelogor, is a … Continue reading Her love…

Entangled pursuit of a fulfilling life

Ohio-born fiction writer, Sittenfeld has a gift for making daily events of regular people compelling moment by moment, and take the readers in from the start and make them want to keep turning pages.  In “White Women LOL”, a woman urges a group of black restaurant patrons to take their drinks elsewhere, because they are crashing her friend’s birthday party in a private room – not realising that the period for which the room was rented has run out. The encounter is filmed which goes viral online, and tars the protagonist as a racist. She is also helping her friend … Continue reading Entangled pursuit of a fulfilling life

Cruelty and Trauma 

Carrion Crow is Glasgow-based Heather Parry’s fourth book, set in London’s Chelsea in the late 19th century, where  Marguerite Périgord, a 19-year-old  daughter of once aristocratic French family, is confined to the attic by her mother “for the sake of her well-being”. Her mother Cécile doesn’t believe she is quite ready for married life. So she leads Marguerite to the attic, where the lack of light will allow her to “acquire the upper-class Pallor” required of a new wife, and the small meals that Cécile delivers on a tray will help Marguerite “establish within herself the reserved palate and physical restraint of the … Continue reading Cruelty and Trauma 

Impulsive decision

Spiky Cece who is in love, has arrived early at her in-laws’ beautiful lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planner her wedding to Charlie, a cardiac anaesthesiologist with a brilliant future. Charismatic and generous doctor Charlie Margolis, a Swede Levov descendant asks Garrett, a depressed baggage handler at the local airport and his best friend from college, to officiate the wedding. Great-hearted Charlie hopes to reinvigorate melancholic, near misanthropic Garrett, and he wants him and Cece to hit it off, so encourages to spend time together before he arrives for the wedding. Quirky Cece immediately don’t like Garrett, but … Continue reading Impulsive decision

DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives

In a World of White people, The Science of Racism uses clear scientific research to expose what we know about racism, exactly how we know it, and what we can do about it. Since 2000s, recruiters have suffered from unusual occupational hazard. Having received numerous applications for jobs they have advertised, they have consistently been hiring people who do not exist. Ghost applications with identical CVs, the only difference between the two is that one applicant is Black while the other is white. They fall victims of their own prejudices, as well as to what is by now, a well … Continue reading DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives

Addictive focus on the wrong things for too long

Journalist Chris Hayes explains why attention and experience which are essential components of being human are under threat. The speed, scale and scope of technological innovation in that past two or three decades mean that the quality of our daily life is being altered – and not for the better, as we are all caught up in it. The utopian early days of internet has given way to fear and loathing, and yet we cannot tear ourselves away from our screens. Even people who work in Silicon Valley insist that their children real actual books and play board games with … Continue reading Addictive focus on the wrong things for too long

Is Big Apple, a place to find and remake yourselves 

A young woman from India feels the pull from Lady Liberty’s lifted torch in New York Harbour and crosses the globe to make a new life, although she knows the path won’t be straightforward but also that the Big Apple is the place to support and nurture her dreams. Kay Sohini, raised in the suburbs of Kolkata and given an English education, reading Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion and Alison Bechdel and dreamt always of New York. When she finally moved to the city, leaving behind an abusive relationship. Sohini refuses to look away from the city’s flaws, from the damage … Continue reading Is Big Apple, a place to find and remake yourselves