Jazz Internationalism: Literary Afro-Modernism and the Cultural Politics of Black Music
Book
Jazz Internationalism offers a bold reconsideration of jazz's influence in Afro-modernist...
George Evans
Book
In the novel "George Evans," the title character and his friend Charles Fletcher both aspire to live...
Che: A Graphic Biography
Book
Since his murder 50 years ago in Bolivia, Ernesto "Che" Guevara has become a universally known...
Chelsea Girls
10.0
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In this breathtakingly inventive autobiographical novel, Eileen Myles transforms her life into a...
Wheel of Fortune
6.5
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Robert Godwin's tumultuous ride on the Wheel of Fortune begins with his passion for his sensual...
Something Dark
10.0
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Something Dark tells the true story of Lemn Sissay, who as a baby was given up by his Ethiopian...
Performance Poetry One Man Show Social Care
Suswatibasu (1701 KP) rated The Nix in Books
Dec 4, 2017
It spans nearly fifty years, with flashbacks to student protests during 1968, from the present day, and the travails of an academic, struggling to engage with lazy and disaffected students, and playing ‘Elfscape’, an online role-playing game that works along the lines of World of Warcraft. The narrative perspective moves around quite a bit in the first few chapters, but a strong theme quickly emerges.
Samuel Andresen-Anderson is the principal protagonist, and is a genuinely empathetic character. Far from perfect, he is beset with irritations, ranging from the cheating and ignorance of many of his students to the family upheaval suffered during his childhood, which still troubles him more than twenty years later.
Behind all this is the story of Faye, Samuel’s mother, who walked out on her family more than twenty years earlier, and who is catapulted into the public consciousness following a sudden impulsive act. This offered Hill the opportunity for some acute observations about the motives and actions of the student rebels from the late 1960s, while also exposing the hypocrisies of the establishment and the cruelties of some of the police during those troubles. In between, the author even delves into Norwegian folklore.
The writing is fine – clear and accessible - and Hill manages the complex storylines admirably. Moving backwards and forwards between the late 1960s, late 1980s and 2011, the plot never flags. This was a long novel, but very entertaining throughout.
Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost its Edge in Computing
Book
In 1944, Britain led the world in electronic computing. By 1974, the British computer industry was...
Suswatibasu (1701 KP) Dec 4, 2017
Sarah (7798 KP) Dec 5, 2017