{"id":121869,"date":"2020-11-28T00:43:22","date_gmt":"2020-11-27T21:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-20-books-you-need-to-read-in-winter-2020\/"},"modified":"2020-11-28T00:43:22","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T21:43:22","slug":"the-20-books-you-need-to-read-in-winter-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-20-books-you-need-to-read-in-winter-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"#The 20 books you need to read in winter 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a41586b53649\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a41586b53649\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-20-books-you-need-to-read-in-winter-2020\/#SPECULATIVE_FICTION\" >SPECULATIVE FICTION<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-20-books-you-need-to-read-in-winter-2020\/#THRILLING_READS\" >THRILLING READS<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-20-books-you-need-to-read-in-winter-2020\/#MEMOIR_BIOGRAPHY\" >MEMOIR\/ BIOGRAPHY<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-20-books-you-need-to-read-in-winter-2020\/#FAMILY_MATTERS\" >FAMILY MATTERS<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-20-books-you-need-to-read-in-winter-2020\/#MORE_GREAT_READS\" >MORE GREAT READS<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#The 20 books you need to read in winter 2020<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n                                                                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignnone size-featured-image-landscape wp-image-1213551 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-ALL-COVERS-766x431.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"766\" height=\"431\"\/><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"SPECULATIVE_FICTION\"><\/span>SPECULATIVE FICTION<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1212337 size-featured-image-portrait lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-2084-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"The 2084 Report\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>The 2084 Report <\/em><\/strong>by\u00a0James Lawrence Powell<\/p>\n<p>Most academics can write, but James Lawrence Powell can plot. The eminent 84-year-old geologist, who has an asteroid named after him, is the author of the 2019 scholarly article, \u201cScientists Reach 100 Per Cent Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming,\u201d and a very worried man. He\u2019s also a fan of the American oral historian Studs Terkel. So when Powell wanted to look back, so to speak, from the viewpoint of an iconic year\u2014exactly a century after the date George Orwell had once predicted for a dystopia\u2014to see what global warming had done between now and then, he followed in Terkel\u2019s steps. Powell\u2019s unnamed historian listens, via satellite phone, to people around the world describe, often bitterly, seemingly disparate situations that eventually tie together.<\/p>\n<p>An Indigenous Brazilian, 90 years old and the last of his tribe, speaks of watching 95 per cent of the Amazon rainforest burn during his lifetime, affecting, as the historian notes, rainfall as far north as the American plains. A French journalist talks about her <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">travel<\/a>s through Spain and Italy, recording kilometre after kilometre of dead olive groves and abandoned vacation homes as southern Europe turns to desert. Even so, she tells the historian, millions of climate refugees continue to surge in from lands battered harder still. Refugees, or rather strict measures to keep them out, also highlight a conversation with an Australian historian.<\/p>\n<p>Deadly as fire and drought can be, water is literally life and death. Peru collapsed into violent anarchy after the Andean glacier that was Lima\u2019s sole source of water was no more. A massive storm, born over an ocean 0.6 m higher than it was in 2000, destroyed New York in 2042, killing thousands and toppling the Statue of Liberty. Ten years later, a third of Rotterdam\u2019s 800,000 people perished when the same deadly combination sent a 30-m surge upon it. By 2084, half of the Netherlands had been reclaimed by the North Sea. And a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, brought on by an existential clash over water rights after shrinking Himalayan glaciers caused rivers to dry up, killed 150 million.<\/p>\n<p>And there\u2019s something special for Canadian readers: the 2046 Canadian-American war, in which Powell works out his version of Thucydides\u2019 savage maxim, \u201cthe strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.\u201d The story is told by the last premier of the province of Manitoba, who came out of the war the first governor of the state of Manitoba. For years, well-armed American climate refugees from the dried-out southern plains states had been illegally crossing into Canada. After one group seized a Manitoba town, Ottawa countered with a corps of Mounties, and Washington\u2014just as its already prepared war plan dictated\u2014with an armoured brigade from North Dakota. Canada, thinking resistance might bring better terms than abject surrender, declares war.