The book presents an historic narrative that details the events that lead up to the Cuban Missile crisis. Aside from the American slaughter in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this is the closest the world has ever really come to all-out nuclear war, and hopefully that will always remain the case. It’s an important lesson from history, and one that I think it’s important for everyone to be conscious of.
What I really admired about Max Hastings’ work is the way in which he was able to write fairly detached portraits of every figure he detailed. He doesn’t portray history as good guys and bad guys, but with different groups of flawed people with conflicting interests. He is just as quick to raise criticisms of Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev as he is to raise those of John F Kennedy – and he offers praise where praise is due too. In doing so, he does a fantastic of job of helping you to get into the mindsets of the ordinary people who supported them.
What’s more is that he does an excellent job of doing an historic portrait of the era in which these events took place. Obviously, this can never be truly comprehensive, because there’s no way to accurately wrap up a whole nation and culture in a short book, but he makes it really easy to understand the mindsets of the people in Russia, America, and Cuba as they went into this crisis, which of course makes everything easier to understand.
I also thought that it was really valuable for him to include a lot of contemporary media perspectives on the situation as it unfolded. It’s interesting to compare the ways in which the media continues to work to this day, and it’s a useful reminder of the ways in which reports at the time try to mould a narrative, and often without all the facts. It’s also useful to see how it sways public opinion, and consequently, how governments respond, and often not in the best ways.
Of course, the most interesting part details the crisis itself, but this would have been nowhere near as impactful without all of the context that Hastings provides before it. Altogether, it was a rather extraordinary sequence of events, and the most profound thing, I felt, was that two countries almost initiated a nuclear war, despite neither nation actually wanting to do so. This will always be the case and we must never lose sight of that. Our world leaders in particular must remember that nobody ever wants a nuclear war, and because that feeling is universal nobody will ever do it… but with extreme stresses and misunderstanding, somebody could do so without truly understanding what is happening or what they have done.
Once again, I want to reiterate that this is a very important lesson from history – one that illustrates that no nation really has its hands clean, despite how it might present itself, and how ordinary people will be the ones that end up paying the price as a consequence of governments trying to exert their power and influence too far. It’s a sad sequence of events, but also a very lucky and positive one in the long run.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the moments from my life which brought me the most joy – the memories I go back to if I ever want something to lift my spirits in a sad moment. I decided that this was something I should write about. Of course, there are hundreds, if not thousands of core memories and moments that have helped define who I am and which will bring me happiness anytime I look back on them, but I decided to cut it down to ten for the purpose of keeping this blog post focused. So here they are: (in no particular order, as I can’t really quantify their value, when they’re all so important to me)
Back in 2024, my housefriend Eilidh and I went out to dinner at Nando’s for my birthday. It was a lovely day all round, but the defining moment that earns it a place among my most precious memories, was that while we were walking home, she said to me, completely out of the blue, “You know, if you died, I’d never be happy again for the rest of my life” and that’s probably the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.
While that last one, contains something quite profound – this next one is a much simpler, quieter moment and I think the fact that it meant so much to me reflects the fact that we’re all probably having a huge impact on people without knowing it. But, anyway, in the winter of 2023, I was having dinner out with my good friends Sarah and Edward. It was an ordinary dinner with them, which means that it was wonderful, because I love them both, but what stood out was the moment we said goodbye. They both always hug me goodbye, but this time they both hugged me at the same time. “Gosh, that was my first ever group hug” I said, and I was genuinely overwhelmed. It probably sounds a silly thing to place so much emotional significance on, but even now, remembering that moment makes me very happy.
While I’m talking about Sarah, let’s jump forward in time to something that happened just a month ago. Sarah and I met in 2015, and while taking a walk this spring, we were talking about how we should do something to mark the tenth anniversary of our friendship. In the end, I came up with the idea of us both getting matching Magic Stars tattoos, because Sarah bought me Magic Stars once in the early days of our friendship. So that’s what we did. We had a whole morning together, but the fun we had chatting and joking around with each other during the actual tattooing is something I’ll always remember fondly. “We’ve got a closer bond than marriage now” she said jokingly as we finished, and it always makes me happy to look at my star now – especially since Sarah is the only person I can say has ever saved my life too. A special friendship commemorated in a special way.
