A novel about connection

Imagine the place of  future technology in American, as the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Trust turns to the future with an extraordinary novel that examines the palce of technology in the American imagination. Centuries from now, at the dawn of a historical epoch filled with both uncertainty and promise, an orphan is adrift in a city on the brink of a great transformation. The state has been dismantled, and humans are reinventing social bonds and learning new ways to co-exit with nature. Following a childhood defined loss, survival and found family, the orphan grows up to become a “pincher,” someone … Continue reading A novel about connection

Disarmingly tender, slyly funny world of surrogacy

Fallow is a fictional novel of a debt-laden young woman who had  seven pregnancies in 10 years, after signing up to be the world’s first in-house professional surrogate for a corporate behemoth, then finds herself caught in a social experiment of another kind. Natalie knows one truth, there is no such thing as a good job. As the clock ticks away at the workplace harassment call centre, she tries to ignore the increasing pain in her jaw. She has no dental insurance. She has no skills or ambitions. She has student loans. And, minute by minute, she hears the many ways … Continue reading Disarmingly tender, slyly funny world of surrogacy

Has smartphones killed the habit of reading books?

James Marriott (33),  a columnist at The Times, is worried that people are not reading as literature graduates have trouble in concentrating on long texts, amid constant digital distraction, which has created a “hostile environment” for learning. The golden chain of knowledge linking reader to reader through history is breaking. The screen has replaced the page. Our free time  has been colonised by addictive, infantilising slop. A culture of distraction is replacing a culture of reasoned debate. As reading declines, thought becomes shallower and culture becomes simpler. Public life is becoming more emotional, more tribal and more irrational. We are entering a … Continue reading Has smartphones killed the habit of reading books?

Personal rediscovery, pursuing passion to recapture a lost love on an impulse

How do we lose touch with things we love? And is it possible to find out way back to them? These questions drive professional writer and managing editor of news organisation Coda Story, Nadia Beard on a quest to reclaim the dreams of her childhood for her adult self. Swimming and cycling once you learn you never forget is the same true with piano? Beard frames her musical homecoming as a journey of personal rediscovery after turning away from music following university. Until them, “playing the piano and cello was the core of my life” Nadia remembers. Growing up in … Continue reading Personal rediscovery, pursuing passion to recapture a lost love on an impulse

101 Princesses

Imagine what New York-based, British writer Jon Ronson did when he received a series of disquieting texts after his 24-year-old son Joel and his friends had been lured to a mysterious castle in the  rural Connecticut (forests of New England) under false pretences late one evening. Ronson Sr. off on an extraordinary adventure into a world of unmoored men on a desperate search for purpose, whatever the cost. Why did the wealthy scion of a gilded age tycoon Jon’s son to his castle on the pretext of a party, when the reality was something else entirely? Could Jon uncover what was … Continue reading 101 Princesses

Aimless rituals and shortlived romances

Éric Rohmer, the French New Wave’s most prolific and beloved filmmaker’s first and only novel Elisabeth featuring witty banter, lust, ennui and an undercurrent of violence underlie a seemingly paradisiacal summer on the eve of World War II. Fifteen years before completing his first feature film- and ten before beginning a transformative editorial stint at Cahiers du cinema that would usher the journal, and French cinema, into a new era – the man who would become known worldwide as Éric Rohmer published a single novel. Released byÉditions Galimard alongside the early works of Claude Simon and Marguérite Duras, Élisabeth was … Continue reading Aimless rituals and shortlived romances

Real value of life might lie not in beauty but in ugliness

Acclaimed author of Outline trilogy (an irresistible novel of fame, power, beauty, and truth- Rachel Cusk’s new novel, is about an unnamed but apparently female author undertakes to write a biographical portrait of her friend, a world  famous actress referred to as M. The film star M is one of the most recognizable faces of our time, and her image is everywhere, which has been like that since she was a child. With such fame, her life has the appearance of freedom: people are instantly obliging, spaces are altered to accommodate her, time can be rearranged. M may live in the … Continue reading Real value of life might lie not in beauty but in ugliness

Hope, Anger and Exhaustion – lack of despair causes despair

Two friends meet in an art gallery after decades of silence. The idealism that once bound them together fissured and fractured under the weight of collective and personal griefs. Through their memories of youthful certainty, the antagonism of their conversation and the embers of their enduring kinship, they navigate the wreckage of our world today- the hope, the anger the exhaustion.Jamaican-American poet and playwright Claudia Rankine best known for “Citizen” (2014), her prize-winning work of prose poetry about black experience in the US, which explored microaggressions, police violence and Serena William’s treatment by tennis officials and exposed the depth of … Continue reading Hope, Anger and Exhaustion – lack of despair causes despair

Survival amid ultimate brutality…

Paul Yoon’s Etna is set in a fictional country in the present day, this is story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. Etna after surviving years of a devastating war,  decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and returns home- to the place where he has taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there. This exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a war dog in his own battle-weary, gritty voice, as he traverses across ruined landscapes … Continue reading Survival amid ultimate brutality…

Needle in a loop of silent waves, fine-tuning out of Trauma

Jamaica-born British writer Jacqueline’s new novel “Sky City” set in early 1990s North London, where a young mixed-race woman, Jaycee, lives alone in a sparsely furnished apartment in a block above a shopping centre, with just a DJ on the radio for company. She is isolated, her best friend Ella-G moved to New York, and she never takes time off from her job as a legal secretary because she “craves the order of the workplace”. Music is still crucial, “Walls hummed with overdriven bass lines. Doors bounced in their frames”- but the escape it offers Jaycee is not ecstatic but … Continue reading Needle in a loop of silent waves, fine-tuning out of Trauma