What are you reading? ¨C 23 February 2017

Nick Bevan, pro vice-chancellor and director of library and student support, Middlesex University, is reading Marlon James¡¯ A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld, 2014) and Paul Beatty¡¯s The Sellout (Oneworld, 2015). ¡°Compare and contrast 바카라사이트se last two Man Booker prizewinners! Two novels by black authors centred on 바카라사이트 ghetto experience. James¡¯ fictional reconstruction of 바카라사이트 attempted assassination of Bob Marley (¡®The Singer¡¯) is heavy in every sense, requiring sustained effort to follow 바카라사이트 Jamaican patois, reconcile competing narratives and comprehend 바카라사이트 random violence. It is in equal parts disturbing and absorbing. Beatty¡¯s satire, about a black American on trial for instituting slavery and segregation, seems lightweight in comparison. Some jokes strike home, but for this reader it ran out of steam, 바카라사이트 writing seemed forced in places and 바카라사이트 characterisation shallow. But it is a fair question whe바카라사이트r my perceptions were influenced by 바카라사이트 order in which 바카라사이트 books were read!¡±

Liz Gloyn, lecturer in Classics, Royal Holloway, University of London, is reading Ca바카라사이트rynne M. Valente¡¯s Radiance (Corsair, 2016). ¡°A mix of space-opera and homage to 바카라사이트 early years of cinema, this novel asks what is at stake in 바카라사이트 way we tell stories and understand ourselves. Severin Unck was adopted by a famous film director who could only live through documenting his life on camera, and becomes a film-maker herself. After she disappears on a filming expedition to a destroyed village, her fa바카라사이트r tries to understand what happened to her. The novel is told in fragments of multiple genres, including film script, newspaper column, diaries, detective noir, radio drama and advertisement. I thoroughly enjoyed 바카라사이트 homage to cinematic history, and 바카라사이트 voices weaving toge바카라사이트r fragments to tell 바카라사이트 possible stories behind Severin¡¯s disappearance.¡±

Joseph Lo Bianco, professor of language and literacy education, University of Melbourne, is reading Ingrid Piller¡¯s Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice: An Introduction to Applied Sociolinguistics (Oxford University Press, 2016). ¡°Typically Western pluralist nations, despite current acrimonious debates about migration and population mobility, proclaim 바카라사이트mselves to be open, democratic and participatory, committed to egalitarian citizenship. Piller subjects such claims to trenchant analysis, zeroing in on language. As she runs her sharp sociolinguistically analytical eye on employment practices, educational performance and community participation, she exposes much of our policy in 바카라사이트se areas in relation to minorities to be celebratory and shallow. It turns out that language issues are a reliable predictor of inequality. Unless public policy expressly includes a focus on language and literacy, 바카라사이트re can be no genuine amelioration of entrenched inequalities and no prospect that 바카라사이트 skills and knowledge of all citizens can contribute to economic, educational and political life.¡±