Speaking of life-threatening things (though not the one Sarah had a hand in saving me from), back in 2021, at Christmastime specifically, I had just recovered from a very serious case of COVID-19. I was delighted that I was feeling better and was on my way to one of my annual Christmas meals. My friend George was driving me to the restaurant at the time, and we had a little chat before we went in. He wanted to give me a little present, a small stone with the words “You are loved” on it. He said, “We might be too macho to say it sometimes, but I love you and it’s important that you know that” which I thought was just about the sweetest thing ever, especially as he’s my second oldest friend. I keep the stone on my desk and it still makes me happy when I see it there.
Speaking of George and things that happened in 2021, he also had a postponed wedding celebration shortly before the Christmas meal I mentioned. This was one of the first big outings I attended after being incapacitated with COVID for so long, and it felt really good to be able to go and enjoy myself. In addition to spending a lot of time with George for the first time in a couple of years, I also spent a lot of time with my oldest friend Davey, and his wife, Laura. “We should meet up with Adam more often,” said Laura, and I’m glad she did because now I see the pair of them quite recently and my life is all the richer for it. Reforging old bonds is very important, and we had so much fun joking and laughing with each other – just as we do every time we meet.
From my oldest friend, to one of the oldest memories on this list – back in 2012 my good friend Tulin and I dedicated a special day to have a Christmas celebration together. Coming just after the university Christmas holiday started, it was such a warm and comfortable day – the memory of which I have returned to very many times. The specific best moment is hard to pinpoint, but I’d either say that it was when they asked for a hug soon after I arrived, which lasted quite a while. “What prompted that?” I asked, and they replied, “I just like hugging you.” I stayed the night that day, and the two other highlights are walking back to their house, walking hand in hand amidst all the Christmas lights, and last but not least, the feeling of utter contentment I felt as I got into bed and drifted off to sleep.
Now, from a distant memory of winter, to a recent memory of summer. In 2023, I went to Portugal and it was my first time going travelling overseas. Alongside Rory, one of my oldest and dearest friends, and his partner Neus (who I am very fond of) I went along with a group of people who were mostly all new to me. Although I treasure the memory of the whole trip, if I hone it to a specific moment, I would have to choose sitting with my new friend Malena at the back of a ferry on a ride back from a place called Culatra Island. It was a hot day, but the sun was now setting (beautifully) and spray from the ocean was cooling us down too. Malena and I were talking about how lucky we were to be leading such lives and experiencing such things, and the fact that the two of us have grown to have a very close and valuable friendship in the years that have followed, serves as a fond reminder that incredible new experiences, and deep meaningful new connections can come at any time.
Hoping back as far as 2008, I reached a milestone in my journey as a writer – I had written 99 short stories and was working on my 100th. My friends were all very supportive of my reaching this point, and I decided to write an overly-indulgent special story that brought in lots of characters from my older pieces, and used my friends and I as characters in the story as well. Everyone was very interested in it, especially my friend Egan. Though by my current standards, the story really wasn’t all that good, the level and support I had from all my friends at the time felt very special. It’s easily my most rewarding experience as a writer.
Earlier this very year, I was invited to attend my friend Chloe’s hen party in Amsterdam. It was an incredible trip full of new experiences and new friends. I thought to myself, that I’d never have been able to enjoy this trip in the past for many reasons, from feeling anxious in groups of people I didn’t know, to hating being in loud pubs and clubs, to being too poor to go anywhere, to needing a lot of privacy for getting changed and sleeping. That reflection alone gave me a very positive feeling about my personal growth, but if I had to boil it down to a specific moment, it would have to be taking a boat cruise along with the group, and getting to a point where the captain of the boat said we were going under a certain bridge, that according to local folklore, if you hug while you’re passing under it, you cement your love for the person you’re hugging for all eternity. Chloe and I had a good old hug as we passed under it, and with all the significance that the captain placed on that moment, of course I’m always going to remember it for the rest of time. It’s what the bridge demands.