<\/p>\n<p>The struggle was more spirited than might be expected\u2014the bloody battle for Ottawa lasted 11 days\u2014but might prevailed in the end, and Canada was annexed. Forty years later, older Canadians are still embittered, but the younger generation is proud of their American citizenship. As the governor tells the historian, some Canadians might have hailed the early effects of climate change when it lengthened the growing season, but they soon learned that no one was a climate change winner: \u201cThe lesson from Canada, or from tiny Iceland, now a Chinese province, is that any country that <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ears to be winning just becomes a target for takeover by a larger and more powerful loser.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for the aim of this compulsively readable\u2014and all too believable\u2014tale of catastrophe, it\u2019s clearly more cathartic than polemical on Powell\u2019s part. His historian asks archly whether having <em>The 2084 Report<\/em> somehow sent back to the 2020s by time machine might make a difference. All in all, he thinks not: \u201cSomething is wrong with us. We have the intellectual ability to invent the means of our destruction, but not the reasoning ability to stop ourselves from using it.\u201d <strong>\u2014Brian Bethune<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212341 alignleft lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-BLAZE-ISLAND-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Blaze Island\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><em><strong>Blaze Island<\/strong> <\/em>by\u00a0Catherine Bush<\/p>\n<p>In a very near future, after a monster hurricane swings by an island off Newfoundland, a woman named Miranda, the daughter of \u201cphilosopher magus\u201d Milan\u2014actually a climate scientist on the run\u2014confronts a changed reality. Bush\u2019s deeply resonant ecological retelling of <em>The Tempest <\/em>showcases a \u201cbrave new world\u201d as ironic as Shakespeare\u2019s: brave because it is startling, dangerous and inescapable for those left alive; new because it really isn\u2019t, merely the whirlwind humanity has sowed for its children to reap. \u201cStorms,\u201d <em>Blaze Island <\/em>repeats, \u201cstir up the past,\u201d not only that of Miranda and her father, but of all of us.\u00a0<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212347 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-GOOD-GERMAN-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"The Good German\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><em><strong>The Good German<\/strong> <\/em>by\u00a0Dennis Bock<\/p>\n<p>When this darkly absorbing alternate history opens in a fictional Ontario town, Nazi Germany has just won the Second World War. By 1960, teenaged William Teufel\u2014his surname means \u201cdevil\u201d\u2014a second-generation German-Canadian, has suffered a lifetime of abuse and contempt directed at his ancestry. When ethnic hatred in a wounded and still angry Canada boils over into lynching and house burning, the young devil feels driven to a decision that will bring him to many strange places and one extraordinary character. <em>The Good German<\/em> marks the return of Bock, the 56-year-old son of postwar German immigrants to Canada, to the fictional terrain\u2014and questions about the value of personal agency and individual choice in the face of inexorable historical tides\u2014that he explored in his 2001 debut novel, <em>The Ash Garden<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>This time, however, the ground has violently shifted. In 1939, Bock\u2019s Georg Elser, unlike the real-life Elser, succeeds in his be-careful-what-you-wish-for plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, and Nazi power passes into far more competent hands. Hermann G\u00f6ring does not invade Russia, but he does negotiate a non-aggression pact with Nazi-friendly U.S. president Joseph Kennedy. (The latter\u2014in a wonderfully prescient plot point\u2014won the 1940 American presidential election after incumbent Franklin Roosevelt fell ill in the waning days of the campaign.) Eventually, G\u00f6ring leverages German physicists\u2019 nuclear headstart into the atomic bomb he uses to destroy London and win the war.<\/p>\n<p>After William makes his choice he meets Elser, a man devastated by, but stoically enduring in the face of what his \u201csuccess\u201d 20 years before has wrought. And it becomes impossible to tell who\u2014if anyone at all\u2014is the title character, as all of Bock\u2019s themes come to vibrant and disturbing life.\u00a0<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212345 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEWCROSSHAIRS-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Crosshairs\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>Crosshairs <\/em><\/strong>by\u00a0Catherine Hernandez<\/p>\n<p>In this near-future Canada, as in most contemporary dystopias, the cause lies in ecological collapse, but the new state that arises in the wake of floods and food shortages is arrestingly distinct. White supremacist and virulently hetero-normative as well as oligarchic, the regime is repressive for almost everyone but actively murderous toward the \u201cOthers\u201d\u2014the people of colour, the LGBTQ community and the disabled it forces into labour camps. Hernandez, author of <em>Scarborough<\/em>, an acclaimed 2017 novel set in Toronto\u2019s most maligned inner suburb, writes with the angry urgency of someone who doesn\u2019t believe the world she\u2019s outlined is all that far-fetched.<\/p>\n<p>Or just for other people to worry about: Hernandez describes herself as \u201ca queer woman of colour,\u201d just as her main protagonist, Kay, calls himself \u201ca queer femme Jamaican Filipino man.