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Poems to get us through: a musical exchange with God [28 May 2020|05:00am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/28/poems-to-get-us-through-the-psalmist-lachlan-mackinnon Lachlan Mackinnon evokes the power of music to strengthen faith, in the last of Carol Ann Duffy’s comforting picks from her poetry bookshelves The poet Lachlan Mackinnon lives in Ely, and is also a distinguished critic and former teacher. Music, of all kinds, has always been important to his poetry, alongside a healing journeying towards faith. A psalmist (notably David in the Old Testament) is a composer of sacred lyrics, and sometimes poems can share this territory. The writer’s epiphany in this poem answers our own need for such moments of consolation. Continue reading... post comment

Out of My Skull by James Danckert and John D Eastwood – the psychology of boredom [28 May 2020|06:30am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/28/out-of-my-skull-by-james-danckert-and-john-d-eastwood-the-psychology-of-boredom From social media addiction to the discovery of musical genius – is the alleviation of boredom what really drives the world? According to the great proto-existentialist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, the life of a human or other beast “swings like a pendulum back and forth between pain and boredom”. Indeed, pain (or want) and boredom are the two main constituents of existence, and not only during the lockdown phase of a pandemic – a thought that might (or might not) afford some gloomy relief to many right now. Schopenhauer was arguably the first western philosopher to take boredom seriously as one of the primary miseries of humankind, defining it lucidly as “a tame longing without any particular object”. Boredom was, moreover, more likely to afflict the more intelligent person, unfortunately for geniuses such as himself. Continue reading... post comment

Remain Silent by Susie Steiner review – home is where the hurt is [28 May 2020|08:00am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/28/remain-silent-by-susie-steiner-review-home-is-where-the-hurt-is DI Manon Bradshaw’s domestic life is under strain as she investigates the death of a Lithuanian migrant worker in this entertaining third outing for the formidable Fenland sleuth What kind of crime fiction suits the mood of the lockdown? There’s a limit to how mean the streets can get when walked down in dutiful daily exercise; sparse clues to be found when everyone is taking strict precautions like seasoned serial killers. But at a time so closely focused on the vicissitudes of home life, DI Manon Bradshaw of Cambridgeshire Constabulary is on hand to examine the existential mystery of domesticity. Remain Silent is the third in a series featuring this formidable Fenland sleuth, a wide-hipped, loose-lipped realist who cares little for others’ approval and admires “women who command the room and who don’t succumb to all the appearance bullshit”. This time Manon is investigating the death by hanging of a Lithuanian migrant worker, but her life away from the job is where the real trouble is. There’s the constant fatigue of the work-life balance, the soul-draining tedium of household chores and arguments – plus she’s struggling to keep the relationship with her partner Mark alive, knowing that cold comfort might be the best they can expect. As she tells a friend’s errant husband: “Marriage is a shit-show and you’d better start learning a way to navigate it.” Continue reading... post comment

David Attenborough to publish 'witness statement' on climate crisis [28 May 2020|09:00am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/28/david-attenborough-climate-crisis-a-life-on-our-planet Broadcaster and historian says A Life on Our Planet book will record ‘dreadful damage wrought by mankind’ and propose solutions David Attenborough is to publish his “vision for the future” of Earth this autumn, laying out “the dreadful damage” done by humanity, and the ways “we can begin to turn things round”. A Life on Our Planet, which the 94-year-old has described as his “witness statement”, will cover his career documenting the natural world and his first-hand observations of the decline of the planet’s environment and biodiversity, as well as possible solutions. Continue reading... post comment

'Social distancing': how a 1950s phrase came to dominate 2020 [28 May 2020|02:00pm] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/28/social-distancing-how-a-1950s-phrase-came-to-dominate-2020 Sociologist Karl Mannheim used it to describe how the higher ranks of a society could distinguish themselves from the plebs As schools prepare to reopen, many wonder how small children are expected to maintain “social distancing”. Some French teachers have been isolating their charges within little plague squares chalked on the playground. But maybe the choice of the phrase “social distancing” in the first place has been counterproductive. If “social distancing” sounds to you more like snubbing or ghosting a friend, you are right. It was a 1957 collection of work by sociologist Karl Mannheim that first described it as a way to enforce power hierarchies. “The inhibition of free expression can also serve as a means of social distancing,” he wrote. “Thus, the higher ranks can constrain themselves to preserve a certain kind of deportment or dignity.” In doing so, they distance themselves socially from the plebs. Continue reading... post comment

