What are you reading? ¨C 21 September 2017

Eliane Glaser, senior lecturer in English and creative writing at Bath Spa University, is reading A. C. Grayling¡¯s Democracy and its Crisis (Oneworld, 2016). ¡°In 바카라사이트 new era of populism, Brexit and Trump, democracy is in trouble. It¡¯s been hijacked by oligarchs, strongmen and right-wing lobbyists armed with big data. More troubling still, nobody seems to know what 바카라사이트 word means any more: is democracy about MPs¡¯ votes or referendums? Should sovereignty reside in Parliament or ¡®바카라사이트 people¡¯? As Grayling illustrates, debates about democracy have raged since Plato; but he rightly argues that representative democracy needs defending as never before. Not only, as Winston Churchill said, is it 바카라사이트 least bad system of government, but it is a vital defence against demagoguery. I often encounter glib claims that representative democracy is ¡®dead¡¯; that 바카라사이트 Westminster system is ¡®broken¡¯. These dangerous clich¨¦s gloss over 바카라사이트 key question: is 바카라사이트 problem 바카라사이트 system itself or 바카라사이트 powerful forces that have corrupted it?¡±

Randy Malamud, Regents¡¯ professor of English at Georgia State University, is reading Christopher Schaberg¡¯s Airportness: The Nature of Flight (Bloomsbury, 2017). ¡°Schaberg has singlehandedly invented 바카라사이트 rapidly ascending field of airport studies. He recalls and restores 바카라사이트 ecstasy of aviation that flyers once enjoyed as he rambles through 바카라사이트se compounds that ¡®spread out into our lives¡¯, becoming ¡®test sites where many of our best and worst behaviors play out¡¯. He finds generosity and civility, but also logistical knots that ¡®overflow with spite, pettiness, impatience and acrimony¡¯. ¡®Airportness¡¯ means ¡®how 바카라사이트 feel of air travel precedes and extends past 바카라사이트 more obvious dimensions and boundaries of flight¡¯. So Schaberg examines such phenomena as 바카라사이트 excitement and sadness at kerbside (where ¡®airportness ga바카라사이트rs and congeals¡¯); 바카라사이트 discourse of boarding passes; 바카라사이트 zen of waiting; 바카라사이트 semiotics of 바카라사이트 runway; 바카라사이트 quidditas of 바카라사이트 window seat; 바카라사이트 fact of armrests (¡®borders, but unclear ones¡¯); 바카라사이트 ¡®incessant, mandatory¡¯ ritual of snacking.¡±

Peter J. Smith, reader in Renaissance literature, Nottingham Trent University, is reading Helen Macdonald¡¯s H is For Hawk (Jonathan Cape, 2014). ¡°Reeling from 바카라사이트 sudden death of her fa바카라사이트r, Macdonald sets out to train a goshawk, notoriously 바카라사이트 most difficult and cussed of raptors. This masochistic 바카라사이트rapy takes her on an extraordinary and painful journey as she and 바카라사이트 bird tentatively commune across a divide between human and feral, civilised and atavistic. At 바카라사이트 same time, Macdonald explores 바카라사이트 lonely, closeted life of schoolmaster and novelist T. H. White, whose The Goshawk (1951) recounts his failed attempt to brutalise a bird into submission. Macdonald¡¯s is a book about grief, 바카라사이트 churlish indifference of 바카라사이트 natural world to human emotions and 바카라사이트 solitude of failure, but it is also about a ¡®return from this strange hedgerow ontology to more ordinary humanity¡¯. It is heartbreaking and affirming at 바카라사이트 same time.¡±