Last but not least, I come to what’s actually the only memory here that doesn’t involve any of my other friends at all. In 2018, I travelled to Scotland to attend my friend Rory’s wedding. I arrived late at night and was by myself. I was absolutely starving after an extremely long train journey, so after I dropped off my suitcase, I wandered into town to find somewhere to eat. For convenience, I visited Nando’s. While sitting there on my own, I started to think of all the very many friends I’d been to other Nando’s restaurants with before and started to feel kind of emotional at the memory. Once I’d finished the deliciously nostalgic meal, I wandered through the streets of St. Andrews and admired the Christmas lights while thinking of all my fondest memories. With a heart so full, I thought to myself, I could never be lonely again. That’s even more true now than it was then, since, as you can see from this list, most of the happiest moments of my life happened after this moment.
I really enjoyed writing this, and I especially enjoy the fact that so many of these most precious memories are from the last five years. My theory about that is that, as you get older, your friendships grow deeper and deeper, meaning that you more openly share affection between one another, and are more likely to have a variety of experiences. Meanwhile, I also just think that people become more affectionate as they get older, and have a deeper level of empathy and emotional intelligence, making it more likely that you’ll have super meaningful moments with them. Generally, I feel very lucky for the life I had lived and I feel that life gets better and better as time goes by. Also, side note, a lot of my most beloved and cherished friends are not mentioned in this blog post, and if you’re one of them and feeling left out, know that the value of a friendship is not defined by big, special moments, but by your ongoing presence and the way that you make me feel whenever we’re together, so while it may not be easy to find a specific moment that I can write about in a clear narrative sort of way, there is no question whatsoever that my life is enhanced by having you in it.
This comic imagines how things would have gone if Spider-Man’s story started in 1962 and continued through to the modern day. So often we see fantastical characters like this in just a small window of time, experiencing adventures in the prime of their life, so I absolutely loved the idea of portraying him as a much more “real” person passing through time and growing old.
Peter Parker is one of my favourite Marvel characters, and what I really appreciated about this story was how it showed exactly how much of a toll going through all of these adventures would take on a person as they grew older. Admittedly, I didn’t recognise the source material for all of the adventures you see him going through, but I did certainly appreciate it when I understood the reference. Even when I didn’t, I felt that this was written in such a way that you don’t need to be intimately familiar with the older comics if you want to enjoy this story.
In the earlier parts of the story, I really appreciated the extent to which it was tied into history and Peter grappling with the ethics of the Vietnam War and whether or not he had a responsibility to get involved with it was really cool to see. The original comics from the ’60s don’t really tie into current affairs, so it’s really cool to see them kind of recontextualised as a piece of historic fiction. It was a shame that this was missing from the later chapters though, but at the same time, I did also really like reading about older Spider-Man, so it balanced out.
Another thing that I really liked about this was Peter’s relationships with other characters. Mary Jane, Harry Osborn, Gwen Stacy, Reed Richards, and various others. You really feel the weight of many years behind them as Peter ages and moves through time – and seeing them all growing and aging too gives the whole thing quite a sentimental sort of feeling. I felt quite invested in all his different relationships and it made the whole thing feel a lot more real.
In summary, I’d describe this as a celebration of Spider-Man – and a fairly bittersweet one at that. It’s filled to the brim with references and cameos that are sure to delight Marvel fans, and even if you’re level of Spider-Man fandom isn’t super deep, I think you’ll still be able to get a lot out of this comic. The art by Mark Bagley is great too.
I love food, I love detective fiction, and I love sentimental things – no wonder I also love The Kamogawa Food Detectives. In this Japanese novel (translated by Jesse Kirkwood) you get the story of an old chef who helps people to identify food that they had many years previously. They’ll paint a vivid picture for him and describe the context in which they had the long-lost meal – usually attached to some distant, cherished memory.
One aspect of it that I loved was it’s absolutely delicious descriptions of lots of meals. Even as a vegetarian I was able to enjoy and appreciate every single one of the descriptions. Perhaps it was because I listened to this as an audiobook at times when I was either eagerly anticipating my lunch break, or my dinner after work, but honestly I think I’d feel hungry at any time that I might have read this book. It feels very obvious to me that it was written by somebody who appreciates a good meal.
