Andrew Adonis, 5 Days in May: The Coalition and Beyond
reviewed by Abigail Rhodes
5 Days in May is written by the Labour Party peer, Lord Andrew Adonis, from the perspective of his party during the negotiations that followed the UK General Election of 2010. In the Introduction, written in April 2013, the sense of ‘historic importance’ of these five days in May 2010 is, in hindsight, given its full weight. The first half of the book was written in June 2010 in the style of a diary and catalogues the interactions between the ‘dramatis personae’ (listed at the start... [read more]
Through the eyes of a young woman from Nevada we see the colourful, vibrant scene of the 1970s SoHo art world. Through these same eyes we see masked men and angry women thronging in protest on the streets of Rome during the Years of Lead. The young woman, Reno, is the narrator of Rachel Kushner’s latest novel, The Flamethrowers. She arrives on the New York art scene with aspiration. She is into motorcycles and ski racing – which she describes as ‘drawing in time’ – and soon becomes... [read more]
Thomas Wartenberg, A Sneetch Is a Sneetch and Other Philosophical Discoveries: Finding Wisdom in Children's Literature
reviewed by Jeffrey Petts
The guiding idea of Sneetch is that philosophy is connected to childhood via children’s ‘innate inquisitiveness’, their ‘Why? Why? Why?’ questioning. And that picture books – like Dr Seuss’ The Sneetches – capture philosophical issues and can be used by parents to cultivate philosophical questioning. It’s an idea in the tradition of Gareth Matthews’ seminal 1980 book Philosophy and the Young Child. Matthews presented evidence that young children ask questions that are... [read more]
Harmony Korine is best known for writing the film Kids (1995) at the age of 19, which follows the 16-year-old-skater Teller as he spreads HIV amongst New York’s barely-pubescent virgins. Korine went on to direct Gummo (1997), Julien Donkey-Boy (1999), Mister Lonely (2007) and Trash Humpers (2009). The bizarre and dark humour of his films has garnered them a large cult following. His book, A Crackup at the Race Riots, was initially released by Doubleday in 1998; Korine’s cult-status meant... [read more]
Theodore Allen, The Invention of the White Race, Vol. 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control
reviewed by Terence Hamilton
‘As long as you think you are white, there is no hope for you.’ These words, first spoken by the literary giant James Baldwin, have since become the rallying call behind a new form of Critical Race Theory that has come to be known as ‘whiteness studies.’ In the years since Baldwin’s death in 1987, his critique has been taken up by a new generation of scholars — mostly white — who have tasked themselves with the critical deconstruction of white supremacy, privilege, and, in most... [read more]
As a child, Mary Hamer was always fascinated by Rudyard Kipling. From a young age, reading everything from his Just So Stories to his magnum opus The Jungle Book, Hamer knew that she wanted to write about the man behind the stories. And when she made her way through libraries and archives to find every detail about the writer, she found a much more compelling story in the form of his sister, Trix. Thus began her debut novel, Kipling & Trix.
The novel begins with the two children... [read more]
As the flux and uncertainty of the publishing industry has grown, so has the market in creative writing courses, masterclasses, writing retreats and how-to guides. This stuff is big business - some of these courses will set you back thousands - and it seems a little too convenient that the growth of this business appears to have coincided with plummeting revenue from book sales. As a new writer, all this can all be extremely tempting. We are a vulnerable bunch: writing your first book is a... [read more]
Andrew Wilson, Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted
reviewed by Sara D'Arcy
Fifty years after her suicide and posthumous fame, Sylvia Plath continues to be caricatured, to put it bluntly, as a morbid poetess with an Electra Complex who was finally driven to suicide by her husband’s adultery. Andrew Wilson’s opportune biography, Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life before Ted, offers a startlingly fresh perspective on the life of Sylvia Plath as he attempts to debunk the myths that have enshrouded her life and suicide while remaining true to Plath’s... [read more]
In a charmingly honest postscript Matt Haig explains why he wrote The Humans, his fifth novel: ‘I first had the idea of writing this story in 2000, when I was in the grips of a panic disorder. Back then, human life felt as strange for me as it does for the unnamed narrator … I imagined writing it for myself, or someone in a similar state. I was trying to offer a map, but also to cheer that someone up.’
The novel is told from the perspective of an unnamed alien who has been sent to... [read more]
Jonathan Wilson, The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper
reviewed by Joe Kennedy
Albert Camus used to be a goalkeeper. It’s the one thing fans of existentialist philosophy know about football, and the one thing fans of football know about existentialist philosophy, right? There’s football and there’s thought and never the twain shall meet, unless Nick Hornby’s there to swan around giving the impression that he’s some kind of matchmaker, demonstrating that there’s nothing wrong with hollering ‘You’re Going Home in a Fucking Ambulance’ as long as you cue up... [read more]
