Witch Hunt by Ian Rankin – Book Review

 

Publisher’s write-up:

‘Witch is a terrorist – on of the best – but this job is going to test even her to the very limit. This time her cold calculation may desert her just when she needs it most.

One her tail are three very different detectives – one woman, two men. Two at the beginning of their careers; one staking a lifetime’s experience on tracking Witch down, following a hunch to the end.

Dominic Elder’s hunch takes him from England to Europe and back, but the clues that solve the biggest crimes, dig out the deepest secrets, are often the smallest ones – ones that only the junior sleuths, fresh out of spy school, pick up. But will he listen?’

Witch Hunt is a spy thriller novel written by Ian Rankin under the name Jack Harvey, a name he used in the 90s for writing thriller novels. This book came out in the 90s and thus, the limitations then must be kept in mind, especially when one of the characters is supposed to be tech savvy.

The story starts with a woman crossing the English Channel in a boat, destroying the boat but deliberately leaving traces behind. Back in the UK, this interests Dominic Elder – a retired MI5 operative, who has a history with the modus operandi of this kind of a crime, a terrorist whom he has codenamed the witch. Elder comes out of retirement and sends the young Michael Barclay off to France to trace the Witch while focusing on what is the terrorist’s intent in the UK. Amidst all this, is also the tussle between different agencies – the MI5, the MI6, local police, the French secret service (DST), etc.

The premise of the plot was interesting and being a crime novel writer, the author maintained the mystery around the Witch character, perhaps a tad too long for a thriller novel. The initial few pages are gripping which kept me curious enough to gather more details about the Witch. However, too many characters were introduced in the initial pages – it took a while for the main character Elder to appear, and then there was Barclay – who reported to his boss Joyce Parry, and on the other side, there were detectives Greenleaf and Doyle, along with several characters introduced on both sides of the English Channel during Elder and Barclay’s travels in England and France, respectively. I could focus only on four characters when it came to their character development and could not devote attention to the principal antagonist, the Witch, either.

Red herrings are great for a police procedural whodunnit novels, but not so for a thriller. Considering the way this novel ended, a lot of events were unnecessary or were mere distractions. This meant that the book need not have been as long as what it turned out to be. I normally enjoy Rankin’s writing, but I realise that it happens when I enjoy the plot along with it, in this book I felt that he was unnecessarily verbose.

This was a book where I felt a good start was ruined by the way it carried on – normally I like plots that revolve around the world and in fact, I enjoyed one of the earlier Jack Harvey thriller novels, namely Blood Hunt, to the extent that I thought perhaps, Jack Harvey is a better writer than Ian Rankin and that thriller novels are his calling. I might try the last remaining Jack Harvey novel in due course but for now, I would prefer going back to his Inspector Rebus novels.

On that note, I would award this book a rating of four on ten.

Rating – 4/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling – Book Review

 

Publisher’s write-up:

‘Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!’

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is the first book in the seven book Harry Potter series. Released in the late 90s, this book took the world by storm in the decade that followed – with an active fan base, roaring merchandise sales and a multimillion-dollar movie franchise. Despite all this, this is the first time I am reading this book by myself – this book was read to me when I was a child and thus, I always knew the story from the book, but it has taken several years before I picked it up myself.

Coming to the plot – there is a boy living with his spoiled cousin, uncle, and aunt. It started out as a typical fairy-tale of the oppressed orphan who had a greater calling and was to be guided to it by a guardian angel. And that he was, by Hagrid – the gamekeeper of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – came to pick Harry up and take him to ‘his world’ the world of magic. His parents were killed by a power hungry dark lord during the wizarding war but surprisingly, had himself incapacitated while trying to kill Harry; thus making him the Boy who lived, extremely famous among wizards for this feat, a fame which to this moment he is unaware of.

The book features Harry’s adventures in his first year of school, where he has two friends, Ron the funny one and Hermione, the smart one – thus forming the triangle of a standard young adult novel. There are various challenges Harry needs to face, adapting to the new world, learning the skills (whilst being a frequent target considering his fame) and of course, terrible things begin to happen at Hogwarts which the curious eleven year olds try to solve.

I would confess that when I was young, I have fantasised a lot of situations from the Harry Potter universe – wishing that my school were like Hogwarts and the amazing world that the wizards lived in. In that sense, the author had done an excellent job in capturing the imagination of the readers and that perhaps explains the fame that this had. We are introduced a fine range of characters with diverse characteristics, Albus Dumbledore – the protective headmaster of the school, the professors McGonagall and Snape; while the former was the disciplinarian, the latter maintained an air of mystery around him throughout the plot. There was Hagrid, who was the caring figure and provided Harry with the sense of family that he never had, and Malfoy – his rival who always seemed envious of Harry and his friends.

