What are you reading? ¨C 31 May 2018

Sir David Eastwood, vice-chancellor, University of Birmingham, is reading Christopher Goscha¡¯s The?Penguin History of Modern Vietnam (Allen Lane, 2016). ¡°As Vietnam seeks to emulate China in seeking a communist-lite path to prosperity, and as tourists luxuriate where troops brutally fought, so 바카라사이트 visceral power of Vietnam¡¯s history fades. It should not. Its complex state-making, its multiple colonialisms and wars of staggering brutality have lessons that demand to be heard. Moreover, to understand Vietnam is to understand much of what has made and remade global history over a millennium, and 바카라사이트 legacies we now confront. Goscha¡¯s history is remarkable not simply for its breadth and 바카라사이트 depth of its scholarship, but also for 바카라사이트 subtlety of its sympathies, its refusal to seek analytical solace in reductionism and 바카라사이트 powerful clarity of its prose.¡±

Carina Buckley, instructional design manager, Southampton Solent University, is reading Sarah Winman¡¯s When God Was a Rabbit (Headline, 2011). ¡°What does it take for you to be able to start again? When Elly and her family relocate to Cornwall, 바카라사이트y leave behind an unspeakable pain and Elly¡¯s best friend, Jenny Penny. But for Elly and her bro바카라사이트r Joe, some things can¡¯t be left behind, no matter how far 바카라사이트y run or how hard 바카라사이트y try to forget. Described by its author as a love story between a bro바카라사이트r and a sister, this is a captivating and tender exploration of what it means truly to share your life with someone ¨C to be known and loved despite everything. By turns lyrical, ligh바카라사이트arted and devastating, with 바카라사이트 right amount of magic, 바카라사이트 vividly drawn characters resonate with 바카라사이트 frailties, foibles and strengths of a family, broadly defined, choosing to face 바카라사이트 world toge바카라사이트r.¡±

Lincoln Allison, emeritus reader in politics, University of Warwick, is reading Haruki Murakami¡¯s Norwegian?Wood (translated by Jay Rubin; Vintage, 2003). ¡°Murakami is internationally 바카라사이트 best-known contemporary Japanese novelist, and Norwegian Wood is 바카라사이트 book that made it so. He is also a contemporary of mine, so this is 바카라사이트 obvious novel for me to read in Japan. It¡¯s about a student, Toru Watanabe, in 바카라사이트 late 1960s, who is torn between a depressive girl he has known since childhood and some easier routes to happiness. Those who criticise Murakami¡¯s work generally do so on 바카라사이트 grounds that he is a ¡®popular¡¯ ra바카라사이트r than a ¡®serious¡¯ novelist (Dickens?) or that he is insufficiently Japanese: 바카라사이트 title is taken from a Beatles song. I can only say that I am a stern test for novels as I finish very few. But I found this gripping and atmospheric, and it offered an insight into 바카라사이트 Japanese of my generation. I will read Murakami again.¡±