Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated, is difficult to digest. She’s the youngest of seven children in a fundamentalist Mormon family in rural Idaho. Her father rules with the proverbial iron fist. He’s a survivalist, a millennialist, a conspiracy-theorist. He keeps his children out of school, refuses them medical care, continually places them in physical danger. Her mother resists in small ways but ultimately caves whenever the father demands her submission. One of her brothers educates himself well enough to get into BYU and encourages Tara to […]
When other people keep making your point for you.
I follow a ton of art historians, museums and academics on Twitter, and Mary Beard is one of my favourites. I genuinely love her tweets and have been surprised to see how many people are willing to troll her, and ignore her academic bona fides because she dares discuss sexism and diversity in the ancient world, not to mention being an older woman in an academic field (Classics) where almost all well-known presenters are male. Beard, a Cambridge University Don, was most recently involved in a tempest about the distinct […]
We need to talk about Haruki
My other possible title for this review was “Now I know how to quit you”. You see, I have a long, complicated relationship with Murakami. I read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle something like thirteen years ago. I devoured that book. It was weird and fun and compelling. And deeply unsatisfying. Much like his other books, the whole is far less than the sum of its parts. And yet, I keep reading more. I’m honestly not sure why, when there are so many books to read in this way-too-short […]
How flattering, I said, meaning the opposite
Hey you. You. I’m talking to you. A human living in the world in 2017 who takes things like The Handmaid’s Tale incredibly personally. A human living in the world in 2017 who is horrified by what has been happening for centuries in a very real, cold-blooded, and methodical way to the Native American community. A human living in the world in 2017 who cannot believe that people don’t believe in science and climate change. A human living in the world in 2017 who still finds […]