Milkman is this year's booker prize winner. It's an immensely interesting book.

It is completely unique to me in that I have never read anything like it before. The use of language was fascinating and I found myself re-reading sentences multiple times trying to see how they were formed. It reads as an internal monologue for an 18 year old girl in a divided city. The city is in fact Belfast during 'the troubles' in the 1970s. She appears to be part of a Catholic family and has lost a brother during the political conflict. Also, non of this is explicitly stated. What is strange and brilliant in the way that it's done is that no names are given. There is maybe-boyfriend, there is tablets girl, tablets girls sister, first sister, second sister, Somebody McSomebody, third brother-in-law and first brother-in-law. There is the country 'over the border' and the country 'across the water'. There is 'our religion' and 'their religion'. I would have thought this would have made things confusing and yet it doesn't. It also is more aligned to the general thought process in most people's heads. For instance, when I'm thinking of my brother's girlfriend, I don't think of her name. I think brother's girlfriend.

The monologue has elements of political happenings whilst also being extremely impartial. This is mainly because the narrator has a detached way of thinking/ writing. There are no overly expressed emotions or thoughts about the conflict. Instead it's more stating what is happening. The main feeling that is allowed to permeate to the reader is this feeling of claustrophobic paranoia. Small town politics, exasperated by the political and religious conflict, turn into a big brother experience. Rumours are made up and circulated, the gossip mill doesn't end, townspeople are separated into the ostracised 'beyond the pales' and others. There is a sense of anger, fear and desperation towards this.

Ultimately- I don't know if this will be one of those books I carry with me and remember throughout random moments in life but I would have regretted not giving it a go.

This is awful. It's so bad that I genuinely thought she was writing this for a laugh. I have read my fair share of badly written books and 'badly written' is a generous description for this.

It's worse than 50 Shades of Grey. That should speak volumes.

In this 'dystopia' there's every dystopian stereotype out there exaggerated to comical levels. There is an all-knowing big brother system, organ harvesting, baby blood sucking, lobotomised sex humans, sex robots which come in all shapes and sizes (including Elvis-bots and Marilyn-bots) and more.

The main characters are comically sex-crazed and one-sided. Stan can only think about humping women even in the middle of a potentially deadly mission. Charmaine is so so stupid that she's practically a robot already. The whole plot makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I still don't understand why Phil had to seduce Charmaine and I definitely don't understand why Jocelyn had to sleep with Stan.

Save yourself some time. Skip this.

I don't regularly read things on the Booker longlist and don't give much credence to the prize itself, however, this book looked incredibly interesting so I bought it.

To give a general overview, the reader is looking at a collection of documents which make up the book. The main plot is a triple murder carried out by Roderick Macrae,  a 17 year old from a village called Culduie. The book includes Roderick Macrae's own memoirs written in jail whilst awaiting his trial, several witness testimonials, post-mortem reports for the victims and a criminal psychologist's report on Roderick.

The book is always a "why did the crimes take place" rather than a "whodunnit". In this, I found it rather unusual and interesting but that may be due to my usual aversion to crime fiction. What really makes this book stand out is the background it's woven into. The classism and injustice prevalent in 19th century Scotland at parts made it difficult for me to read the book. The psychiatrist's report is especially difficult as it's obvious he expects physical differences between "learned gentlemen" and those of the "lower ranks". In fact, this form of classism is so commonplace at the time that Roderick is surprised when the psychiatrist wants to visit him in jail. He remarks " 'Have my crimes so elevated me that gentlemen now seek out my company?' ".

Their visit to the factor was one of the hardest passages I have read which and another example which signifies the injustice of their situation. Roderick and his father visit the factor as they are being bullied by the village constable and acquiring a multitude of fines due to not complying with the regulations. Therefore, they want to see the regulations. The factor responds "Of course, there are regulations, but you cannot see them. The regulations exist because we all accept that they exist and without them there would be anarchy." and goes on to accuse them of "wishing to consult the regulations in order that you might break them with impunity"

Getting back to the motive of the murders one is left with strong sympathy for Roderick. Regardless of why he committed the crime, the environment he grew up in was so unsupportive of his academic prowess and the cruelty he endured under both his father and his neighbour so strong that it's hard to imagine a person becoming the best they can be under the situation. I feel that Roderick would have turned out to be a completely different person had he been raised in a less harsh environment and most likely he would've avoided the psychological trauma which led him to the crimes.

The 'revelation' at the end of the book of an alternative motive didn't do much to add to the story for me. I suppose it was to lead the reader to think that Roderick might indeed have been a criminal at heart instead of just a young boy who wanted to avenge his family. It certainly makes Roderick's account untrustworthy but at this stage the reader had already seen inconsistencies between his account and the post-mortem reports. It made me question Roderick in a harsher light certainly but it couldn't take away for sympathy for him and the others who lived in this incredibly harsh environment.

I feel a strong sense of achievement at finishing this book which perhaps is not surprising considering it took me 2 full months (and various attempts to read it beforehand).

This is not usual of me so I will put it down to the flow of the book. The first two thirds was painfully slow with a high number of POVs and story lines some of which seemed entirely unnecessary. In fact, one POV is Quentyn of Dorne whom we follow throughout his journey from Dorne to Meereen for many chapters in his quest to marry Daenerys. In the end he gets burned. I can't see why GRRM has thought it's a good idea to introduce, write hundreds of pages about and then kill off a character when they do nothing remarkable to add to the story. There are more rather pointless additions to story line which do nothing for it but to make the sense of achievement upon completion even higher. 

I suppose GRRM's fondness for detail and lists has been oft mentioned so I needn't venture into details on that as well. 