It was an engaging plot and certainly a page turner, as the curiosity surrounding the events in the school and also the reader’s quest to learn more about this new world kept me going (or what would have kept me going had I been introduced to it for the first time). While I praised the wide range of characters that were introduced, I also felt that they lacked the layers that normally produce characters whom we love. They were either good or evil and there was nobody in between. For instance, taking the example of Dursleys (Harry’s uncle and aunt) – they did not shy away from the responsibility they felt towards Harry, did not leave him to a foster home / orphanage and did raise him for eleven years. When such options were available to them, their behaviour towards him made no sense unless you buy into the logic that they are ‘evil people’. Same could be said for the other characters who played a negative role such as Draco Malfoy.

Again, I understand that this is a young adult novel and thus, the protagonist who is normally a schoolkid saves the day; however, one must understand that people like Headmaster Dumbledore are presented as infallible and the abilities of the other staff in the school are spoken of very highly. However, despite all this – it falls to the three curious first year students to ‘fix’ everything, which only has one conclusion, the management of the school was not as great as it was projected to be.

Over time, I have been a lot disillusioned with the kind of world that seems to have been portrayed in this universe, but I would address that separately in another article.

To conclude, I would say that it was a fine start to the series – and I would reiterate that it is a standard young adult novel (it is not ageless as the fans claim) and if you like such novels, this is certainly a great series to read and I would say with absolutely certainty that it is better to read the book than to watch the film.

I would rate this book six on ten.

Rating – 6/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

Intimations by Zadie Smith – Book Review

 

Publisher’s write-up:

‘Crafted with the sharp intelligence, wit and style that have won Zadie Smith millions of fans and suffused with a profound intimacy and tenderness in response to these unprecedented times, Intimations is a vital work of art, a gesture of connection and an act of love - an essential book in extraordinary times.’

Intimations is a set of six essays (with one of them having a lot of sub-essays within the essay) from the writer Zadie Smith written during the covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Considering we have lived through this pandemic, with each of us having our own experiences, it was interesting to read what a popular writer had to express during these times.

The book contains essays on diverse topics and are her opinions on various topics, including American exceptionalism, suffering, the strange society where demanding a basic need such as healthcare is deemed ‘radical’, self-hatred, and how the biggest virus threating us is contempt. I liked the essay titled ‘Something to do’ where the author writes about the problem we face during the pandemic – that we are under a compulsion to be engaged in something all the time. And during the pandemic, most of us have had a lot of time (even those who were employed cut down on travel time) and this was an issue that most of us faced and I could completely relate to it. However, what I found interesting was the author making a comparison with artists – that it is a problem that artists have had by nature of their profession and thus, she was familiar with it from before, but this is faced by everyone else at present – it gives us the opportunity to think about it and understand that we do not need something to do all the time.

My favourite essay here was – contempt as a virus – where she explains the contempt we have for certain groups – such as poor or minorities is the most dangerous virus we have at present. It is true that even in the most liberal environments, the locality is deemed unliveable if the percentage of undesirable minorities goes beyond a certain acceptable percentage and thus, are largely homogeneous societies. And this contempt spreads easily – from generation to generation and among peers within a generation – that most parents want their children to be among other children of similar background and not be stricken by the virus of poverty. This is something that everyone is affected by to varying degrees – including you and I.

There were a few essays where I was not sure what she was trying to express, one being Provocation in the Park, where she was disturbed by one of the signs held by a student – she was confused what he was trying to say but then, from what I understood, she never made any effort to talk to him and instead, just chose to write an essay about the placard. The final essay – Intimations too, I did not understand the intent, at first, I understood it to be her version of acknowledgements where she was thanking multiple people in her life, but the list soon becomes very generic and contains several people, including Muhammad Ali.

This is a book relevant given the times we are living in and it is a short read. The proceeds of the book go to a charity in New York and if you are compelled by that cause if not by the book, you are welcome to try it out. On that note, I award the book a rating of seven on ten.

Rating – 7/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo – Book Review

 

Publisher’s write-up:

‘In this revolutionary book, renowned MIT economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo take on this challenge, building on cutting-edge research in economics, explained with lucidity and grace. Original, provocative, and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times makes a persuasive case for intelligent interventions toward a society built on compassion and respect. It is an extraordinary book, one that will help us appreciate and understand our precariously balanced world.’

