Book cover of This is the Place to Be

Book description

‘Lara Pawson’s This Is the Place to Be is a stark, compassionate and troubling text that summons a fragmentary autobiography, circling experiences from her growing up in England and her time as a reporter covering civil wars in Angola and Ivory Coast. She deals with big questions through an intimate…

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1 author picked This is the Place to Be as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

In this memoir about Pawson’s time as a war correspondent in Angola and other periods of her life, things that she thought she knew about herself and situations are re-examined in a patchwork of bite-sized reflections.

Having previously been motivated to encourage others to care about important world events, she now questions the idea of being a war correspondent – is it okay to visit a troubled country and then leave when it suits, who has a right to tell anyone else’s story, what motive do news organisations have, what is the truth of a war anyway? Covering herself in…

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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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