SCOOP BY EVELYN WAUGHI have read EvelynWaugh’s Brideshead Revisited many years ago and I loved it.
Scoop is viewed as a satirical, farcical novel. The story was plotted around the English upper class -Lord Copper of the Daily Beast and Mrs and Ms Stitch, African government- Ishmaelia, and the profession of journalism-John Boot. The plot of the book is dividend into three You can find the plot of the story https://mantex.co.uk/scoop/ I enjoy reading the witty, old fashioned conversation between Boots and Ms Stitch. Also the funny conversation between him and African officer. However, not entirely politically correct if it was written today. When Boots felt in love with, Katchena, a mercenary blonde prostitute who claimed to be married and need support from Boots with her husband. The story line was just outrages. Overall, I think the book was ok to read through. However, it was never close to Brideshead Revisited which I enjoy re-reading.
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When I started this book, I thought it was written by psychologists.
It started the first chapter describing ‘Disconnection Syndrome’. Its the state that we are trapped to the addiction of our devices in social media and internet with short-term pleasure and a commercialised illusion of sustainable joy. There are top eight characteristics of disconnection syndrome in the context of brain health and function. These are mindless activity, loneliness, chronic inflammation, instant gratification, narcissism, poor relationships, chronic street, impulsivity and mindless activity. The brain wash is about how we can increased self-worth, reduced inflammation, better relationship, better decision making, less street, happiness, empathy and have better overall health. There are some key notes I have taken our brain which I found fascinating and we may heard some before but the book provided many references of more recent study.
-social media excessively have less white matter in the corpus callous
- A weakened prefrontal cortex is linked to narcissism. - People high on the narcissism scale had significantly higher levels of cortisol in response to negative emotions than those with low levels of narcissism.
The researchers found a significant increase in the blood levels of “natural killer’ cells, boost to immune system, and significant decrease in urine level of adrenaline and noradrenalin, two of the major chemical of the sympathetic nervous system and stress response, after spent three days in natural.
Some recent research reveals that the neurotic by-product of the kynurenine pathway causes negative downstream effects on moods.
Are you a full-time working mom with a spouse who was often away from home? If you are juggle with trying to balance the needs of the family and with the demands of your job, this is the right book for you to read.
When I first grabbed this book from the library, I was a bit sceptical if I can finish reading it, but after reading the first chapter, I started to engrossed the with the story. Michelle was brought up at the south side of Chicago in an upper floor house where her parents rented from her great-aunt. She had a very supportive family and this laid an important foundation of her family value and her communication styles even when she became the First Lady of USA. She attended Princeton University and followed by Harvard Law School. While at Princeton, Michelle Robinson became involved with the Third World Center (now known as the Carl A. Fields Center), an academic and cultural group that supported minority students. After graduation, she began her position as an associate at the prestigious law firm, Sidley & Austin , as a junior associate. At the firm, she met Barack who worked as a summer associate for Michelle. Soon they found they were attracted with each other and managed their long distance romance till Barack gratulated fro Harvard. For a while, Barack and Michelle lived in the second-floor apartment on Euclid Avenue where she had been raised. Barack and Michelle had very different family value due to that they grew up in completely different background. Obama came from a divorce family and was raised by his white grandparent in laid-back Hawaii. He did not fully believe in marriage so long as the two people love each other. Unlike Michelle who believed in conventional family value and lovely parents and sibling. It has been a challenge for them but eventually they overcome this and started their own family. Seeking a more public-service-oriented career path, in 1991 Michelle became an assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. Later, she took an executive director for the Chicago chapter of Public Allies. And then, she transitioned to working at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Michelle had a great career future ahead of her and being a working mother, it was not easy to juggle between her work and supporting Barack with his presidency champion. She was the last person Barack admitted about his ambition to run the presidency champion. Eventually, Michelle’s brother, Craig Robinson’s, who had tried to get her buy in to support Baraka on running the presidency. The bibliography then described in details about the up and downs in running the presidency champion. At some stage, their daughter, Sasha, was getting overweighted as they frequent had McDonald's driven through food for dinner. She then had to hire chef Sam Kass to refocus on nutrition balance of their family dishes. Eventually she also quite her job to focus on the champaign. During the champaign, Michelle had been portrait as a ‘Gorilla’ for her angry and strong image to the public. It was hard for her and she did think about quitting, but eventually after taking good advices from her colleagues/friends, she acknowledged that she needed to take consultant's advise on rebranding herself from dress to her voice tone in order to support her husband's ambition. Being the First Lady came with unusual privileges and some unusual challenges. She decided to devote building a vegetable garden in White House for promoting nutrition and healthy living. She had the chance to visit Neilson Mandela and Queen Elizabeth. I loved the joke that the Queen made about Michelle was surprising taller than she imaged, their were both wearing uncomfortable shoes for the sake of formality, and Michelle's broke in protocol on hugging the Queen. The Queen had showed Michelle that humanity is more important than protocol or formality. After being in the White House for almost 8 years, Michelle was expecting to handover her role back to the Clintons'. The First Ladies had traditionally shown the White House to their successors. Barbara Pierce Bush handed over to Hillary Rodham Clinton then back to Bush’s family by Laura Welch Bush before Michelle Obama. Michelle did not hind her surprised that Trump won the presidency it was to Melania Trump who she had handover to. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and looking forward to Michelle next new book. Gloucester Crescent: Me, My Dad and Other Grown-Ups
Being part of Westend community, I was attracted by the book titled ‘Gloucester Crescent: Me, My Dad and Other Grown-Ups’ from local library and wanted to find out what it was like living in the 60s, 70s and 80s in Gloucester Crescent in Camden Town. The author’s father, Jonathan Miller, came from a medical doctor background, but was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, and television presenter. Naturally, William was surrounding with TV screen writer, such as Alan Bennett and other famous actors in his neighbourhood. William talked the darker side of his father. Even being famous in others’ eye, he was often despairing with his own failure. This resonates my childhood too. My father was a poet since he was a teenager. However in order to support our family, he started his early career a TV producer and later on he set up his own TV commercial film company. Before we could afford a family home, I used to spend my early childhood in the office and I was surrounded by many TV actors and models. Sometime I felt a bit overwhelm when hearing small talks about the entertainment industry through his circle of entertainment friends. When I was 12 years old, Dad asked if I want to take over his company one day. I said no way! Then he told me I shall study hard if I want to do something different for my life. The second half of the book focuses on William’s school live. In the primary school years, William met his mother’s expectation and passed the exam as a music scholar to get into Primrose Hill Primary . His parents believed the school will guide the lightening path for his future. In the contract, William and his Gloucester Crescent friend Conrad were labelled as posh and William, in particular, was often bullied through out the rest of school years in Primrose. He got into into Bedales in A-levels in the hope of becoming a doctor like his father. However he struggled through the two years study in Bedales and he failed miserable with all Os at the end. Instead of taking extra year to study, William decided to move to New York and started his career in TV production and later on became succeed and returned to Gloucester Crescent with his wife and two daughters.
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AboutThis blog is for me to put some thoughts on the books I have been reading recently Archives
October 2020
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