Good Economics for Hard Times is a book on topics of public policy the MIT economists and Nobel Laureates – Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. The book is split into nine chapters, dealing with the most contentious topics of the day such as immigration, economic growth, healthcare, tax cuts, environmental policy, education, and the impact of behavioural aspects in all of these.

Much as the title of the book suggests that it is a book relating to personal economics/ microeconomics, it is entirely directed towards public policy. The authors analyse various popularly held myths – such as immigration lowering wages, tax cuts leading to higher economic growth, misuse of funds by welfare recipients, etc. Following the election of madman Donald Trump in the 2016 US Presidential Election – the sole talking point for the next four years was the need to address the concerns of the blue-collar workers in the former industrial towns in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. This was analysed well in this book – about how there is very little that could be done about reviving a declining industry (like coal) but there was an interesting proposition about the government’s need to subsidise the wages of the employees who would be unable to immediately find another means of employment.

The book was very unlike a traditional economics book – wherein the ones proposing the theory is very sure of the list of chain reactions that is going to befall if a policy is implemented; for example, if rent controls are implemented, the rents will naturally rise to the market price and thus, the difference between the prescribed amount and market rate would lead to under table payments and undeclared income – leading to loss of federal revenue. The reality is, we are not sure if that would be the case and that is what is repeated several times in this book – that we do not know for sure what the effects of certain public policy would be, they might succeed sometimes and fail during other times. The authors start by saying that as of today, economists are one of the least trusted professionals after politicians and goes on to explain that economists are not like physicists but more like plumbers which involves a bit of intuition as well as experience. And as members of the public, we often try to draw our conclusions based on anecdotes rather than real data and the reasoning goes along the lines of, ‘I know my neighbour who spends all their welfare money on alcohol and cigarettes – therefore this policy is a failure’ whereas in reality, such persons are a small percentage of the total.

It could be frustrating for many to read ‘we do not know’ so many times for almost every issue but I found that refreshing because as someone who studied economics, I have never met a professor who was not certain of the consequences of a given policy. The goals of the writers seem clear here – it is only to inform the readers what their politicians and ‘experts’ is not based on fact but merely pursuing self-interests (eg – tax cuts).

The political positions of the authors are well known, and the bias is going to be present in the way they present the facts which I do not mind. But there were times I felt they were trying to justify a result which did not match with their hypothesis, which defeats the very purpose of the analysis. For instance – there was an analysis on whether privatisation of schools help and while the conclusion was that there was no evidence of efficient management / higher academic attainment in private schools, there was an exception noted in Libera – where the authors ended up explaining a result which they did not wish to observe.

I would also say that the title of the book is misleading – as the authors do not propose many solutions and thus, there is not much ‘good economics’ involved, merely identification of what is ‘bad economics’. I do not have an alternative to suggest and it is not my place to suggest one either.

This book was far less technical than the previous book of theirs that I read, which was Poor Economics, and I would have liked it better if this book had gone further into the details of each of these schemes and how it affected real people instead of presenting broad statistics. This does challenge a lot of perceptions that we popularly hold and in that sense, I would suggest that this could be read by everyone.

On that note, I would conclude by awarding this book a seven on ten.

Rating – 7/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

Maybe You should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb – Book Review

 

Publisher’s write-up:

‘Meet Lori Gottlieb, an insightful and compassionate therapist whose clients present her with all kinds of problems. There’s the struggling new parents; the older woman who feels she has nothing to live for; the self-destructive young alcoholic; and the terminally ill 35-year-old newlywed. And there’s John, a narcissistic television producer, who frankly just seems to be a bit of a jerk. Over the course of a year, they all make progress. But Gottlieb is not just a therapist–she’s also a patient who’s on a journey of her own. Interspersed with the stories of her clients are her own therapy sessions, as Gottlieb goes in search of the hidden roots of a devastating and life-changing event. Personal, revealing, funny, and wise, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone opens a rare window onto a world that is most often bound by secrecy, offering an illuminating tour of a profoundly private process.’

Maybe You should Talk to Someone is a collection of experiences from the clinical psychologist Lori Gottlieb, the experiences which include her personal struggles, her sessions with patients (I believe the names are changed for confidentiality) and with herself being a patient dealing with a personal situation where she approaches a therapist. The book has four parts – but there is no particular theme for each; and every chapter deals with her session with a particular patient or her experience with her therapist.

