Film: The Public, written & directed by Emilio Estevez

When this film was first announced, I'm sure like me, other librarians across the globe were full of anticipation, albeit slightly skeptical, about a library themed feature film. It was a film which, on the surface, seemed to promise a behind-the-scenes glimpse of reality that we could point at and say 'That! that's what libraries are really like' to everyone who doesn't get it - humanity, in all it's states of undress, not just books and cardigans. 

Life happens and finally this week I got around to watching the DVD. Let me say, do not be put off by the opening sequence, which is an old school recruitment advertisement for librarians. Do not be put off because the edgy, winter grim and a cast of imperfect characters quickly reveal this is no library biopic, instead it's a film that questions, holds up a mirror to discrimination, and frustrates with the way that agendas and power play out, instead of compassion and basic human dignity.

At times I watched with a sense of dread at how events were going to end - essentially the story revolves around a group of homeless men, who with no where else to go refuse to leave the library in the middle of a bitterly cold winter, staging a sit-in protest. It's their library too after all (an interesting theme of democracy raises it's head). There are moments where the tension feels ready to explode and resonates with current BLM protests going on around the globe. However, the film a little too conveniently avoids this eventuating, and this is my only criticism. A few cliches here and there are easily forgiven, but the full punch this film could pack is reduced somewhat by its wrapped up ending. Although, with a top-notch cast and engaging story-line, importantly this thought provoking film triggered a fair amount of discussion afterwards at my place and really, that's the outcome Estevez may have been aiming for. All things considered, I rate this movie 3.75 stars. Well worth watching. 

Catalogue DVD Link here         

Reviewed by Jaime

   

The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

Barack Obama, Oprah, and the Pulitzer Prize panel have all declared the Underground Railroad a winner, and I found this novel about the reality of slavery both gripping and haunting.

The Underground Railroad was a network of sympathetic and brave people, willing to help runaway slaves escape to the safety of the north in pre-civil war America.  However the underground railroad is not just an historical metaphor here, but used literally, adding a clever and creative element of magical realism to the story.  Whitehead has said in an interview that he had the idea to make the railway real because American children learning history often mistakenly think the Underground Railroad was an actual railroad.

The main character is a young slave called Cora, who is an outcast even with other slaves working on a cotton plantation in Georgia.  Cora's mother had previously run away, causing Cora to be sent to a separate compound reserved for those with illness, disability, or no family.
Cora's emerging puberty and lack of family makes her vulnerable to being preyed upon by both fellow slaves and white men; so when Caesar, a young slave who has come from another plantation, tells her about the Underground Railroad, the two plan to escape.
The pair initially spend time in North Carolina. They are treated well and provided with jobs and hostel accommodation.  Eventually however, they are exposed to disturbing goings-on: black women are encouraged to be surgically sterilized and men are used as part of medical research studying untreated syphilis.
Along the way Cora also spends time working as a living exhibit in a museum, as a maid and hiding in an attic for weeks.  All the while she is pursued by Ridgeway, a notorious and relentless slave catcher.

The real Underground Railroad movement was not as organised as Whitehead's, but he extensively researched historical interviews and testimony, and all events are based on fact. Historic wanted notices for runaway slaves are used with chilling effect throughout the novel.
The content of this book means the depictions of violence and cruelty are powerful and shocking; but also described in a matter-of-fact way that is not gratuitous.
As a young man Whitehead experienced police harassment for no other reason than being a African American; in reading The Underground Railroad we can begin to understand the ongoing legacy of racial inequality.

Reviewed by Katrina

Catalogue link:  The Underground Railroad

Leave Me by Gayle Forman

Ever wanted to drive away from demanding domestic chaos?
Yep, we all have our moments and in Leave Me, Meribeth is overwhelmed with toddler twins, a demanding job and a husband who does not share the domestic load.
She is so busy juggling her life she ignores the symptoms of a heart attack which is only picked up by chance, and then she is sent home weak and unable to cope after bypass surgery.
Meribeth reaches breaking point; leaves, and makes a new life in which to recover and take stock of her situation and marriage.
She also begins to explore unresolved issues from her early life while making friends with a sympathetic doctor with issues of his own.
Gayle Forman has formerly written mostly Young Adult novels, including the very successful and movie-adapted If I Stay.