The last third has been significantly less painful to read. I suppose this is because the focus has been on a few central characters and the story gets moving again. 

I'm sadly bought in to the story and will probably continue to read the series but the last two books haven't even been close to being good.

I am grateful for a Guardian article to finally give me the push to create this page in a blog where I can air the many issues which irritate me. I intend to use this as a place to shout out my ideas to the world. To begin:

The Guardian article I have referred to above is this: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/24/new-nus-president-not-antisemitic-isis-sympathiser

I read the article with admiration for this woman with a nagging thought in my head. I thought incessantly that she is not black. I am not suggesting that there is a shade of black at which one can refer to one's self as black. I am suggesting that naming her as black is at worst a manipulation she/ the press has used to make her even more of a 'first' than she really is and at best a sign of serious ignorance.

I don't think race should be ever of any importance in politics but if we must make a point of her race, then I believe it's important to get it right. Calling her black is frankly offensive to black people and to Arabs.

A quick Google search confirms what a glance at her photo can tell us, that she is of Middle Eastern descent. Specifically, she is Algerian. Not that someone who is Algerian cannot be black, they can, as nationality differs from race but she is obviously not black.

You might ask why this has bothered me so much and I believe it's because it's indicative of how much people like to simplify the beautiful complexity of humanity. People are not either black or white, literally and figuratively. There are shades of people in between and it's tragic that one must be one extreme in order to fit in the 'minority' box. Had she just announced that she was not black and yet an Arab, would this have taken away from her achievement? Or an even better question, isn't it sad that she is considered to have achieved significantly more than her predecessors despite getting to the same position simply because of her skin colour?

Title: The Goldfinch
Author: Donna Tartt
Language: 5/5
Content: 4/5
Overall: 9/10

Imagine a 864 page book centered around a not widely known painting by Fabritius called The Goldfinch (at least I hadn't heard of it which isn't saying much given my general ignorance on all manner of art) and you might not think much of it. The wide assumption would probably be that it's boring and in some ways that's not entirely inaccurate although boring is not the right word for it- slow-moving perhaps. My prejudice for the book stemmed not only from this mistaken expectation but also from my contempt towards any form of award-winning literature. As it happens, The Goldfinch is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2014. I will not get into the general views I hold about this award but this was probably the occasion I have been most delighted about being wrong.

The very heavy book is somehow poetic without being too descriptive. There are passages with extremely detailed description which almost read like a modern twist on classical Russian literature but the tone is mostly straightforward. It's almost a detached, matter-of-fact way of writing which stops the book from being the story of psychological development. This is no Crime and Punishment and even though the subject is a child who loses his mother at a young age under tragic circumstances, there isn't a Raskolnikov-esque internal struggle.

Instead, we watch Theo grow-up in broken environments and make choices as a result of those environments from a far-away camera lens without ever becoming him. If anything, it's a risky way of writing which makes the book stand out.

After losing his mother at a tragic museum bombing, Theo becomes obsessed (if that is the right word) with The Goldfinch but this extreme interest is more about what the painting becomes to him in time rather than a pure intellectual excitement. In a way, this makes the novel an ode to beauty in it's various forms and if I needed a short and sweet four word description that is what I would pick. The Goldfinch to Theo (a very clever and intellectual man) is a childhood memory, a piece of his mother, a widely-celebrated work of art but it's also his destruction and downfall. Towards the end Boris says "..I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between 'good' and 'bad' as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can't exist without the other." and that is probably the best summary.

This passage really spoke to me so I'd like to include it here: "And as much as I'd like to believe there's a truth beyond illusion, I've come to believe that there's no truth beyond illusion. Because between 'reality' on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there's a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic. And-I would argue as well-all love."

*The product artwork I use within this review is taken from Wikipedia in order to identify the subject of the review. It is low enough in resolution such that it could not be used as counterfeit or pirated material.

Title: The Imitation Game
Director: Morten Tyldum
Cinematography and Acting: 5/5
Content: 4/5
Overall: 9/10

It feels like I haven't seen a movie in ages and it's been good to return to movies with a film this amazing.

Alan Turing has always fascinated me and I suppose the fact that I'm an engineer has made me identify with this movie a bit more. However, regardless of my personal interest in the history of technology, I feel like this is one of the best films I have seen.

The story is set out beautifully with flashbacks inserted into the timeline. This helps the audience really understand the loneliness and emotional distance Turing must have felt. Woven into Turing's emotional story however, is his passion to solve a puzzle. His talent and passion for this is so great that he has helped shape history. Unfortunately, a lot more people know of Taylor Swift than him. You might believe this is purely down to the usual disinterest people have when it comes to science. That may play a part of course but a far more tragic factor is also involved. He was treated disgustingly (not that many years ago) for being homosexual. Hence, this film also serves as a reminder of the tragedies in our history.

Benedict Cumberbatch's acting is incredible. He plays the role of the ostracised genius to perfection. It's probably an incredibly difficult job to portray a socially awkward person's emotional history but Cumberbatch has done it faultlessly.

Before I had seen the film, my only worry concerning the cast was Keira Knightley. I have never been the biggest fan of her acting and I was worried that her overly dramatic style could have harmed the film's overall success. I still wouldn't say she was incredible but she was significantly better than I expected and compared to Cumberbatch's shining performance, she managed to hold her own.

All in all, this was probably one of the best films of 2014 and the only reason it doesn't get a 10 is because I am incredibly reluctant to declare anything to be perfect.


*The product artwork I use within this review is taken from Wikipedia in order to identify the subject of the review. It is low enough in resolution such that it couldn't be used as counterfeit or pirated material.
*"The Imitation Game poster" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Imitation_Game_poster.jpg#mediaviewer/File:The_Imitation_Game_poster.jpg