Besides this, I also felt quite invested in the stories of each of the customers who comes in. I don’t know if this is a widespread feeling or not, but I associate different foods with different memories all the time, and by combining these two senses, it helped to make me feel more strongly rooted in the memories and experiences of each person. Each one was usually connected to a lost love, or to a lost aspect of their childhood – and I’m sure we have such memories as these.
Having said that, if you take a step back from the narrative for a moment – it is kind of funny to think that all these people have unsolved emotional anguish in their past and that they’re only able to move on from when they eat a meal at this food detective place ten or twenty years later. It is a bit silly when you think of it like that, but not enough that it takes anything from the experience for me.
Some readers may also be disappointed that there isn’t really an over-arching storyline. You just get to spend some time with these characters and get to see a few of the cases they get involved with. There are a few little glimpses about their history and backstory, but it’s not really about the main characters (in the same way that Sherlock Holmes stories aren’t really about Sherlock Holmes). It feels a little closer to a short story collection than a novel, even though it is very much still a novel.
It definitely fits the definition of a “cosy read” and I am happy to have read it. It was a very wholesome experience – and one that is unashamedly so. During difficult times, I think it’s exactly the kind of story we need more of, and I strongly recommend giving it a read.
It’s no secret that I kind of found myself losing steam with the Wheel of Time series. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed every book (at least for the most part), but I remember feeling so invested, and so enthusiastic when I read The Eye of the World and that feeling of excitement has slowly faded as I’ve read each successive book. Although there are ups and downs, this was the first book in a long time that made me feel anything close to how I was feeling with the earlier books.
The main storyline is about Moiraine and how she ended up on her quest to look for the Dragon Reborn that we find her on at the beginning of the first book. I loved this, because Moiraine was my favourite character and I felt her absence quite strongly in the last few books. Admittedly, she is pretty different here, because she’s about 20 years younger and not yet the mysterious and enigmatic figure she would become (though she makes some progress towards that). Although I can imagine that some people might not appreciate the de-mystification, I enjoyed seeing her fleshed out a bit more and thought it helped make her more of a three-dimensional character.
Siuan also plays a pretty big role in this one (which is good, because I felt that she had been quite significantly side-lined in the recent novels too) and it’s cool to see her before she became Amyrlin. Most of all, I appreciated the deeper exploration of her relationship with Moiraine, as the pair of them are very sweet together. I was invested in their relationship in a way that I never really was with any of the other pairs of friends throughout the series.
To my surprise, the only thing I didn’t really enjoy was Lan. I liked him before, and always thought his bond with Moiraine was really cool and interesting. Here though, there’s a kind of eye-rolling “enemies to lovers” trope (even though they don’t become lovers exactly) which doesn’t really feel at all true to life. It’s also pretty tiresome when there are so, so many pairings in his series where they kind of hate each other, but also care a lot for each other. There are other types of relationships in the world and it would have been nice to see them.
Other than that (and the fact that Robert Jordan still couldn’t wait to find contrived ways to get the women naked and thinking about how they feel about being naked, which he always does), this was a real step up. I think a big part of it feeling more enjoyable was the fact that it was much more focused. A lot of the other books are very much just all the characters in different places, working towards different goals, and doing so very slowly. Here there are much fewer characters in the spotlight, and there goals are a lot clearer. It was a great throwback to the golden age of the series.
In 2011, shortly after starting this blog, I started reading the Bible – a couple of months ago I finally finished it. It’s funny because when I started it, I anticipated that I’d read it all in one go and so probably be finished before the end of the year. I found it a little too dry to read continuously though, so I ended up taking breaks between its books. As it turns out, the time I spent reading it ended up spanning my entire time at university, various jobs, the formation of the relationships with some of my most valued friends of my life, a global pandemic, and so many more experiences than I can recount here.