Reviewed by Katrina

Catalogue link:  If I Stay

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

In need of a bit of feel-good fiction?
This gorgeous novel translated from Swedish could be just the thing for you!
Britt-Marie is a bit of a pain to be honest...a compulsive cleaner, overly concerned about her reputation and the shortcomings of everyone she meets; she is forced to re-evaluate her life following her husband's infidelity.
After hounding the local employment officer, Britt-Marie is sent to the dying outpost of Borg, to be the care-taker of a community centre that is about to be closed down.
By default she becomes the coach of the local rag-tag children's football team and begrudgingly becomes part of a community of misfits.
What follows is humour and pathos in equal measure, with a certain quirkiness in the translation that only adds to the story.
I am off to get my cutlery drawer in order because, as Britt-Marie says: "We're not animals, are we?"

Reviewed by Katrina

Catalogue link: Britt-Marie Was Here

When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall

I was totally absorbed in this unusual novel and did not want it to end:  part realist dystopian fiction; part domestic fiction; part psychological thriller – something for everyone really!

Set in the near future some years after a deadly virus has swept through Great Britain; the island has been put in quarantine by the rest of the world.  Those who have survived are infertile, apart from a tiny minority who have natural immunity. Severe weather events are common, with huge rain storms putting London and other areas permanently in flood and unlivable.

Roza’s family, consisting of her parents and three siblings, have chosen to remain isolated in a large weather-proof tower block apartment on the outskirts of Birmingham.  The Capital has been moved to Brighton and there is pressure for fertile young people to move there and start families, as there are very few children left alive.  Rosa is engaged to a young man she has only met on-line and is about to meet him, leave her family and move to Brighton.

The family are close, and very resourceful in feeding and looking after themselves between drone drops of supplies from the Americans.  Twenty-two  year old Rosa and her younger brother Boris work on-line for the Chinese; Roza translates resources from Chinese to English.

After years of isolation, a charismatic and mercurial young man suddenly appears, changing family dynamics, avoiding questions about his past and bringing information about a local fair being held nearby.

The big question for the family is: can they trust this young man’s word?  Roza’s parents are suspicious and very protective of their children, Roza’s older siblings are desperate for adventure and contact with others their own age.  What happens next will change all their lives forever…

The strengths of this novel are the great characters, the building tension and the believable descriptions of life for this family in a ravaged and unpredictable world.  Recommended.

Posted by Katrina

Catalogue link: When the Floods Came

The Party Line by Sue Orr

1970s rural New Zealand is the setting for The Party Line; the title refers to the days (which I can remember!) of small rural communities making every phone call through an operator and a shared party telephone line.  This meant that potentially people could and sometimes did listen in on private conversations, resulting in everybody knowing everybody else’s business, especially in the fictional dairy farming district of Fenward, in the Thames Valley.

The novel begins with fifty-four year old Nicola Walker driving home for the funeral of her family’s old sharemilker, all the while remembering her upbringing and difficult relationship with her now dead mother.  Each chapter comes from a different perspective: present day or pre-teen Nickie, her mother Joy, and new sharemilker Ian Baxter.

In 1972, grief stricken Ian Baxter has recently lost his beloved wife to cancer. He has a precocious thirteen year old daughter (Gabrielle) to support, so bluffs his way into a sharemilking job with Jack Gilbert: a dour man who hates farming.  While her father struggles to cope with overwhelming grief, a new job and a difficult boss, Gabrielle is left to her own devices. She comforts herself by dressing up in her mother’s old clothes, and by trying to shake up life in the conservative Thames Valley, with her new friend Nickie.  When the two girls witness a disturbing domestic attack they turn to the adults for support.  They receive none, and are shocked by the double standards of adults and their unwillingness to face the truth.

Nickie’s mother Joy takes pride in her standing in the community; being part of the welcoming committee for new sharemilkers, preserving her family’s reputation and being part of the  politics and pettiness of her local Country Women’s Institute. She struggles to cope with her changing daughter and the unpleasant truths she reveals.

