Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmusm, Penguin Doubleday, 2022 - This book is a real jewel - it’s by turns fun, fresh, funny, feminist, serious and chock-a-block full of compellingly oddball characters, the most notable being Elizabeth Zott. Elizabeth is a chemist, a genius and living in the wrong era - 1950’s America. Defending herself …
THE GREAT DEBATE-ACLE
I got a text last Thursday from my #1 son: “Are you watching the presidential debate? It’s hilarious. One is seemingly quite literally dying and the other is bat shit insane.” Now that summed it up quite nicely - #1 son’s views on the comedy value of politics resonates. The results? The real ‘winner’ of …
COLLECTIVE GUILT
Let’s take stock of the situation in the Middle East: Israel has, for some time, effectively set up a system of apartheid against the Palestinians. Palestinians chaff under this iniquitous system but it’s quite clear that they don’t have the weapons, troops or resources to go ‘toe to toe’ with Israel’s military. Enter Hamas - …
I WAS WRONG!
YES, DEAR READER, I WAS WRONG! Who would have thought? Ex-Prez and Grand High Imperial Twitterbug - the GHIT, the ONE, the ONLY, RONALD RUMP is once again close to regaining his crown as King of Comedy. After weeks of practicing his scowling face for supporters and reporters, the courtroom verdict came in and …
ADRIFT BY LISA BRIDEAU
ADRIFT BY LISA BRIDEAU, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2023 - She wakes up in a sailboat called the Sea Dragon in the Canadian Pacific waters off Haida Gwaii. She has no idea who she is or how she got there. She has some memories - knows how to read, write and still has lots of skills, including …
OPEN SECRETS BY ALICE MUNRO
Open Secrets by Alice Munro - M&S, 1994 - Alice Munro, short story writer, Nobel prize laureate in literature (2013), winner of the Giller prize (1998 & 2004) and other notable awards, was credited with ‘revolutionizing the structure of the short story’. She died last May and there I was, living in close proximity …
THE WEIGHT OF INK BY RACHEL KADISH
THE WEIGHT OF INK BY RACHEL KADISH, Houghton Mifflin, 2017 - Helen Watt is an aging historian at a middling university in London. She has lived a solitary life, devoting herself to her work without producing anything of significance. On the cusp of retiring and beset by a debilitating illness she receives a call from …
THE ARMOR OF LIGHT BY KEN FOLLETT
The Armor of Light by Ken Follett, Viking, 2023 - Ken Follett’s latest book is the fourth in the series that began with ‘Pillars of the Earth’, set in medieval times and continued with ‘Column of Fire’, set in Elizabethan times. ‘The Evening and the Morning’ came next as a prequel to ‘Pillars of Fire’ …
DUNE PART ONE
DUNE PT. 1, 2021 - directed by Denis Villeneuve - It seems reasonable that if you pay $165 million to make a movie and collect $407 million in box office receipts, you can consider yourself successful. The profit may not be quite as good as Star Wars, which cost only $11 million to produce and made …
THE HALF-WAY HOUSE OF STUDENT PROTESTS
We haven’t seen student protests like those now underway on the campuses around North America since the American military was dropping bombs, napalm and agent orange on the Vietnamese. Fair enough, it is difficult to watch the brutal attack on Gaza without wanting to run around waving Palestinians flags and calling for an end to …
Richard's Left Bank 