Past pains follow present pleasures: Tangled-colonial roots

Do you cherish British countryside, the moors and lochs, valleys and mountains, cottages and country houses. Historian and professor of colonialism and heritage at the University of Leicester, Corrine Fowler brings rural life and colonial rule together with transformative results, through ten country walks, roaming the island with varied companions. She connects the Cotswolds to Calcutta. Dolgellau to Virginia and Grasmere to Canton. Empire transformed rural lives for better and for worse, whether in Welsh sheep farms or Cornish copper mines, it offer both opportunity and exploitation. Flower shows how the booming profits of overseas colonial activities, and the select … Continue reading Past pains follow present pleasures: Tangled-colonial roots

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

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

Facing the ghosts of his childhood

Michael Donor’s Grow Where They Fall,  where the protagonist considers buying a Robert Mapplethrope print, the photograph of a nude Black man, but the sitter’s pose- pulling his knees up in front of his face – is troubling, “ Was a weeping or was this a moment of gentle repose? Wonders Kwame. “Was this clutching and supporting of himself the model demonstrating he needed no one else?   In 2017, Kwame is teaching English at a South London secondary school. His pupils consider him one of the “safe’ ones, and he lives with his university friend Edwin, a generous, willowy, Period Drama … Continue reading Facing the ghosts of his childhood

On the Brink of fear & disaster

Philip Notman, an acclaimed medieval history professor whose fondness for Emerson’s scariest quote “ I  am glad to be on the brink of fear”, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London, and to his wife and son, something unexpected and inexplicable happens to him, and he is unable to settle back into his normal life. Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to see Inés, a Spanish academic, with whom he shared a connection at the conference, but his journey doesn’t end there. A chance encounter with a wealthy, elderly couple sends him to a house on … Continue reading On the Brink of fear & disaster

Wales school stabbing leaving shocked teacher seriously hurt

Police and  two air ambulances were called out to Ysgol Dyffryn Amman Valley School  a Welsh secondary school, in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, after Liz Hopkin (53), a special needs teacher was stabbed in the neck four times by a female pupil during an attack is seriously ill but has been sent home to recuperate. Three people and a  pupil were injure in the attack at around 11:!5am on Wednesday. Worried parents waited for several hours at the gates of the school, which was “in lockdown”, before being tearfully reunited with their children as the school day ended. A teenage girl has … Continue reading Wales school stabbing leaving shocked teacher seriously hurt

Reincarnation: Why older man should end up with a young woman

The Gentleman From Peru, gives poignant insight into a story of regret, fate and epic love. Raul, a 60-year-old, white-bearded, lone wolf staying at a resort on the Amalfi Coast is the Gentleman  featured in The Gentleman from Peru by Andre Caiman. When a group of college friends find themselves marooned at a luxurious hotel on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, including Margot — a gallerist simply described as snarky. While their boat is being repaired, they can’t help but observe the daily routine of a few hotel guest- a mysterious, white-bearded stranger who sits on the veranda each night … Continue reading Reincarnation: Why older man should end up with a young woman

Eluded emotions

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

Revival of old dreams: unfinished love story  with America

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

“Rage” inspiring tragedies

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

Author whitewashed from history of colonialism and its aftermath

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