I loved The Party Line; it vividly tells a story of rural New Zealand’s recent past: the social order, great characters, community spirit, and morally dubious adult complicity.

Posted by Katrina

Catalogue link: The Party Line

Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother by Xinran

This non-fiction book is about Chinese women and their lost daughters, whether as a result of the one child policy, destructive age-old traditions, or hideous economic necessity. Women had to give up their daughters for adoption, others were forced to abandon them on city streets, outside hospitals, orphanages or station platforms.  Some also had to watch their baby daughters drowned at birth. A bucket was provided at birth by midwife to drown the baby if it was a girl and other arrangements were not made.

During the Cultural Revolution Xinran's parents were thrown in jail for years, thus her and her two year old brother were orphans. Xinran was taken from her mother and given to her Grandmother to bring up.  She went back to her parents at seven years of age. Xinran however makes the book full of hope (as well as sorrow) telling Chinese girls who have been adopted - whether in China or overseas, how things were for their mothers and tells them how they were loved and never will be forgotten.  Up to 1999 the suicide rate for women was 25% higher than for males in the child-bearing age range.

The author's charity The Mother Bridge of Love was founded to help disadvantaged Chinese children, and to build a bridge of understanding between the West and China.  She was a radio presenter in China before going to London to live in 1997.  Ten chapters; ten women, and many stories of heartbreak.

Rae, Young@Heart Book Club

Catalogue link: Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother

NW by Zadie Smith

Narrating the lives of two best friends, bound together by a single dramatic event in their formative years, NW is hard to describe, diffuse and brilliantly real. It’s also hard to get into, with its truncated syntax and disconnected sentences, but it grew on me and really got under my skin.

Leah and Keisha grew up in a North-West London council estate and were inseparable as girls. Now adults, the two women lead very different lives but remain close. Leah has a husband she loves, who wants to start a family. Leah doesn’t want children and is torn between her loyalty to him and her own feelings and fears. Keisha has reinvented herself as Natalie the Barrister, with a beautiful husband and children, and a life that bores her into taking drastic action.

Also featuring their husbands and mothers, and an assorted motley crew of characters, the women’s stories are separated by incongruous forays into other people’s lives. The final chapters represent something of a return to childhood, tinged with nostalgia and melancholia. There is no dénouement, climax, or any kind of closure on what has preceded.

It’s not like any novel I’ve ever read; I have wanted to read the multi-award winning White Teeth for years but came across NW and thought I would give it a go. I particularly liked the way the format and style of the chapters echoed the voice of the character telling the story, which helped to delineate each character arc and add depth to the novel.

I felt the author identified with Natalie more than any other character as the reader is given much more insight into her background and inner-most thoughts, and of the eight or so recurring characters, Natalie is certainly the one that has stayed with me the most. I read her section of the book almost in one sitting; with other sections I felt like I had to work harder to get into the story.

NW is beautifully descriptive and engrossing, making you feel like you’re peering through a window into someone else’s existence. I really enjoyed the read and looked forward to picking up the story each evening, and I will definitely read more of Zadie Smith’s work if I can lay my hands on White Teeth.

NW is available from Hastings District Libraries in standard print and large print.

Posted by RJB

Catalogue link: NW

Shifting Colours by Fiona Sussman

Shifting Colours is set in a domestic service environment during South Africa's apartheid years. Celia is a maid in Johannesburg. Her sons are being brought up by her mother in Soweto; her husband works away, in the mines.
Celia's bright young daughter Miriam lives with her in a small shack in her employer's - the Steiners - garden. After the Sharpeville Massacre the Steiners decide to migrate to England and want to adopt Miriam and take her with them.

Celia reluctantly agrees (after she and Miriam witness some shocking police brutality) in the hope that Miriam will have a better life. Sadly Miriam's life in England is lonely and filled with a different kind of racism, and the Steiners do not keep up the promised contact with Celia. Years later Miriam returns to South Africa to try to find her mother.

I found this novel gripping and powerful. The characters of Celia and Miriam drew me in and the backdrop of apartheid South Africa makes for a compelling read.