'Why did white men get all the fun?': the long road to diverse travel writing [28 May 2020|02:51pm] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/28/jini-reddy-travel-writing-race-diversity As a young Asian female travel writer, Jini Reddy entered a genre that was mostly white and male. But new and emerging voices give her hope for a different future I was born in London, to Indian parents who grew up in apartheid-era South Africa. When I was seven we left Wimbledon for a tiny village in the Laurentian mountains, in Quebec, where our back garden was a wilderness. A year and a half later, we moved again to Montreal and the St Lawrence river flowed at the end of our suburban street. As a child, there was never a moment when I didn’t dream of becoming a writer, or of travelling abroad. But I never saw or read about anyone like me, a small, brown woman, going off and doing adventurous things. I’d see those men – and it was always men – in books and on TV and I’d wonder how they made these things happen. Why did they get to have all the fun? Becoming a travel writer was the dream, spending time in wild landscapes too – for me there is not a great schism between travel writing and narrative nature writing, at least the kind I now enjoy reading. Long before I even thought it possible to write professionally, I’d make frequent visits to the holy of holies, Stanfords Travel Bookshop. Here I’d trawl the shelves, desperate to read about someone, anyone, who looked like me, or looked at the world through a prism other than the prevailing one. I can still recall my delight when stumbling upon Eddy L Harris’s Native Stranger: A Black American’s Journey into the Heart of Africa. I was fascinated: here was a man with black skin who was seeking to know himself better while roaming in the land of his ancestors. As he put it: “There is a line that connects the place we come from and the place we find ourselves, those lives and our lives. And I longed to follow that line.” This was very different from the escapist, “hero lit”, travelogues written by white men who wrote about the people they encountered and landscapes they traversed as though mere backdrops to their adventuring prowess. Though Harris’s background and experiences were different from my own, they felt infinitely more relatable. Continue reading... post comment

'Why did white men get to have all the fun?': the long road to diverse travel writing [28 May 2020|02:51pm] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/28/jini-reddy-travel-writing-race-diversity As a young Asian female travel writer, Jini Reddy entered a genre that was mostly white and male. But new and emerging voices give her hope for a different future I was born in London, to Indian parents who grew up in apartheid-era South Africa. When I was seven we left Wimbledon for a tiny village in the Laurentian mountains, in Quebec, where our back garden was a wilderness. A year and a half later, we moved again to Montreal and the St Lawrence river flowed at the end of our suburban street. As a child, there was never a moment when I didn’t dream of becoming a writer, or of travelling abroad. But I never saw or read about anyone like me, a small, brown woman, going off and doing adventurous things. I’d see those men – and it was always men – in books and on TV and I’d wonder how they made these things happen. Why did they get to have all the fun? Becoming a travel writer was the dream, spending time in wild landscapes too – for me there is not a great schism between travel writing and narrative nature writing, at least the kind I now enjoy reading. Long before I even thought it possible to write professionally, I’d make frequent visits to the holy of holies, Stanfords Travel Bookshop. Here I’d trawl the shelves, desperate to read about someone, anyone, who looked like me, or looked at the world through a prism other than the prevailing one. I can still recall my delight when stumbling upon Eddy L Harris’s Native Stranger: A Black American’s Journey into the Heart of Africa. I was fascinated: here was a man with black skin who was seeking to know himself better while roaming in the land of his ancestors. As he put it: “There is a line that connects the place we come from and the place we find ourselves, those lives and our lives. And I longed to follow that line.” This was very different from the escapist, “hero lit”, travelogues written by white men who wrote about the people they encountered and landscapes they traversed as though mere backdrops to their adventuring prowess. Though Harris’s background and experiences were different from my own, they felt infinitely more relatable. Continue reading... post comment

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