The book begins on her personal side, on her unable to deal with the breakup she had with her boyfriend. Through a recommendation from her friend, she meets Wendell Bronson – who is her therapist throughout the book. Her patients include John, a television producer – highly temperamental and to whom most people are ‘idiots’, Charlotte – a young woman who has trouble in her relationship and takes alcohol to cope with it, Julie – a woman in her 30s and diagnosed with cancer and Rita, a 69-year-old who has given herself another year to live. There are a few other patients whom there were passing references but were not repeated.

This book starts with describing what therapy is (and what it is not) – describing her everyday job, her office and how different Wendell’s office was, which caught her off guard at first. This clears scepticism and apprehensions many might have over therapy. Millennials were branded as the therapy generation which I would say is good – and this book can provide an insight into what it means to be in therapy, which could be required given the mental state of many people during the pandemic (across generations). I liked the way how her relationship with her patients progressed – especially the one with John, who seemed impossible to deal with initially but eventually, she could connect with him and looked forward to the sessions with him. It was also the same case with her therapist Wendell, who had often deployed some unorthodox methods to bring her to reality and refused to budge when she wanted someone to confirm her righteousness following the breakup.

Some of the concepts that the book talked about was very interesting – especially the Italy – Netherlands analogy that was used by the writer to one of her patients; when you are in a place you do not want to be (here, the example was – planned a trip to Italy, boarded the wrong flight and ended up in The Netherlands, but the latter is a wonderful place too and must be explored and has a lot to offer and is better to enjoy that rather than brood over what has been missed). The writer herself seems to have had a very interesting life, a single mother – who worked in the entertainment industry, then tried out at medical school before deciding to become a clinical psychologist – and she introduces each of these phases in different parts of the book (non-linear) where the reader could unpack her personality little by little.

My concern with the book was that I felt that it was at times directionless – what was she trying to say through her book? Her personal struggles? The struggles of her patients? Her experience with the therapist? A lot of it was brought out in the initial stages and many phases in between seemed redundant till the end when she decided to reveal the revelations on most of the patients. I also felt that she occasionally engineered a fitting end for each of the characters mentioned in the book – because therapy often requires a lot of time and is a continuing process rather than one that has a definite end. Here, I am making the assumption that the only change the writer has made to these persons are their names, whereas one could speculate whether all of them were fictitious to begin with. The book could have also perhaps had more men, the only men in all of it were John, her ex, Wendell and her son – that could also be because there are more women in the profession and women tend to seek help more than men.

Just to add my opinion, which is not entirely related to the book, is that therapy is something that anybody could benefit from (regardless of whether you are facing mental health issues or not, like how we have a general health check up with the GP even when we are not sick) – and it is good that such books dispel a lot of misconceptions and apprehensions that surround the practice.

To conclude, I would say that the book was a good read, well written and easy to go through for those not in the field, not many technical terms are thrown around. I would award the book a rating of seven on ten.

Rating – 7/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

Don’t be Sad by Aidh al-Qarni – Book Review

Don’t be Sad is an attempted self-help book from the cleric Aidh al-Qarni. While the focus of the book is to urge us to not be sad, the book does touch upon other aspects of life – how to be grateful, how to serve god, how to improve oneself, etc.

I would add the disclaimer that I am an atheist and I did not grow up in an Islamic environment – however, I read the book with no pre-conceived notions and I am mature enough to convert a god inspired advice to a eliminate the elements of god and take in only the good.

The book turned out to be a best seller and was highly popular; I often read reviews that even though the writer was inspired from Islam, this book is appealing to everyone. There are some aspects of religion that I find common across all – an all powerful god who has everything pre-determined, a loving god who has created the entire universe, etc. – so these are aspects that I was not a stranger to even though I was not entirely familiar with the teachings of Islam. People of any faith if they are open enough to read a text from another source can appreciate these aspects. I also appreciated that he tried to encourage people to travel and read.

My laboured effort to say something positive on the book ends here, the book was neither well written, nor edited well and I normally do not mind minor printing errors when the book is good but for a book like this, the least that one could have had was flawless publishing (often had ‘1’ in place of ‘l’). Moreover, there was no clear distinction between when he was quoting from the Quran and when he was giving his own commentary; and for the first few pages – we had text in Arabic and I don’t know why. I do not mind the Arabic as I find the script beautiful even though I can’t read, but the use of Arabic has to be consistent. I found that in the first fifty odd passages and then, it was just lost and there were times where it was nearly impossible to distinguish where he was quoting the verses and where it was a commentary.