Fiona Sussman was brought up in apartheid South Africa and migrated to New Zealand in the 1980's.

 

Posted by Katrina

Catalogue link: Shifting Colours

Author website: Fiona Sussman

Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen

‘Still Life with Bread Crumbs’ is the name of a much published photograph in Anna Quindlen’s similarly titled novel. It is a photograph that has earned protagonist Rebecca Winter a glowing reputation and ongoing royalties. But living in New York isn't cheap and Rebecca has rising expenses, including her mother’s nursing home to pay for. So at the age of fifty-nine, Rebecca up-stakes and heads for a cottage in the woods that she has leased off the Internet.

Yes, this is one of those ‘sea change’ novels and you can’t imagine a more striking change for Rebecca than forsaking the fashionable arty set of New York, to rub shoulders with the folk near her new home. First there’s Sarah, who never stops talking as she serves Rebecca breakfast at the Tea for Two café – the only place Rebecca can receive a phone and Internet connection.

Then there’s Jim the roofer who solves Rebecca’s raccoon problem. He’s strikingly good looking, though a bit young for Rebecca, yet the two become friends over a bird conservation programme. This could easily be a simple sort of ‘new life; new love’ story, but things get more complex when Rebecca discovers some unusual woodland shrines and decides to photograph them.

When a blizzard strikes, you realise how isolated you can be in a cabin in the woods and when the fragile infrastructure that keeps you connected to the world breaks down. Overall this a touchy-feely kind of story, but the writing is just witty enough to make this a fairly smart read, and the characters are interesting and diverse. A nice book to unwind with that will leave you in a happy place.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: Still Life with Bread Crumbs

Talking to Terrorists: How to end armed conflicts by Jonathan Powell

Terrorism has ripped at the heart of western countries like Australia and France, in recent months, provoking many different opinions on how to respond. Jonathan Powell is a political negotiator who believes that governments must engage in talks with terrorists. His is not a politically popular position, but as he explains, history bears witness to the fact that governments usually sit down and talk in the end.

But are these new terrorists in the same mould as previous groups, or, do we have to respond differently? As a veteran practitioner of political negotiation on behalf of the British government with the IRA, Powell has been party to many occasions when ideology has had to bend in order to secure practical solutions to peace. He sets out the various arguments that he has come across by those who believe governments should never talk to terrorists and looks at whether groups such as ISIL are similar in nature to previous groups. He argues that they are and that, finally, the West should learn the lessons from the past instead of engaging in useless rhetoric for political purposes.

This book is largely a detailed description of past political negotiations with a number of terrorist groups such as the Farc of Colombia, Tamil Tigers, IRA, ETA, and PLO. In the last chapter, Powell responds to claims that groups like ISIL aren’t like their predecessors, in that they don’t have specific political goals and concrete demands. He reiterates his position as an experienced practitioner that it is impossible to quash terrorism with force alone. Governments must talk, but talk with the right people (hopefully the more moderate). Today's terrorists have often turned out to be tomorrow's leaders (think Nelson Mandela suggests Powell). Starting a conversation is by no means appeasement and usually provides both sides with an insight into each other's viewpoint. Being able to step into the other side's shoes is usually the first step toward peace.

Reviewed by Spot



Catalogue Link: Talking to Terrorists

Pink Sari Revolution by Amana Fontanella-Khan

Sampat Pal was twelve when she was married off by her parents. As a low-caste Indian woman living in a poor rural area, she had little rights and minimal education, and her life consisted of domestic chores for her husband and in-laws. But Pal always had a thirst for justice and she first began her fight for the rights of others when she could no longer bear to listen to her young neighbour being beaten by her husband every night.

Over the years, she has established and grown a group of human rights supporters known as the Gulabi Gang. This group of largely low-caste pink sari wearing women has gained national attention in India. They intervene in cases of domestic abuse, police corruption, getting justice for rape victims, education for girls, and child marriage. Part social workers and part vigilantes, these baton wielding women are not afraid to use physical force if faced with violence, intimidation or indifference.

