It’s summer, so we’ve asked The World’s book critic Chris Merril for some good beach reads – or for those of us in parts of the country that are totally water logged, good rainy day reads. Chris never fails to connect us with good books from all over the globe – read his recommendations here.
In the Geo Quiz, we were looking for the name and author of a book set ‘in the naked desert, under the indifferent heavens.’ The book is The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, and the author is T.E. Lawrence, The answers come by way of bookseller David Delvecchio. Listen
All great anti-utopian novels focus on a disturbing aspect of the present, pushing it to its most horrific conclusions. In “1984,” it’s the panoptic police state. In “Brave New World,” the sexualization and Americanization of England. In “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the subjugation of women through the sanctification of childbirth. In Ninni Holmqvist’s “The Unit,” the issue in question is the way the childless, especially the childless elderly, are looked down upon as irrelevant.
The Ha’aretz newspaper in Israeli published a special edition this week. Listen
Do you have a ‘must read’ tip? Do you prefer novels over non-fiction?
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