The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly

The Lizard Cage

I almost didn’t take this book out of the library. Then I read the first couple of pages and got hooked, as much by the writing style as the content. “The Lizard Cage” is about a Burmese political prisoner known as the Songbird, and the hope and horror that somehow co-exist in his world. It’s lyrical, whimsical and almost gentle, even when it describes the brutal realities of the Songbird’s life.

Several people form relationships with the Songbird, and the book tells how that relationship changes each of them. The Songbird becomes a catalyst for the stories of the other characters, rather than the main character himself.

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Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Piccoult

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I’m a big Jodi Piccoult fan. I’ll say that up front.

Songs of the Humpback Whale is about a single child family going through a crisis. Within the first 20 pages, Jane and Oliver, mum and dad, argue. Jane and daughter Rebecca leg it to find Jane’s brother, Joel. Their journey across the United States, including Oliver’s attempts to find them, is actually a backdrop for the real story: how they became who they are.

It’s not a straight journey, starting on day one and finishing when they get there. Piccoult uses flashbacks and five different voices to get her story across, which I like, even if sometimes it’s annoying. I want to keep going with the first character and find out what happens!

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The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton

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If you’re from the generation that was wowed by Total Recall, Marathon Man and/or The Matrix, this book will appeal to you.

It was originally published in 1988, long before the internet, mobile phones and the general digitalisation of technology. Having said that, Michael Crichton is nothing if not imaginative and forward thinking. The Terminal Man is about a man who has a tiny computer implanted in his brain to try and control violent seizures.

The book is actually set in 1971. There are computers in the book, but one such machine is described as ‘a machine that sprayed the letters with a nozzle, rather than typed them out mechanically’ – what we now know as an inkjet printer.

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American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

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Patrick Bateman is an American Psycho. He’s a successful Wall Street broker in the eighties, he gets nose bleeds from the amount of cocaine he takes, and he’s the source of all men’s fashion knowledge for his friends. He also murders colleagues, strangers, hookers and bums, alternately keeping them, eating them and torturing them in graphic detail.

Wow. Yuck. Is this really us? Could we really be this society? Is this really a satire? Or just a disturbing stream-of-consciousness rant by a writer with a razor-sharp but slightly sick intellect and the desire to shock the shit out of us? Was this really written 20 years ago? I wonder if Easton Ellis thinks we’ve become worse or better?

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Introducing Evolutionary Psychology

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The Matrix is one of my favourite movies. I love it so much, I sat down and watched 3 hours of documentaries on the blu-ray Special Edition. I'm not sure if that makes me dedicated or just sad.

One of the interviews talks about how the Wachowski Brothers made the protagonists (Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and Agent Smith) read these three books before they began filming.

The first was 'Introducing Evolutionary Psychology' by Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate, which is part of a series of 'An Introduction to' books. Sounds scary and pretentious but actually it had pictures, speech bubbles, crazy Einstein quotes and was in general pretty easy to read.

I like the fact it treats you like an idiot - otherwise you wouldn't be reading an introductory book, right? It takes you through a brief history of psychology and makes a good case for human evolution. I personally don't think creation and evolution are mutually exclusive, so I'm happy to go with that theory.

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