Since reading this book, I have been fascinated by the fate of Pal and want to find out what has happened to her and if she is still working with the gang. Pink Sari Revolution is an inspiring true story of people fighting for the rights we take for granted - it is well worth taking the time to read.

Reviewed at Young @ Heart Bookgroup

Catalogue Link: Pink Sari

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The Children Act by Ian McEwan

This exceptionally elegant novel has a deep humanity threaded throughout, all the while exploring the perennially thorny problem of how to balance the primitive human urges of passion, impulse, and procreation with a complex society that urges order, restraint and the pursuit of the material.

Fiona Maye is a successful and well respected High Court judge who is renowned for applying the law with intelligence, exactitude and sensitivity. She presides over cases in the Family Division with a calm and ordered mind, unflappable in the face of acrimonious and warring parties, knotty ethical issues, and the stream of dysfunctional families.

But at home, her calm has been ruffled and her marriage of thirty years is in danger. With the steady and familiar rhythms of her life in flux, Fiona is plagued by a sense of unease. There are consequences of past decisions not fully resolved and current courses of action to be anticipated and thought through.

It is in this unusual state of unrest that the case of a 17 year old Jehovah Witness, who is refusing blood transfusion, breaks through her carefully constructed professional and personal boundaries. While the courtroom provides an orderly pace and structure within which life’s messy problems can be considered and deliberated on, Fiona finds herself on unfamiliar ground when her everyday world becomes more impulsive and unpredictable.  She must struggle to remain in control - if that is really what she wants.

It is easy to see why McEwan's latest offering has received high praise from critics. The graceful simplicity of the prose weaves your consciousness seamlessly into Fiona’s and, for the short duration of the novel, you find yourself almost wearing her courtly robe and her cultured and measured life. The effect is enchanting.

Reviewed by Spot

Catalogue Link:  The Children Act

The Fictional Woman by Tara Moss

In 2002, after years of circulating rumours, crime writer Tara Moss was publicly challenged by a journalist to take a polygraph test to prove that she wrote her own books. Many people had trouble believing she was intelligent enough to write them herself. Why? Because she was a model.

In her first non-fiction work, Moss easily demolishes a range of flawed ideas when it comes to the judgements made about women. Until you read this book, you probably won’t have realised the extent of these ‘fictions’ and the impact they have on your own life and the lives of the women and men around you.

These aren’t issues that can be relegated to the history books, yet, either. Without deliberate intervention, the young girls of today are going to come-of-age in a society where their chances of sexual assault are still disturbingly high, domestic violence is prevalent, where men are paid more and promoted more than woman, and where the bulk of childcare and domestic work falls on to the shoulders of women. Today’s teens need to know this stuff and be aware that their personal choices will play out on a public stage - one that is still weighted in favour of men.

Moss presents a personal and engaging account of how these issues have played out in her own life and in our public spaces. Her evidence is convincing and her discussion contemporary. She argues that new technologies and social media have brought both positives and negatives for women. However, technology without a change in attitude can only deliver us so far. Moss describes many cases of men who still buy into the old prejudices and feel entitled to control over women’s bodies and behaviour. As an Australian, she sees this dangerously embodied by current Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. Abbott is the ultimate contemporary warning – his charming paternalism, however well-intentioned, could easily undo progress made, so far, toward equality.

Moss writes for ‘everyone’ in a very accessible and entertaining style and is well capable of holding the interest of all, including the Facebook generation. She provides a compelling argument for the need to inform each new generation and to keep challenging these issues, politicising them, and legislating against them. I recommend reading it yourself, and then empowering your own teen by putting it on their Christmas list!

Reviewed by Spot

Catalogue Link: The Fictional Woman

Trafficked: My Story by Sophie Hayes

When Sophie was 24, she went on holiday to visit a friend in Italy. Never in her wildest imagination did she expect to be coerced into prostitution by the man she had trusted so completely. This is the brutal and terrifying true story of how she managed to survive.

Sophie was a young British woman who had a close and supportive relationship with her Mum and siblings. An attractive young woman with a good job, she had none of the risk factors that victims of sex trafficking usually have. This is what makes her story even more startling.