So other than finding it hard to get through in one sitting, what did I think of it? Well, good question. This is a massive book that covers a lot of ground and which is a lot of things to a lot of people – that makes it a very difficult book to review and as someone who’s not a Christian, my review is probably going to read completely differently to that of someone who is, but also, perhaps the fact that I am not a Christian even after reading it says something about it level of persuasiveness.
As someone who reads a lot, I really enjoyed it on a literary level. The Bible is the origin of so many iconic stories, from Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden, through to Noah’s arc, the horribly tormented life of Job, and even Jesus’s birth in the Christmas story. I’ve grown up in a culture that has the DNA of these stories ingrained very deeply and it’s so cool to see them in their original form – or, at least, to see them in one of their most popular translations. On a similar note, similar to Shakespeare, so many Biblical quotes have woven their way into so many other pieces of literature, and even everyday speech, and once again, it’s really cool to see their origin.
Though, as much as I can enjoy some really dry stuff, there were certain parts of the Bible that don’t seem like they were written to teach any kind of lesson or to tell any kind of story. What I’m talking about are long sections that talk extensively about the sizes of different tribes, or the lineage of different people. These feel more like ancient official documents and I don’t feel like I gained anything whatsoever by reading them. Meanwhile, the very detailed instructions on how to worship properly, or how to correctly offer animal sacrifices, are slightly more interesting, but still very dry reading.
For a lot of people, the Bible is a book of morality, though for those who are only familiar with its general perception, the amount of abhorrent violence and hatred might be pretty shocking. As much as God, as described in the Bible, is often considered a being of love, he seems pretty darn bloodthirsty a lot of the time. There’s talk about him enjoying the smell of burning flesh, or times when he instructs people to kill pregnant women in enemy states to stop their babies from being born and growing up to be enemy soldiers. Of course, he kills almost every single living being on the planet during the story of Noah and the flood too. I could go on about God’s heinously violent acts, and then of course there’s also the homophobia and misogyny that comes up too (although to my surprise, there are a couple of men who seem to be gay and are never condemned).
But for all that ugliness, I do actually really admire some of the stuff that Jesus said. First and foremost, he is genuinely a strong advocate of showing love to all people, including your enemies. I thought that was really beautiful, and a powerful moral message that you don’t see in a lot of other stuff, but if you really extrapolate the meaning, can be read it as a progressive instruction to be accepting of all peoples, which is strangely at odds with the Bible’s misogyny and homophobia. Another aspect that I really enjoyed about this was that Jesus has some pretty socialist attitudes – he believes that everyone has a responsibility to look after the poor and to live within their means without hoarding wealth. That’s another really cool thing that I thought was wonderfully ahead of its time. It’s just a shame that these really cool moral messages are often lost among the more regressive ones – or at least, it’s a shame that those who cling to its regressive messages are those that are the loudest. (It’s also a shame that Jesus introduces the idea of eternal hell for people who don’t worship him, which rather undermines his better points).
All in all, though it took me a long time and parts of it were boring (and other parts unpleasant) I am still glad that I read the Bible – after all, it’s a deeply influential text. Having said that, I did wish in retrospect that I hadn’t chosen the King James Edition, as although it’s one of the most influential translations, it is uses very archaic language and though I haven’t read any of the more recent translations in full, the excerpts I have read make me wish I had chosen one of them because there’s just so much more clarity to them. If you’re interested in religion, moral philosophy, or just the history of literature, it’s worth chipping through. Especially the Books of Genesis, Exodus, Pslams, and the whole New Testament.
I got to spend last weekend in Amsterdam, as I was invited to be a part of my friend Chloe’s hen party celebrations. Chloe is one of my oldest and dearest friends (and coincidentally, so is Liam, the person she’ll be marrying) and though I was friendly with one or two of the other guests, Chloe was the main person there that I knew very well before leaving. That’s the third year in a row where I’ve found myself in a situation like that, and sure enough it was just as good as both of the others.
After my trip to Portugal in 2023, this was only the second time that I have visited another country and for me, a big part of the fun was just walking around the streets with a group of good people. Of course, that doesn’t make for very interesting reading, so I’ll elaborate on the new experiences a little, rather than just saying “I enjoyed being in a nice place with nice people”.