\u201d The more \u201cother\u201d any character is, the more danger they face. White gay people can \u201cpass,\u201d but people like Kay are at risk every moment of their lives. For all the novel\u2019s driving, intense plot line, it is the tension that boils up in the resistance over degrees of \u201cotherness\u201d\u2014and hence of risk\u2014that gives <em>Crosshairs<\/em> its power.\u00a0<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"THRILLING_READS\"><\/span>THRILLING READS<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212343 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEWRED-PEAK-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"The Children of Red Peak\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>The Children of Red Peak\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Craig DiLouie<\/p>\n<p>Prolific and genre-bending, Calgary-based DiLouie has a well-earned reputation for so adeptly exploring psychological horror that the eventual emergence of the supernatural seems both shocking and inevitable. Familiarly human, in fact. In this remarkable story, the now-grown childhood survivors of the night their religious cult committed mass suicide 15 years before are understandably traumatized. When one of them kills herself, the others return to Red Peak to confront their memories, and come face to face with the shattering and thought-provoking truth.\u00a0<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212353 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-PIRANESI-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Piranesi\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>Piranesi<\/em><\/strong> by\u00a0Susanna Clarke<\/p>\n<p>This is Clarke\u2019s first novel since her extraordinary 2004 debut, <em>Jonathan Strange &amp; Mr. Norrell<\/em>, a fantasy set in a Regency-era Britain ruled by magic. That novel channelled Jane Austen. Her newest, about an amnesiac protagonist trapped\u2014happily\u2014in a vast labyrinth of statue-lined marble halls, is suffused with C.S. Lewis and the Narnia books, from one particular statue (a startled faun) to the underlying theme that this is where we belong, humanity\u2019s true home. Piranesi is beautiful, beguiling and wholly unique.\u00a0<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212339 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEWATTACK-SURFACE-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Attack Surface\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>Attack Surface<\/em><\/strong> by\u00a0Cory Doctorow<\/p>\n<p>The title refers to the points in a software system where a hacker can intrude or extract data, the implications of which have animated Doctorow\u2019s fiction for years. Masha Maximow is a cybersecurity operative who makes a handsome living helping governments control dissidents by turning their own devices against them. But Masha also has a con<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/sciencee\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"5\" title=\"Science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">science<\/a>, and when she decides to aid some old friends, the tension and sobering revelations of how vulnerable we all are make this novel one of the Canadian-born author\u2019s finest.\u00a0<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"MEMOIR_BIOGRAPHY\"><\/span>MEMOIR\/ BIOGRAPHY<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212349 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-LEONARD-COHEN-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Leonard Cohen: untold stories: the early years\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: The Early Years\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Michael Posner<\/p>\n<p>Early on in his oral history of Leonard Cohen, veteran Canadian journalist Michael Posner writes about Jewish scholars who were said to know the Talmud so well they could stick a pin in it and, without looking, tell you what word it had hit. Posner\u2019s book, the first of a planned trilogy, emerges from similarly obsessive study: covering the time between Cohen\u2019s childhood and his first European tour in 1970, it draws on more than 500 interviews with people who were close to him\u2014whether for decades or just a few hours.<\/p>\n<p>While there\u2019s no shortage of Cohen biographies and documentaries, Posner\u2019s book offers an impressively thorough excavation of stories, including some gems and, well, dirt. Together, his sources\u2019 various positions and perspectives create a cubist portrait of the Montreal-born icon as a young man\u2014and simultaneously an artist, intellectual, prankster, bon vivant, workaholic and dabbler in everything from macrobiotics to Scientology to the Buddhism he would later practise. The wife of one friend recalls \u201cgazing in awe at his profound eyes. I felt I was in the company of one of our universe\u2019s most incredible beings . . . My mind flew into the beauty of his poet\u2019s voice.