It was the careful grooming by a man she had spent four years confiding in that made Sophie so vulnerable. Over the phone, he was a long distance ally, listening patiently to Sophie talk about her everyday ups and downs, giving support and encouragement. He seemed like a best friend. When he suggested that she needed a refreshing break abroad after a relationship break-up, Sophie was only too happy to take his invitation up. But, just before her return home, he told her that she was there for another purpose – to help him repay a debt. His knowledge of her insecurities and weaknesses were now used against her and he forced her into a life working the streets in Italy, Albania, and France.

Far from home and under the control of a violent and merciless man, Sophie lost her sense of self and nearly her life. Luckily, Sophie survived and was reunited with her family. She now works with the organisation Stop the Traffick and hopes that telling her story will raise awareness of human trafficking and its prevalence in every society.

Posted by Spot

 

Catalogue Link:  Trafficked: My Story

 

North of Normal by Cea Sunrise Person

If any book will put you off the hippy lifestyle – this is it. Describing this memoir as compelling feels like an understatement. It reads like an effortless retelling of childhood from a child’s point of view, but the simple style and beautiful backdrop of Canada’s wilderness only makes the disturbing nature of events stand out so much starker.

Cea Sunrise Person was born into a family that lived out the ethos of the 1960s counterculture to the extreme. Her grandparents never set boundaries for their four children and their chaotic life was filled with sex, drugs and a back-to-nature survivalism. Cea’s mother was only sixteen when she fell pregnant and marriage with Cea’s father only lasted a brief few months.

As family life began to splinter, Cea’s grandfather decided to move them all to a lifestyle of self-sufficiency in the remote regions of Canada. 18-month-old Cea went to live with her grandparents, mother, and two aunts in a home sewn tepee with not much more than a few pots and pans. Trapping and killing their own food, the lifestyle provided Cea with complete freedom, but this did not last.

When she was five, her mother met a man who took them away from their extended family into a new type of life, but not for the better. Eventually, Cea managed to find a way out of this precarious existence by becoming an international model at the age of fourteen. This is an incredible tale – sad, sweet, uplifting, and heartbreaking – I couldn’t put it down. It takes a long time to heal from such a journey, but Cea seems to have got there. The last few chapters finish with the insight and perspective of an adult.  One of my must-reads of the year!

Reviewed by Spot

Catalogue Link:  North of Normal

The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth About the Nordic Miracle by Michael Booth

The Tall Poppy Syndrome might be well and truly alive in Michael Booth’s new book. The Nordic countries have been held up as examples of successful societies who manage to be both socially cohesive and financially prosperous. Having married a Danish woman and taken up residence in the country, Booth has taken advantage of this part-insider/part-outsider status to take a closer look at each countries national psyche, in the hope of revealing the secrets to their success and to question whether they really deserve such a glowing reputation.

He admits at the outset that his aim was to seek out the flaws of the Nordic countries and give a more balanced picture. What he gives us is a mixed bag full of cultural stereotypes, quaint local custom, and reportage on social problems such as binge drinking, prejudice against immigrants, right wing politics, and social conservatism. And, that’s before getting on to the Swedes' lucrative arms selling industry and Iceland’s reckless, self-destructing economic policy.

Interviews with numerous experts and leaders are thrown into the mix, but they don’t go deep enough. Booth finishes off without the necessary in-depth analysis or coherent narrative to really answer the burning questions – why do these countries repeatedly come out tops on so many happiness and social wellbeing measures?  And, how can other countries achieve their levels of education, social mobility and plain old contentedness?

Despite this, and the lack of human story to connect to, I can’t complain. I wanted to keep on reading - obviously, I quite enjoy a spot of cultural stereotyping, as un-PC as this is. Who isn’t entertained by learning such interesting facts as 54% of Icelanders believe in elves, and how much in-depth analysis is really necessary on such a topic?

As I can’t afford the airfares to go and see for myself, the book satisfied part of my curiosity about the ‘happiest nations’. We all have flaws, there is no perfect utopia, and social harmony takes more than a shared liking for pickled fish and knitwear.