The first item on our itinerary was a peaceful riverboat cruise. The captain of the boat was a delightful man who even gave us Stroopwafel biscuits. These were absolutely delicious and, dangerously, after they’d been passed around all the passengers, the tin (with loads left) was just sitting on the table near me. I could have eaten every single one of them, and indeed, I did hear their enticing siren’s call “eat every single one of us, Adam, leave no survivors” but fortunately, I was able to resist because my soul was busy gorging itself at the same time, taking in the new sights, and enjoying the gentle bobbing of the boat. The captain even told us a really nice story about a bridge. I don’t remember what it was though. However, I do remember that he said if we hug as we pass under that bridge, the love will last forever, so he told all the passengers to hug or even kiss each other as we went under. Chloe and I, sitting next to each other, had a good old cuddle as we went under, so that’s our friendship secured for all eternity. Not that it wasn’t already, but it’s nice to have a bit of bridge magic in the mix for good measure. Since the captain was talking about eternity, I suspect that’s a moment I’ll always remember very clearly too. Gosh, what a nice little boat ride. I wish I was a boat.
The next big attraction was going to the tulip fields for a day. Flowers are really nice, so I think the appeal of that speaks for itself. We spent the day wandering in the sun, having fun, and taking in the sights. Even the bins there looked like they were artistically crafted sculptures. At one point we went in a maze, and at the centre of the maze there was a long queue to go into an elevated wooden gazebo thing. Comically, it was just a regular old gazebo and for some reason, despite it being pretty big, people were only going in one group at a time. You could say that it was an anti-climax after you have to wait a good 10 minutes or so to get in, but I’d say that the absurdity of it all makes the whole experience worthwhile. We got to experience some first-hand obnoxiousness from other tourists who were impatient to get to a self-check-out we were using, which was a nice validation that we’re all nice people and they aren’t. Meanwhile, we also got to hop around on wooden platforms in a body of water (I’m sure I could see the bones of those who had fallen in under the waves) and go inside an old fashioned windmill as well (which ironically, had a shorter, faster moving queue than the ordinary gazebo). There was a safety sign in there and I thought “Oh yeah, ha ha ha, how dangerous, a windmill” but then I saw somebody getting decapitated by the windmill blades (in my imagination) and it all made sense.
This could really be an exceedingly long blog post, because almost every minute of every day was filled with some kind of fun – but I’ll end with one particularly amusing anecdote. We played some hen party games, and one of them was based around Liam being asked questions in a pre-recorded video. Chloe had to guess how he was going to answer each of the questions, and to her credit, she got almost all of the right. With one notable exception. The question was “If you could have any super power, what would it be?” and knowing that Liam is a top-quality human being, I said, “Oh, I bet he’ll say that he’d like to take away all of your sadnesses and anxieties so that he can ensure that your life is filled with nothing but happiness.” Chloe and all of the other hens agreed that that was probably what he would say, or at least some variation of it, and then we unpaused it to find out what power Liam would like. “Teleportation,” he said, without further elaboration. That gave us all a good laugh.
Though for me, the biggest appeal, as with pretty much every trip I’ve been on, was the people I went with. Chloe is one of my very best friends and even after we’ve known each other for 13 years, we’re still gaining new experiences and forming precious new memories together – back when I was giving her cookies in university lectures, who would have thought that we’d one day be strolling around the streets of Amsterdam together in the dead of night? Not me. I’m sure that there’ll be many other such experiences in the future of our now bridge-blessed eternal friendship. Grace, meanwhile, (who to be fair, I had met a fair few times before) has a delightfully calming energy and provided a level of Pokémon-themed fun to the trip, gave me solidarity as a fellow not-very-well travelled person, though it was a shame to have to break the news to her that she snores. Rad, who I’d only met briefly once before, played the role of the level-headed centre of the group who also somehow managed to be immune from all forms of intoxication – you can’t overstate the value of having someone like that in any group. Melissa, who I met for the first time at the airport, is the kind of positive person that I love to be around and her brightly coloured hair was not only stylish, but practical when it came to spotting her in crowds. Last but certainly not least, was my new best pal Lily, who not only has the credit for doing 90% of the booking and organising (maybe more), but now has many unique distinctions, like being the only person I’ve ever shared a roll-on deodorant with, the person who has shushed me in the eye the most times, and the only person who’s ever been kind enough to teach me how to do sexual harassment. It’s not a skill I’ll ever use, but, hey, the fire brigade probably knows how to start fires as well as how to put them out. What an incredible bunch.
