Always Koval begins the process by establishing a sense of safety and trust in the author which leads to a tremendous intimacy and honesty on the part of the interviewee. Every interview is a pleasure, full of insight and wisdom. This is a delightful book that bridges the gap between author and reader.
Childhood, Family, School, and Personal Will: David Mitchell’s novel Black Swan Green
In Black Swan Green Jason realizes that he contains different personalities but can, through his choices, through facing the truth and taking a stand, determine what his own fundamental character will be.
The Deceptions of War: Green Zone, starring Matt Damon and Khalid Abdalla
The film is one more dramatic demonstration of how power works, or rather, how it does not work: government bureaucracy, the military, and journalists do not live up to the best ideals. Through the film’s story—through investigation—Damon’s soldier will learn that the intelligence is a lie, that the Iraqis had rid themselves of weapons of mass destruction and had no active plans to produce more, but that those facts were misrepresented to Washington and the world by American bureaucrats eager for war.
A Charismatic Actor, A Spiritual Purpose, A Violent Film: The Book of Eli
In John Hillcoat’s The Road (2009), the lessons that the father teaches the son come out of personal experience and direction; but here in The Book of Eli, there is a return to an ancient text, an old religion. The values on offer in The Road are subject to questioning, to testing, whereas there is something assumed about the values in The Book of Eli, and that attaches something sanctimonious and sentimental to the endeavor.
A review of How to Turn Your Book Club Into A Spectacular Event by Mayra Calvani
Although How to Turn our Book Club Into a Spectacular Event is targeted to young adults, there’s no reason your social nine or ten year old couldn’t use it, to create a club for younger readers. It’s a good excuse for a little regular party after all, and as long as your child is reading on par with his or her friends, a chance to work through jointly read books in a fun, structured manner has got to be one of the best learning experiences you’ll ever find.
A review of What happened to Joseph? by T.A.G. Hungerford
Working through the almost intensely Australia flora and fauna are memory, nostalgia, mateship, war and its aftermath – the civilian life that follows, and hope. There are poems and stories that simultaneously celebrate and mourn the aging process, poems and stories that look at the nature of relationships, love, the kind of hate that leads to war and genocide, loss, and the alienation that sits in all of our hearts – between civilisation and our rough animal natures.
A review of Here on Earth: An Argument for Hope by Tim Flannery
It would be tempting to look around at the extreme and growing polarities, and persistent poverty so evident in the world today, and shrug. Flannery doesn’t do that, and in fact quite clearly eshews such negative “self-fulfilling prophecies”. Instead he offers a range of solutions from electric vehicles, smart grids, and satellite surveillance of environmental trangressions, along with the suggestion that the ultimate answer lies in governments being willing to cede power for the common good.
A review of Listen to This by Alex Ross
His piece on Björk has the advantage of the concrete and the seeable. There are mysteries here but they are the mysteries of the tangible, the creative mind grappling with and solving problems. It is a stark contrast with the murkiness of his piece on Schubert.
A review of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
My enjoyment of the literary feel of the book and the tension – drew me in and carried me to about a third in, when the plot began to sag with repetition and sameness. It was then I noticed the Atwood literary formula, ie never use one metaphor when two or three will do, in the same paragraph.
A review of New Kinds of Smart: How the Science of Learnable Intelligence is Changing Education by Bill Lucas and Guy Claxton
The discussions of meta-cognition and self-efficacy were interesting, and also the notion of ‘communities of practice’: if you ignite fervour for learning and it ceases to be simply ‘being taught’, then you’re on a roll.