The Guardian Review
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Review Saturday 12 June 2021 – Issue № 177 ‘The pandemic has changed us all’ Neuroscientist Karl Deisseroth on the new science of emotions “Thank you, again, for everything you and Vitsœ have done for us over the years. If only each shelf could talk…” So wrote Marta, a In fact, this is the fifth time You could say that over the customer since 2004. she has bought from Vitsœ years their relationship has … and we’re fairly sure it become one of friendship. Her shelving system won’t be the last. Marta knows she is valued started out modest – as a customer and trusts and has grown over the Marta has been able to buy the advice she is given. years. It travelled with her an extra shelf or two when across London (above), needed, while Robin has If your shelves could talk, to Valencia, and now replanned her shelving to what would they say? Amsterdam. fit her Spanish walls and her Dutch huis. Every time she needs help, she speaks with her He’s even sent her more Design Dieter Rams personal Vitsœ planner, packaging to protect her Made in England Robin. shelves when moving to Founded 1959 each new home. vitsoe.com ‘I still believe One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez is the Review greatest novel written since Saturday 12 June 2021 – Issue № 177 William Faulkner died.’ — Bill Clinton, page 5 Contents The week in books ...........................................................................................04 The books that made me by Bill Clinton ...................................................05 COVER STORY Rewiring the brain’s response to the pandemic ............06 Book of the week: Seven Ways to Change the World: How to Fix the Most Pressing Problems We Face by Gordon Brown ............10 Nonfi ction reviews (M)otherhood: On the Choices of Being a Woman by Pragya Agarwal .........12 Let Me Take You by the Hand: True Tales from London’s Streets by Jennifer Kavanagh .....................................................................................13 Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton .........................................14 Rememberings by Sinéad O’Connor ...............................................................15 Fiction reviews Barcelona Dreaming by Rupert Thomson ......................................................16 Assembly by Natasha Brown ...........................................................................17 The Great Mistake by Jonathan Lee .................................................................18 Science fi ction and fantasy books of the month ...........................................19 INTERVIEW Meg Mason ........................................................................20 INSIDE STORY True to nature: Melissa Harrison on children’s books ......23 Julian Barnes on writing The Sense of an Ending, plus Tom Gauld ...........26 COVER ILLUSTRATION Bratislav Milenkovic Saturday 12 June 2021 The Guardian 3 ¶ Forewords argue, fi ction written by confl agration – at least The week in books women con tains multi- until a reprint is needed. tudes. “Women are Alison Flood 12 June neither a genre, nor a single exper ience,” res- A perfectly peculier ponded Chocolat author celebration Joanne Harris. Yes, pub- Crime writers are fam- Forward for poetry world that turns out to lishers can get it wrong – ously a friendly bunch, so We know that the year – be not very far from our remem ber the bikini shot it’s fi tting that the Theak- and more – of the pan- own and from Selima of Sylvia Plath on a collec- ston Old Peculier crime demic has been a time Hill there’s a seven-part tion of her letters ? – but writing festival promises when we have needed to meditation on the never- as many in the industry to be the fi rst major book be exposed to the power ending puzzle of women pointed out, Winterson’s festival of 2021 to be held of the imag i nation . and men and their pub lishers will have fol- in person. Writers will The short lists for the compli cated mutual lowed the usual proce d- include Richard Osman, Forward prizes 2021 are a misunder standings. ure of gaining her appro- Mick Herron, Ann remin der that the poetic The winners will be val for covers and blurbs . Cleeves, Mark Billingham imagina tion isn’t wholly announced in October. As both readers and and Val McDermid, who intro spec t ive ; it is bold, James Naughtie authors recommended once called this “small limitless in ambi tion and the #wimminsfi ction corner of Yorkshire … it touches every part of Winterson on they love, Winterson’s paradise”. As for its our lives . In the shortlist ‘wimmins fi ction’ new jackets look set to audiences, the festival for best collec tion, Kayo Jeanette Winterson stay the same, despite her has an enormous new Chingonyi will take you antagonised a host of tent