\u201d The less enthralled wife of another friend says, \u201cI was dealing with a seducer, of men and women . . . I lost track of him after he became a star, and I\u2019m glad I did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cohen\u2019s unslakable thirst for experience\u2014aided by charm and family money\u2014made of his early life a pampered picaresque, and the candid tales Posner elicits and deftly assembles range from the fascinating to the exhaustively predictable. The men in Cohen\u2019s earlier life tended to be competitors, drinking buddies, hangers-on, or all three. The women were objects of lust, muses or simply unfathomable\u2014like the refreshingly blunt Carol Zemel (who was married to yet another friend). She describes being left alone with Cohen at his apartment: \u201cHe sat there and hid from me, under a blanket, for 20 minutes, a half-hour.\u201d We also glimpse the unsavoury, the sordid and the sad\u2014as the friends of his on-again, off-again love, Marianne Ihlen, speak about the abortions she had at his behest.<\/p>\n<p>In later life, Cohen would become reflective and gracious. Here, in his long formative period, he remains elusive. His own quotes are drawn from other (mostly unattributed) sources, and his work is explored in terms of its connections with people he knew. Nonetheless, if Cohen\u2019s your man and you\u2019re his fan, you\u2019ll want this book. <strong>\u2014Mike Doherty<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212356 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-THE-GARDEN-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Through the Garden\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><em><strong>Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats)<\/strong> <\/em>by\u00a0Lorna Crozier<\/p>\n<p>The celebrated B.C.-based poet follows her late husband and fellow poet Patrick Lane\u2019s brilliant garden-themed memoir with one of her own, equally attuned to seasonal rhythms and just as moving. There are moments of joy and lyrical description, and stretches of unflinching honesty. Some arise from Lane\u2019s\u2014and hence, Crozier\u2019s\u2014struggle with his alcoholism. More turn on her fear, exhaustion and loneliness as a mysterious illness devoured Lane\u2019s final years. They add up, as the subtitle promises and one of Crozier\u2019s poems unveils, to a 40-year love story: This morning I said, Poem me. \/ And we made of our lives a poem.\u00a0<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212340 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEWBLACK-WATER-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Black Water\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><em><strong>Black Water<\/strong> <\/em>by\u00a0David A. Robertson<\/p>\n<p>A Governor <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General<\/a> Award-winning YA author and as loving a son as can be imagined, Robertson is the child of a Cree father and a settler mother. Raised outside the Cree world and its language, he has spent years striving to bring himself into accord with his Indigenous heritage by understanding how his father\u2019s experiences, especially the legacy of residential schools, played out in his own life. There is plenty of scope for anger here, but virtually none emerges in this generous and graceful family memoir, framed around a father-son journey to the remote trapline where his father\u2019s early childhood unfolded.\u00a0<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212352 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-CAITLIN-MORAN-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"More Than a Woman\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><em><strong>More Than a Woman<\/strong> by\u00a0<\/em><em>Caitlin Moran<\/em><br \/>\nCaitlin Moran grew up the eldest of seven kids in a crammed council house in England, and received no formal education from age 11 onward. That experience continues, presumably, to influence her irreverently DIY, freewheeling take on the world and on the subject that has preoccupied her the most, feminism, which she expresses in her long-running London <em>Times<\/em> column, on <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a> and in her bestselling 2011 memoir, <em>How to Be a Woman<\/em>. A follow-up to that book, <em>More Than a Woman<\/em> treads some of the same ground, but from the ostensibly sager perch of middle age. It opens, memorably, with a 34-year-old Moran receiving a visit from her 44-year-old future self, who, after chastising the younger Caitlin for the hubris of thinking she\u2019s got everything figured out, gives her a glimpse of the shocking self-betrayal to come a decade hence: \u201cBotox! You have Botox! But you can\u2019t! It\u2019s not feminist! I\u2019ve just written a whole chapter on why it\u2019s a betrayal of every value I have!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chapters are titled for each hour of the day, beginning with \u201cThe Hour of the List,\u201d the list being \u201call the things that stand between me and a perfect life,\u201d but which, like a rigged midway <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/game\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"7\" title=\"Game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">game<\/a>, can never be conquered owing to its exasperating mix of the easily achievable and the laughably ambitious (Moran\u2019s list includes \u201cblinds for bedroom,\u201d \u201cRead <em>Das Kapital<\/em>,\u201d and \u201cfleas\u201d). \u201cThe Hour of Married Sex,\u201d meanwhile, offers tips for keeping things fresh in a 20-year union (on sex toys: \u201cPros: a rapidly vibrating item is never a bad idea\u201d; cons: \u201cjust more bloody possessions that need dusting, and batteries\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>As those examples suggest, the default here is upbeat hilarity and self-acceptance\u2014Moran