Gilead Revisited

'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood

With the release of companion piece 'The Testaments' just ten days away, I've done something I don't normally do - I've re-read a book!  So, unsure of whether it was as good as I remembered and with some trepidation, I returned to Gilead and 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood.

Following a carefully planned coup that wipes out Congress and strips civil liberties, the United States of America has been taken over by a fundamentalist Christian group and renamed 'Gilead'.  Those not purged find themselves boxed into new, sanctioned roles that mean work and above all relationships are state controlled.  With birth rates low and people needed to fight ongoing wars, the rulers of Gilead assign senior personnel 'Handmaids', fertile women to be ritually raped in the hope that they will provide the Commanders and their Wives with children.  'Offred' is one of the first wave of Handmaids, haunted by memories of the life she had before, fearful for the future of her lost daughter, and stunned into compliance by the isolating existence she now endures as an object of desire and moral revulsion.  As the shock begins to fade, however, she starts to see that things are not quite as godly as the regime would like believed, and even those at the highest levels are showing signs of very human weakness...

The Most Natural Thing in the World

'Sealed' by Naomi Booth (Dead Ink, 2017)

I love it when publishers put a shout out for book bloggers on Twitter.  This has led me to some absolutely incredible books, books that I would never have known about otherwise, let alone read.  'Sealed' by Naomi Booth is just one example.

'Sealed'
by Naomi Booth
(Dead Ink, 2017)

When the heavily-pregnant Alice and her laid-back partner, Pete, move out of the city to a remote house in the mountains, they believe it's a fresh start.  Away from urban pollution and the deadly skin-sealing disease it may be causing, they hope that they can put tragedy and worry behind them and prepare a safe home for the new arrival.  But the grass isn't always greener, and not only does their new location provide new dangers, old ones prove hard to escape too...

Wondering About

On the train back from the British Museum, I randomly started reading 'The Psychic Tourist' by journalist William Little.  Yesterday, I finished it.

The journey begins when Little buys an astrological birth chart for his sister and her daughter as a gift.  Unfortunately, they both predict a water-related death, something which terrifies his sibling and affects badly, making her avoid travelling on or over water at any cost and give up water-based hobbies.  Upset that his gift has caused so much distress, Little decides to start and investigation into the world of psychics and prediction to find a way to undo the damage he's done.

Having enjoyed 'Will Storr vs the Supernatural', I hoped that this too would be an interesting and thought provoking read.  It's also described as funny in a number of reviews, so I thought it would be entertaining too.  Unfortunately, although it does start off in a similar way as Storr's book, it meanders quite a lot and doesn't always seem to stick to it's destination of the truth about predicting the future, often straying into a more general look at psychics instead.  It's almost as if the author wanted to write a different book but couldn't control his own destiny.

By the end, the more lighthearted tone is all but out of sight.  While it's interesting that Little takes his investigation to a new level, interviewing a combination of Physicists, Nobel-prize winners and experts in Quantum Theory, it means he has to resort to including long quotes from books and people.  I can understand why.  Many of these ideas are hard to understand for non-academics and it's safer to quote directly rather than try to explain it in lay language and lose meaning.  Unfortunately, this style also gives the book an essay feel, and essays are not usually fun or amusing.  Although if anyone knows of a funny, understandable and accurate essay on Quantum Physics, I'd love to hear about it!

Overall, 'The Psychic Tourist' was a bit of a disappointment.  With a rewrite that tightens up the structure and maps out the science so it's easier to understand, it would be a better book.  It's a shame as there are a lot of great and interesting ideas in here, many of which need to be shared with people like Little's sister to free them from excessive worry.  Maybe in the future Little will have the opportunity to revisit this book and give it a polish.  Who knows..!

Now, back to Groucho Marx!