Coming to the contents, this is addressed to highly privileged Muslims of the world – where he told his readers not to be ‘sad’ because they have a roof over their head, clothes to wear, water to drink, food to eat, etc. I agree with the reasoning for those who have these privileges (and probably those who are reading this book do) – but then, I don’t think he can say these words with a straight face to the people struggling in Yemen and Syria, the poor in Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, etc. (the reason why I picked these states is because the author repeatedly claims that there is nothing to be sad as they are following the one true religion and have all their basic needs covered which is not true for a lot of people in these countries that have a substantial population who adhere to Islam).

I try my best to not bring in logic to a book that fundamentally draws its inspiration from religion but I need to say that this book had instances where it was unintentionally funny; among the many contradictions, I would note one – as to how everything is pre-determined by god so there is no reason to be sad, but that also implies that one being sad at a particular moment is also pre-determined by god and so, why should one resist this pre-determined decision of god to be sad at a particular moment?

It also must be noted that this author is a known plagiarist from with multiple allegations of plagiarism – including for this book (similarities with Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living). There was a comment in his book where he condemned China for use of torture against their prisoners (and claimed they would face god’s wrath); while I condemn those acts too, it was very strange coming from someone in Saudi Arabia – which is known for its record on human rights violations. Moreover, Saudi Arabia claims to do all this in the name of Islam – I am not here to debate whether Saudi Arabia’s interpretation is right, they probably are not – but the least he could have done, if that was his opinion, was to condemn his own country there for misusing Islam for their own political goals (isn’t hereditary succession against Islam to begin with?).

This book can be read if you can overlook him using pejorative terms of people of other religions and countries, if you could overlook misogyny and the obvious logical contradictions. Whether you choose to be sad or not is different, but don’t read this book. I award the book a rating of two on ten.

Rating – 2/10

Have a nice day,

Andy

The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson – Book Review

 

Afin de lire mon avis en français, cliquez ici

Publisher’s write-up:

‘In this book a master scientist tells the great story of how life on earth evolved. E.O. Wilson eloquently describes how the species of the world became diverse, and why the threat to this diversity today is beyond the scope of anything we have known before. In an extensive new foreword for this edition, Professor Wilson addresses the explosion of the field of conservation biology and takes a clear-eyed look at the work still to be done.’

The Diversity of Life is a text from the naturalist and biologist, Edward O. Wilson. The book has three aspects to it, the first exploring the origins of life in landmass (the author took the example of Krakatoa), and then explained the various aspects of biodiversity before moving on the human impact on biodiversity.

The author elaborates the importance of biodiversity – and how it helps the ecosystem at large survive. The book is high on detail, at times a tad too high. This was an issue considering I have no background in biology and I last heard words like phylum during high school biology. It was difficult to understand all aspects of the second part of the book. There were illustrations to support the reader but that was not of much help.

However, I enjoyed the third part – mainly because I could relate to it, when the author spoke of the human impact. The author analysed the impact humans have had since the beginning of the race – the impact of their arrival in North America, Australia, etc. which had a direct correlation with a loss of biodiversity. He also explored various economic challenges that we face in the quest to preserve biodiversity – as it is often a choice between livelihoods of people and life of other organisms. The challenge is amplified by the fact that most of the biodiversity is in the developing world and it is a difficult point to sell to not industrialise in the same manner as the developed nations of the past (the author did suggest alternatives).

I found it interesting that our habits when it comes to food has not changed for centuries – and this is an example the author gives as a benefit of exploring biodiversity – as there are several varieties of food which provide additional nutrients, are easier to grow / rear (in case of livestock), etc.

This is a highly informative book that could be enjoyed by people who have some background in the subject. In my case, I do not have any background in biology except up to high school and thus, that was also the downside of the book, that is, this book felt like reading a textbook. Also, this book goes back and forth when it comes to evolution / origin of life and I might have personally preferred if the author had approached a more chronological approach while presenting the facts which would have been easier for me to follow.

I would also need to mention that the book was published in 1992 and thus, the writer was unusually optimistic about politicians’ tendency to accept facts regarding climate change. The author took a pragmatic approach in what he believed were solutions – acknowledging that it is difficult to balance economic development and biodiversity – but believed that politicians regardless of their political view would see the threat of climate change and three decades on, we know that the opposite is true.

Considering the above, I would award the book a rating of six on ten.

Rating – 6/10

Have a nice day,
Andy