genuinely likes her aging body, and is a willing embracer of what she calls the \u201cHag Years\u201d\u2014but there\u2019s also a touching seriousness, especially when Moran discusses her teenage daughter\u2019s five-year struggle with an eating disorder. These and other crises have left her with deep appreciation for the joys of normalcy and the mundane; something we could all do with a little of right now. <strong>\u2014Emily Donaldson<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212354 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-MITHYMNA-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Reaching Mithymna\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>Reaching Mithymna\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Steven Heighton<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, Steven Heighton went to the Greek island of Lesbos to put his halting Greek, his mother\u2019s native tongue, to work as a volunteer among the surge of Syrian refugees arriving in Europe. The Canadian author wasn\u2019t starry-eyed to begin with, and there was little in his experiences alongside dedicated aid workers\u2014under-resourced or, like him, unqualified\u2014and traumatized refugees, to change that. Even more than pandemic fatigue, the refugee tragedy illustrates our ability to normalize what should never be normalized. What once dominated headlines began fading from global attention long before COVID-19. Heighton\u2019s harrowing and moving book about his time in Greece, with its rich array of characters and finely expressed understanding of the pain of exile, wrenches our gaze back to the refugees and refuses to let go.\u00a0<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"FAMILY_MATTERS\"><\/span>FAMILY MATTERS<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212344 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-COLD-MILLIONS-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"The Cold Millions\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>The Cold Millions\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Jess Walter<\/p>\n<p>Set during the 1909 free speech fight in his native Spokane, Wash.\u2014when workers rose up to denounce unscrupulous employers and corrupt police\u2014Walter\u2019s first novel since the remarkable <em>Beautiful Ruins <\/em>(2012) is a sweeping, genre-busting (North) Western. There are hobos and hired guns, unionists and anarchists, fist fights and bombs, and a pregnant teenage firebrand activist drawn from real life. Sure the social protest is on the nose, but <em>The Cold Millions <\/em>is also a tremendously fun read. <strong>\u2014M.D.<\/strong><br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212351 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-MONOGAMY-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Monogamy\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>Monogamy <\/em><\/strong>by\u00a0Sue Miller<\/p>\n<p>Sue Miller has been writing about families and relationships for decades in her trademark domestic, high-realist style, one she consistently elevates through patient, unshowy craftsmanship. Her latest concerns Annie, a middle-aged photographer from Massachusetts whose grief following the sudden death of her beloved, bookstore-owning husband, Graham, is compounded when she discovers that he\u2019d been unfaithful. Miller\u2019s portrayal of this muddied grief resonates; still, the lifeblood of this novel lies in the interactions between its exceptionally vivid cast of secondary characters.<b>\u00a0<strong>\u2014E.D.<\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212338 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-CREATIVITY-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"The Age of Creativity\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><em><strong>The Age of Creativity<\/strong> <\/em>by\u00a0Emily Urquhart<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t simply that Urquhart, daughter of artist Tony Urquhart, could see her father working into his 80s, but that he was also exploring new modes of expression, which led her to take a fresh look at the last years of other artists. Society\u2019s default assumption that the elderly, if they are productive at all, produce no truly new art, is refuted by the works\u2014from Francisco Goya\u2019s lithography to Claude Monet\u2019s water lilies\u2014explored in this innovative blend of memoir and art history.\u00a0<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212350 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-LYING-ADULTS-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"The Lying Life of Adults\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>The Lying Life of Adults <\/em><\/strong>by\u00a0Elena Ferrante<\/p>\n<p>Elena Ferrante\u2019s latest novel resembles its predecessors, the blockbuster Neapolitan quartet, in several obvious ways. It\u2019s set in Naples, for one, and has, as its focus, the relationship and shifting power dynamic between two females, one studious and sensible\u2014at least at the outset\u2014the other possessed of a dark yet irresistible charisma. The difference is that the two aren\u2019t peers, but members of the same family.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Lying Life of Adults<\/em> begins when 13-year-old Giovanna, after overhearing her father compare her to his despised, estranged sister, Vittoria, asks to meet her mysterious doppelg\u00e4nger. Though reluctant at first, her parents eventually agree, assuming she\u2019ll see for herself. Instead, Giovanna finds herself besotted. Vittoria, who continues to hold a candle for the long-dead married lover whom Giovanna\u2019s genteel Marxist intellectual father drove away, is, unlike the latter, vulgar, fiery and deeply devout. Embittered and vengeful, she uses her newfound relationship with Giovanna to unleash renewed chaos on the family, setting her niece on a downward path, figuratively and literally, into Naples\u2019 lower regions. There, Giovanna discovers sex, religion, passion, but also an unexpected raw truth that seems to expose her parents\u2019 hypocrisy with regard to their own marriage and high-flown ideals. Ambiguity prevails. Everyone seems to be lying, so Giovanna starts lying, too, and discovers she loves it.<\/p>\n<p>Like an Italian Proust, Ferrante\u2019s words often feel less written than unleashed; they pour forth in a torrent, as if scrambling to keep up with her thoughts. Interwoven elements of myth, fairy tale and fantasy\u2014there\u2019s a family heirloom, a gold bracelet, that acts, Tolkien-esquely, as a corrupting force\u2014deepen this relentlessly compelling, at times emotionally violent, coming-of-age story.<b>\u00a0<strong>\u2014E.D.<\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212348 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-HOMELAND-ELEGIES-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Homeland Elegies\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>Homeland Elegies\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Ayad Akhtar<\/p>\n<p>Any novel featuring a character carrying the same name as the author, let alone an identical moment of controversy\u2014a Muslim-American character admits to a flicker of pride when the planes smashed into the towers on 9\/11\u2014probably does require <em>Homeland Elegies<\/em>\u2019 disclaimer: \u201cThis is not an autobiography. This is a novel.\u201d But whether creator and work can be separated, like the uncertainty of which homeland Akhtar\u2014the Staten Island-born son of Pakistani immigrants\u2014means at any given moment, are only two of the questions raised by this exquisitely smart book.<\/p>\n<p>It explores life in America since the Reagan years through faith, family and money. There is the protagonist\u2019s mother, pining for home\u2014when she comments on 9\/11 it\u2019s to say how \u201cthey\u201d (meaning the U.S.) had it coming, while her son finds \u201cwe\u201d an ambiguous word. His cardiologist father briefly treated Donald Trump and remains an ardent supporter. Ayad is taught capitalism\u2019s unpleasant secrets by a Muslim hedge fund manager. They all illuminate America\u2019s new gilded age, as Akhtar\u2014like many an immigrant before him\u2014holds a mirror to his country that few native-borns can manage.<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"MORE_GREAT_READS\"><\/span>MORE GREAT READS<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212355 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-SEX-ROBOTS-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Sex Robots and Vegan Meat\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><em><strong>Sex Robots and Vegan Meat<\/strong> <\/em>by Jenny Kleeman<\/p>\n<p>For Homer Simpson, alcohol is \u201cthe cause of, and solution to, all of life\u2019s problems.\u201d Others might argue it\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a>. While advances in areas such as medical science, communication and industrialized agriculture have made so many aspects of our lives more efficient and convenient, they have also thrown up unforeseen challenges, from climate change to alienation to new moral dilemmas. It\u2019s a good thing there are start-ups ready to bail us out.<\/p>\n<p>Or is it? Kleeman, a London-based journalist and filmmaker, delves into emerging tech that promises to create partners for the lonely, as well as lab-grown meat to curb the mass farming and slaughter of animals, artificial \u201cbiobag\u201d wombs to help women with corporate careers maintain their unforgiving schedules, and coffins for DIY euthanasia in places where assisted dying is illegal\u2014i.e., mostly everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>Armed with skepticism and investigative shrewdness, Kleeman tracks down the owners of companies that want to revolutionize sex, food, birth and death. She attends glitzy reveals of prototypes that are meant to whip up media frenzy and attract investment, and then pokes around behind the scenes to find out just how close they are to hitting the market. Often, the answer is \u201cnot very\u201d: the lab-grown chicken is disgustingly mushy and its provenance suspect; the \u201cunderwhelming\u201d coffin isn\u2019t actually functional; the \u201crobots\u201d are at best AI heads on dolls\u2019 bodies. All along the way, she is given evasive answers about the progress of the technology and the monetary and planetary resources required to develop it.<\/p>\n<p>Kleeman also speaks with critics of these technologies, and potential customers\u2014from a woman with multiple sclerosis who wants to die with dignity to incels on message boards for radicalized men who want sex robots and artificial wombs to make women obsolete. And while her reporting on this technology couldn\u2019t hope to be up-to-the-minute, its scope offers admirable engagement and insight. Kleeman observes that the solutions these companies promise \u201care too alluring for them not ever to exist\u201d\u2014even if these particular ventures fail. There are important questions, then, we should address while it\u2019s not too late.<\/p>\n<p>For one, how will access to this technology be controlled or granted, and will it increase inequality\u2014along lines of income or gender? As Kleeman notes, it\u2019s mostly men devising these products, but \u201cwomen will be disproportionately affected\u201d by them. What\u2019s more, why don\u2019t we humans attempt more collaborative solutions? Kleeman insists that \u201cprogress\u201d isn\u2019t simply the unstoppable march of technology; it\u2019s \u201cthe courage to choose a different mindset.\u201d What if we provided therapy for those who feel they\u2019re unable to forge relationships? What if we cut down on eating meat? What if we provided more societal support for pregnant women? What if the determination to die, among those with chronic illnesses, were treated with compassion? What if we simply changed our behaviour, rather than asking technology to change the world around us?<b>\u00a0<strong>\u2014M.D.<\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212346 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-UNPRINTABLE-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Details are Unprintable\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><em><strong>Details Are Unprintable<\/strong> <\/em>by Allan Levine<\/p>\n<p>If true crime is popular for the same reasons as much fictional crime\u2014social history with a puzzle aspect\u2014the so-called New York Caf\u00e9 Society Murder is somewhat lacking in the latter. There\u2019s little doubt about the guilty verdict, according to the author\u2019s meticulous research. Canadian Wayne Lonergan, 25, did indeed kill his estranged American wife, 22-year-old beer heiress Patricia Burton Lonergan, in her Manhattan apartment in October 1943. The social history factor, though, is huge. Two aspects of the case made it a sensation in its day\u2014Raymond Chandler slotted it into ninth spot on his \u201c10 Greatest Crimes of the Century\u201d list in 1948\u2014and a favourite of crime bloggers even now. The first was the couple\u2019s glamorous life, which included frequent nights out at the famous Stork Club, the Studio 54 of its time.<\/p>\n<p>More important was Wayne\u2019s bisexuality and his willingness to use it in his defence\u2014a supposed late-night pick-up of an American soldier became part of his alibi\u2014in an era when being gay could mean prison. It wasn\u2019t the gore of Patricia\u2019s death but Wayne\u2019s sex life that provided, in the words of a contemporaneous <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a>paper, the \u201cwhispered vices whose details are unprintable\u201d referenced in Levine\u2019s title. <em>Details Are Unprintable <\/em>is a subtle and compelling account of one crime that mirrors, like decades of media coverage before it, our evolving attitudes toward homosexuality.<strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"alignleft size-featured-image-portrait wp-image-1212342 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-CANT-EVEN-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"Can't Even\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\"\/><strong><em>Can\u2019t Even <\/em><\/strong>by\u00a0Anne Helen Petersen<\/p>\n<p>Despite the dismissive blowback they receive from their elders, millennial activists are right\u2014objectively, statistically, actually\u2014that the structures of economic life are stacked against them. Petersen and her much buzzed-about book can attest to both. She does get called a whiny child who won\u2019t face up to her (wrong) decisions, but\u2014fully armed with wide-ranging research, interviews with her peers and her own experiences\u2014she also makes a searing case about the bad hand dealt her generation. The burnout Petersen decries is societal, not personal, partly the result of intense boomer parenting\u2014\u201craising resum\u00e9s,\u201d she calls it\u2014but mostly because of the gig economy and the age of precarity. Raised with the mantra of university-or-bust, the first wave of student debt-burdened millennials had barely entered the workforce before the Great Recession mowed them down. Today millennials still have net worths 20 per cent lower than their parents at the same age. \u201cWe have little savings,\u201d Petersen writes, \u201cand less stability.\u201d And the way out isn\u2019t personal either, she persuasively argues, but through massive change in public policy, especially worker protections. <strong>\u2014B.B.<\/strong><br \/>\n<span class=\"ctx-article-root\"><!-- --><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/culture\/books\/the-20-books-you-need-to-read-this-winter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#The 20 books you need to read in winter 2020&#8221; SPECULATIVE FICTION The 2084 Report by\u00a0James Lawrence Powell Most academics can write, but James Lawrence Powell can plot. The eminent 84-year-old geologist, who has an asteroid named after him, is the author of the 2019 scholarly article, \u201cScientists Reach 100 Per Cent Consensus on Anthropogenic&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":121870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MACLEANS-BOOK-REVIEW-ALL-COVERS-750x422.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17209,67806],"class_list":["post-121869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-books","tag-editors-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}