Posted by Spot

Catalogue Link: The Almost Perfect People

Shy: A Memoir by Sian Prior

Shy is a creative mish-mash of journalism and memoir that offers up rich insight into a temperament trait that can both enhance and detract the lives of those who possess it.

Sian Prior provides a remarkably candid account of how shyness has affected her life, as well as the strategies she has employed over the years to combat it. Adopting a façade she dubs ‘Professional Sian’ has allowed her to maintain a career in the public eye as an environmental campaigner, journalist, broadcaster, teacher, and musician. But over time this rebellion against her own shyness has taken a physical toll. That’s because shyness isn’t a lifestyle choice – it’s an inborn behavioural style that is intimately tied to the fight-or-flight survival mechanism.

Prior explores the many social and biological forces that pull at and push the naturally shy. She weaves in and out of her own personal experiences to highlight and expand on more formal descriptions. It came in handy that her mother was a psychologist and was an understanding ally but, despite this, Prior clearly has a great deal of ambivalence about the trait. You get the feeling that the cathartic process of writing this has still not expelled all the negative cultural judgements she’s received over a lifetime of being shy.

There is no redemptive resolution or acceptance of the author’s shyness in the closing chapters, nor is there a prescription offered to redress the perceived social inadequacies of the shy or guidance on how to alleviate the distress of those afflicted with more than a fair share of trembling, blushing, or social anxiety. Despite this, and probably because of this, it’s a great read - its deeply personal and throws light on a subject that is often a private and solitary struggle.  Hopefully, it makes a contribution to society rethinking its intolerance towards shyness - surely we should accept people wherever they are on the bold-shy spectrum.  As a memoir, it provokes the reader to reflect on their own life and encourages us to remember that we all experience life with a vulnerable intensity that is belied by our exterior, whether it be aloof, calm, or confident.  Shy is well-crafted, insightful, and gently upbeat.

Posted by Spot

Catalogue Link: Shy: A Memoir

The Village Against the World by Dan Hancox

Dan Hancox is a British journalist who went in search of the last communist village in Spain. Marinaleda is a village of about 2,700 residents, who live in what is the closest example of a modern day communist utopia. This is an incredible story of community, hope, and resistance in contemporary Europe.

Under the charismatic leadership of the mayor, Sanchez Gordillo, the village has managed to retain its young people and provide nearly full employment. The villagers have a co-operative that allows them to build their own houses. There are also Red Sundays – days when all residents are expected to work on maintaining the pristine condition of the village. In return, there is free internet and a community who will support you when the chips are down.

Gordillo, who has been mayor since 1979, has been known to lead Robin Hood-like raids on local supermarkets to feed the local unemployed. His unconventional and Marxist views on life have contributed to a community that has survived the Spanish financial crisis with its tail in the air. This is a fascinating read.

Reviewed at Young at Heart Book Group

Catalogue Link:   The Village Against the World

The Self Illusion by Bruce Hood

In this mind-shattering book, you will bump up against some startling facts about consciousness that will shake your sense of self and give rise to a new humility. And, that’s always a good thing, I think.

Bruce Hood is a developmental psychologist who conducts research into how children develop a sense of self. Babies aren’t born self-conscious creatures. They aren’t even aware of the most basic identifiers such as whether they are a boy or girl, let alone how boys and girls are supposed to behave. So, how do they learn who they are? And, why do they even need to in the first place?

Across the fields of child development, neuroscience, behavioural economics, social psychology, and cross-cultural studies, the results are piling up. Our sense of self is a construction that arises out of the human brain and its trillions of neural connections. We perceive ourselves and the world incompletely and, yet, we remain unaware that we do so. We are more easily persuaded than we think, we are more susceptible to social pressure and mob-mind than we realize, and our integrity is far more shaky than our belief in it is.

I bet you’re thinking something like “Other people may be like that, but I’m made of slightly sterner stuff”. This little book will disarm you slowly. Crammed full with insight and evidence, The Self Illusion gets to the core of what it means to be human. We are, first and foremost, social beings.

Reviewed by Spot

Catalogue Link: The Self Illusion