From the very first paragraph, I was swept up by the verve and intellectual wit of this fictional autobiography.
But as I got further in, I realised the story was driven by a heartfelt political message about the oppression of the underprivileged, about the increasing gulf between the haves and have-nots that afflicts both the USA and the UK and is exacerbated by commercial organisations thriving on exploiting vulnerability.
Plus the central characters, mostly far younger than me, are enormously endearing despite (because of?) their mistakes – I kept wanting to intervene and reassure the main narrator that he was most definitely not a lost cause but was doing a brilliant job supporting his friends.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
"The future is not what it used to be," remarks Richard Fisher – just one of the snappy sound-bites that make this book an absorbing read rather than a moral diatribe about protecting future generations.
An investigative journalist, Fisher presents the philosophy of longtermism and its urgency for resolving the threats posed by global warming, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering. But he also explores cultural attitudes towards time and the scientific reasons why human beings prioritise short-term pay-offs over long-term benefits. Best of all for me are the memorable anecdotes when he wanders off piste.
'A beautifully turned, calmly persuasive but urgent book' IAN MCEWAN
'A landmark book that could help to build a much brighter future' DAVID ROBSON
A wide-ranging and thought-provoking exploration of the importance of long-term thinking.
Humans are unique in our ability to understand time, able to comprehend the past and future like no other species. Yet modern-day technology and capitalism have supercharged our short-termist tendencies and trapped us in the present, at the mercy of reactive politics, quarterly business targets and 24-hour news cycles.
It wasn't always so. In medieval times, craftsmen worked on cathedrals that would be unfinished in…
I used to think that mine was the only family with unspoken secrets hovering in the background and spilling over into my psyche.
I learnt recently that I’m technically known as a second-generation Holocaust survivor, and it seems that Lanchester is the Roman Catholic equivalent. In this tell-all memoir, he reveals how his mother’s death precipitated his fact-finding, soul-searching investigation of his parents’ hidden lives and his own internal angst.
In this acclaimed memoir from the award-winning author of Fragrant Harbour and Capital, John Lanchester pieces together his family's past and uncovers their extraordinary secrets - from his grandparents' life in colonial Rhodesia to his mother's time as a nun - with clear-eyed compassion. A true story of family intrigues, of secrets and lies, as they unfold across three generations.
For the last thirty years of his life, Isaac Newton lived in London and ran the Royal Mint as well as the Royal Society. Formerly a reclusive scholar at Cambridge, now he moved in aristocratic circles, exerted political influence, and became very rich. Through exploring a painting by William Hogarth that is packed with Newtonian references, I describe aspects of Newton’s life and fame that usually receive little attention. Taking the picture as my cue, I reintegrate him into a metropolitan world where men and women – including this great national hero – benefited from global trading based on slavery.
