Murder of a politician

A third-two-year-old sex worker is shocked when she’s approached by undercover government agents to aid them in a top-secret plot to assassinate a politician known as Meat Neck. But once the deed is done, she realizes what-made her the perfect recruit: She’s 100 per cent disposable. Holed up in an off-the-grid cabin in the woods, she now has only two days, her wits, and a laptop to save her own life. Her best bet is to reach out to the wildly popular feminist investigative podcast Justice for Bimbos, in a hastily typed series of emails, the newly minted “Murder Bimbo” … Continue reading Murder of a politician

Where are the future book lovers

In this digital age, the decline in children’s reading habits has become a significant conern for parents, educators and researchers alike.  Although reading is essential and fundamental skill critical for academic success and cognitive development, why children today avoid reading books, is it lack of motivation, as it plays a pivotal role in shaping a child’s willingness to engage with texts. When children do not find reading enjoyable, they are less likely to pursue it actively. Not many children find reading literature that resonates with their interests or reading levels, leading to disinterest. Parents should play a pivotal role in shaping … Continue reading Where are the future book lovers

Social media appearance a form of “coercive control”?

Jeanette Winterson weaves together memoir, manifesto and a feminist reimaging of One thousand and One Nights in this impassioned exploration of the power of reading. A woman is filibustering for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. One Aladdin Two Lamps cracks open the legendary story of Shahrazad in One Thousand and One Nights to explore new and ancient questions. Who would we trust? Is love the most important thing in the world? Does it matter whether you are honest? What makes us happy? In her guise as Aladdin- the orphan who … Continue reading Social media appearance a form of “coercive control”?

Guilt, Grief, physical and mental perils of human fragility

Samanta Schweblin, Argentine author of Fever Dream translated into 20 languages, and three-time Booker finalist, longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, and winner of prestigious Juan Rulfo Story Prize, explores a world in which violence and horror exists with daily domesticity- as one woman taking extreme measures to escape family life, to another running away to a writer’s retreat in China. Schweblin’s Good and Evil is sculpted and lucid, strange and uncanny, with six stories that lure us into the shadows to confront the moinsters of everyday life- ourselves. In one tale, a mother surfaces from the depths of … Continue reading Guilt, Grief, physical and mental perils of human fragility

Lilly becomes first drug maker to achieve $1trillion valuation

Indianapolis-based company, Eli Lilly’s weight-loss drugs have enabled it the first pharma company to join an elite group of businesses valued at more than $1trillion, including eight tech giants, Tesla and Berkshire Hathaway.  Clinically approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Eli Lilly’s weight loss medication which promises to lose up to 20 per cent of your body weight by reducing cravings and regulating appetite, costing from £70 Continue reading Lilly becomes first drug maker to achieve $1trillion valuation

Good writing evokes sensations

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, an English literature professor at the University of Oxford, reveals his love of reading with his students, and collating twenty years of teaching, his book Look Closer explores the iconic works of literature that have formed, sustained and entertained him, from timesless classics like Wuthering Heights and Dracula to modern masterpieces like Normal People and The Handmaid’s Tale, as well as children’s books, poetry, plays, short stories, and even comics. Douglas-Fairhurst explains how to slow down, take note and bring a text to life, Look Closer makes clear how literature works and why in these turbulent times, reading … Continue reading Good writing evokes sensations

Abandoned by fathers, betrayed by lovers

Braithwaite’s Cursed Daughters is about intergenerational trauma and female kinship. The Falodun family have been cursed for generations, since an ancestor’s affair with a married man provoked the vengeful wife to declare that the woman and her female descendants would never prosper in love: “men will be like water in their palms.”   Setting her story between 1994 and the present day, Braithwaite braids together the fates of three women bound by the curse. A young woman must shake off a family curse, and widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin in this wickedly funny, brilliantly perceptive … Continue reading Abandoned by fathers, betrayed by lovers

Life outside a rigid hierarchy, amid tradition and modernity

Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her previous novels Hullaballoo in the Guava Orchard (1998), set in India of her childhood- born in Delhi, The Inheritance of Loss which won the 2006 Booker Prize.  This tale is about Sonia Shah and Sunny Bhatia, whose once-wealthy families connected through their grandparents, are part of the first generation of young Indians to experience migration, travel and life outside a rigid hierarchy, caught in between tradition and modernity, between pleasing parents and pleasing themselves. They fall in love, but are soon parted by self-doubt, pride … Continue reading Life outside a rigid hierarchy, amid tradition and modernity

“I believe that life is not damnation but grace”

In Misery of Love a spiritual seuquel to the acclaimed Yellow Negroes and other Imaginary Creatures, Yavan Alabé continues his unflinching interrogation of race and family in modern France. Colonial history haunts this stunning spectral-looking graphic novel, a spiritual sequel to the author’s Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures. Alabé focuses on the dream-like memories of a woman named Clare, blonde, slight, willful- faces her estranged father as her family comes together to bury her grandparents   One of earlier stories suggests there was a double suicide.  Alagbé seamlessly glides between narratives of the family’s past and present, all haunted by the legacy … Continue reading “I believe that life is not damnation but grace”

Ending reign of the Spinach King: “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime”

Life magazine’s photo on Seabrook Farms in 1955 New Jersey, calling it the “biggest vegetables in the US, stood triumphantly in front of 5, 000 workers and his father Charlie (CF) Seabrook, known as the Henry Ford of Agriculture.  “Having left this material for his writer son, my father must have wanted the story told, even if he couldn’t bear to tell it himself”. This is the story of a forgotten American dynasty, a farming family from the bean fields of southern New Jersey who became as wealthy and powerful as aristrocrats – only to implode in a storm of lies. … Continue reading Ending reign of the Spinach King: “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime”