Books {5
COLLECTED WRITINGS NOAM CHOMSKY The Essential Chomsky (Bodley Head) 000
For over 40 years, ‘the world’s greatest public intellectual’ has been not so much a thorn in the side of the West‘s establishment structures as a battering ram to everything held dear by liberals and conservatives alike. Now fast approaching his 80th birthday, his current ire is no less biting as the one that he initially wielded during the Vietnam War, when this seemingly meek and mild linguist and psychologist rushed to the forefront of the movement against US imperialist policies, a stance which has led to death threats and even being named as a potential target for the Unabomber. This year alone, he has spoken out and written about the lack of debate on Iraq in the race for the White House, the global financial catastrophe
and the Russia/Georgia conflict.
This collection of writings from his career contains mind- spinning chapters on language and predictable yet acute dismantlings of US foreign policy. Presidents of the right (Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon) are given just as much sympathy (ie. very little) as those of the centre-left (Carter and Clinton), even quoting John McCain as part of his analysis of the real reasons behind the US/NATO assault on Kosovo. Anyone who has read a single line of Chomsky’s libertarian socialist worldview will discover little to be astonished by within these essays. Those opening themselves up to his anarchist dogma for the first time are in for a treat laid on by the commander in chief of the US awkward squad.
(Brian Donaldson)
HISTORICAL. DRAMA TONI MORRISON A Mercy
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TONI MORRISON
In 1993. Toni Morrison became the first lstill only) African American author to Wlfl the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her ninth novel A Mercy. which addresses the cruel genesis of slavery in early colonial America. arrives as an African American strides prOiidly into the White House.
A young slave girl is taken in by a trader and landowner in Virginia. and ions a disparate Clutch of other women on his smallholding - his English mistress. his Native American seivant and an orphaned daughter of a sea captain — all attempting to find meaning and stability in a world where religious zeal. savage conditions and male brutality dominate.
Written With scholarly authority as a non-linear blur of self-contained
28 THE LIST ‘7‘} 1'" N9: .
biographies from each character. in sentences rich with lush symbolism and historical resonance. A Mercy reads like a parable on Aiiierica’s painful and unplanned birth, the scars of which centuries oii — are yet to heal. (Malcolm Jacki
llOliROl‘t MI I JACK KILBORN Afraid
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Starting with a plane crash and ending with a coyote—oii-liuman chow down. Afraid is a rattling good read for those who have the stomach for it. When a mutant iiiilitaiy force turns up tiiiziiiii()tiii(:(}(l zit lll(} friendly law—abiding town of Safe Haven (population 907: there is bloodshed aplenty. They are looking for the sheriff's brother but nobody knows where he lives. Meanwhile. a single mum. her child and a firefighter are Just trying to stay alive and
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JACK KILBORN
make it through the night.
Borrowing liberally from HP Lovecraft and
tephen King. debutant Jack Kilborn's gripping account of a very Violent invasion of a largely innocent community is unrelenting and thrilling. His style is effortless but well paced and finely characterised, and he clearly has an eye for shock. gore and other related cruelties. If you're looking for an easy late Winter holiday read this is certainly unputdownable. (Paul Dale)
COMIC SATIRE CHRIS ADDISON It Wasn’t Me
IHodder & Stoughton) .0.
One grotesquely amusing aspect of the current economic crisis has been the sight of our beloved PM desperately trying to hammer home the notion that the predicament should be blamed on 'global' factors and is absolutely nothing to do With him. mate. You can't blame him for trying. After all. refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of one's own actions has become de rigueur. Comedian Chris Addison's slim treatise (subtitled Why Everybody Else is to Blame and You're Not)
aims a gently satirical swipe at this prevailing attitude. oftering sharp, amusing arguments as to why certain individuals and institutions are more deserving of blame than we are.
Among those fingered here are the media moguls. EU. oil companies. China and the Secret All-Powerful Organisation that Really Runs the World. It's persuasively argued and consistently amusing, but at £12.99 for a slim, glorified loo book. you can justifiably turn your ire for your lack of liquidity this Christmas on those who set such prices. (Allan Radcliffe)
HISTORICAL DRAMA GILLIAN SLOVO Black Orchids (Virago) .0
Evelyn wishes to be ‘rescued from the boredom of her life' and it's in Emil. the beneficiary of a rich Ceylon family. that she finds her non-white
knight in shining armour. What seems like an exotic fairy tale in 408 Ceylon. however. is an altogether bleaker picture of rationed SOs Britain, where their wealth — and Emil's skin colour — put the family at odds with society. Although described as the quintessential English rose. there is little attractive about Evelyn's character and her skewed romanticism often conveys charmless naivete. This becomes yet more unappealing when the topic of racism is eclipsed by Evelyn's own aggrieved sense of belonging.
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Maybe it's best to conform after all, is the confused message from Gillian Slovo. as the narrative winds aimlessly into the 70s and fixes on the equally vacuous first born, Milton. Slovo's descriptions of Sri Lanka at least make Black Orchids a pretty
ALSO PUBLISHED
5 POETRY BOOKS
Vera Brittaln Because You Died
A collection of poems and prose from the author of Testament of Youth. all about the men she loved who perished in the First World War. Virago. Dennis O’Donnell Stepping Stones This one features interviews with Seamus Heaney as the Nobel Prizewinner sheds some light on his life and work. Faber. Zbigniew Herbert The Collected Poems Dubbed the spiritual leader of the anti- communist movement in Poland. this book gathers up all his verse from 1956 to 1998. Atlantic.
Robert Burns Poems, Chief/y in the Scottish Dialect Ahead of the bard's 250th birthday. we get a special edition of his first published poetry collection. Luath.
Clive James Ange/s Over Elsinore The Aussie polymath delivers some verse written over the last five years. Picador.
flower. but one with no real depth. (Emma Lennox)