with increased to the Zambezi River women’s fi ction writers seating space to ensure and back ; Tishani Doshi when she announced on social dis tan cing. This explores the elastic Twitter that she “abso- year’s pro gram ming chair margins between those lutely hated the cosy Ian Rankin says: “I’m so who sur vive in our soc ie- little domestic blurbs” looking forward to ties and those who think on her rejacketed back- reconnecting with fellow them selves lost; and list. “Noth ing playful or authors and crime fans Luke Kennard writes a strange or the ahead of after so long apart. It’s long, elegiac but sharply time stuff that’s in there,” going to be a real thrill to fashioned riff on Shake- she wrote, just “wimmins be able to bring people speare’s sonnets (and fi ction of the worst kind”. together.” The festival you thought you knew So she set them on fi re. runs at Harro gate’s Old them!). Stephen Sexton But as her fellow female Trial by fi re Swan Hotel from 22 to GETTY; TWITTER GETTY; explores a fan tastic writers were quick to Winterson’s books 25 July. Katy Guest Delta WORD OF THE WEEK The politics of naming plague variants was fraught even before Donald Trump Steven Poole began talking about “the China virus” . Spaniards were not thrilled at being nominally blamed for the 1918 pandemic of “ Spanish fl u ”, now known as H1N1 . But strings of numbers and letters are hard to keep track of, so perhaps there is a middle way between those and the demonisation of perfectly innocent geographical areas. Just because a nasty new bug is fi rst noticed in a place doesn’t mean it originated there. It is for such reasons, indeed, that biomedical offi cialdom has decided to start using more neutral names for what are euphemistically called “variants of concern”. The “Indian variant” of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, now the most prevalent in the UK thanks to Boris Johnson’s liberal policy with the borders he took back control of, has been renamed Delta , being the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. (Kent was alpha, South Africa beta and Brazil gamma.) Sad to report, many sections of the press continue to refer to “the Indian ‘Delta’ variant”. Meanwhile, the American airline Delta is probably looking forward to the discovery of Epsilon. 4 The Guardian Saturday 12 June 2021 The books that made me ¶ The last book that made me laugh ‘I always wanted to be a writer, Janet Evanovich’s latest book. Stephanie Plum but doubted my ability to do it’ always makes me laugh. The book I’m ashamed not to have read Bill Clinton Ulysses. I love Irish poetry, prose, and nonfi ction. I love Joyce. But I always give out and give up before I get through it. I’ll keep trying. The book I am currently reading The book I’d most like to be remembered for The End of Everything by Katie Mack. The theoretical So far My Life, for the reasons Larry McMurtry stated physicist explains the fi ve most likely endings for our in his review: it’s a story of my life and times; an expanding universe, hopefully an unimaginably long account of what it’s like to be president when so time from now. It’s witty, clear and upbeat. much is happening at once with fuller explanations The book that changed my life of events such as Black Hawk Down that you won’t Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death made me rethink see anywhere else; and a testament of what I believe the roots of our deepest fears and insecurities . and why. The book I wish I’d written My comfort read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García I fi nd comfort in thrillers with interesting characters Márquez. I still believe it’s the greatest novel written and good stories. I really liked Stacey Abrams’s While since William Faulkner died. Justice Sleeps, all of Louise Penny’s Gamache books The books that infl uenced my writing and Sara Paretsky’s VI Warshawski books. And I love I always wanted to be a writer, but doubted my ability my co-author James Patterson’s books . I hope our to do it. From my senior year in college to my fi rst new book, The President’s Daughter, makes other year in law school, I read fi ve books that made me people’s lists. I like the characters and the story. think it was worth a try: North Toward Home by Willie The book I think is most underrated Morris; The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Probably Ron Chernow’s Grant. With the latest Styron; You Can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe; eff orts to discredit the 2020 election, pass voter The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin; and I Know suppression measures and kill the January 6 Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. commission, and the changing composition of the The book that changed my mind supreme court, we are reminded of what Ulysses That’s a great question.