Here’s my favourite picture from the trip:
I like it because I am in the centre, but it’s a pity that Chloe is in the back, since it’s her hen party. It’s a shame you can’t see our hearts, because she’d be more prominent then, since she was in all of them.
Seeing this on the shelf, you’d probably assume it was a sci-fi novel, but Communion is actually an account of strange experiences that the author, Whitley Strieber, believes to be true. He himself says that he cannot explain what happened to him and doesn’t want to assign any specific interpretation to the events that he describes… but it’s all very much in line with the classic UFO abduction scenario that many of us will already be familiar with.
I have to admit, I went in not expecting very much. Sure, I was curious, but online and in documentaries and so forth, I’ve come across accounts from people who claim to have encountered aliens and they typically all seem kind of ridiculous – not to mentioned laced with delusions of grandeur. What I found disturbing about Strieber’s own accounts, especially those earlier in the book, is that they feel hauntingly realistic. To be fair, he is an author of horror novels, so he just might be particularly good at that, but I certainly get the impression that he’s writing about something that he believes happened. He himself even acknowledges that these could all be hallucinations, but that he believes they happened.
Included between accounts of his experiences are transcripts of hypnosis sessions he has had. In general, I found that these were much less interesting than his written accounts, but I guess he was including the for an increase sense of authenticity. Little bits of them felt kind of creepy too, but ultimately these parts were significantly less interesting to me.
Indeed, by the end, there have been quite a lot of summaries of weird experiences in his life, and while they were all genuinely interesting to read – by the time you’ve read about four or five of them, the creepiness aspect completely wares off. Having said that, he does start to go down a little bit of a philosophical rabbit hole, talking about how we don’t really know anything about anything, and I found that pretty interesting and agreeable.
This book didn’t do anything to change my perspective on whether or not alien abductions are real – it’s still a subject I am enormously sceptical of. Nonetheless, not only is this an interesting and unsettling read, but it also offers pretty fascinating insights into the kind of experiences that people believe themselves to have had, and the impact it can have on they themselves and the people in their life. If that’s the kind of thing that you’re interested in, then it’ll be well worth giving this a read.
While I thought that Volume 15 was fantastic for the level of backstory that it provided, Volume 16 somehow managed to outdo it, to the extent that it has easily been my favourite volume of Assassination Classroom so far. It’s also very different than any that came before, as it is almost exclusively focused on telling us Koro-sensei’s backstory.
Koro-sensei is one of my favourite fictional characters ever and the story in this volume is a big part of the reason why. Something I really enjoy is when a kind of silly, over-the-top character is given a really dark backstory and though I am not going to spoil exactly what is revealed about Koro-sensei’s past in this review, I will say that it fits into that mould perfectly.
It’s a story of someone who has experienced really horrible things and then, rather than allowing it to take them down a dark path, has instead decided to choose the path of kindness. Not only do I think that that’s incredibly beautiful, but it resonates with because many of the people I love the most have had experiences that mirror it. It’s all about choosing to end a cycle of abuse and violence, rather than allowing it to continue.
This volume also properly introduces Yukimura, Koro-sensei’s predecessor as the teacher of Class-E and Kayano’s sister. While she’d been mentioned and even briefly appeared in a number of previous volumes, this is the first time that she’s really had any focus. As it turns out, she’s an incredibly important character to the narrative as a whole. She’s a very endearing character and someone I became very fond of in just this volume alone – and her friendship with Koro-sensei is something that is both beautiful and sad.
Before you read this volume, aspects of the Assassination Classroom narrative might feel rather random or disjointed. This ties everything together in a really clever and moving way. Meanwhile, if you felt any apprehension about the students’ deadline to assassination Koro-sensei, you’re likely to feel very differently after reading this volume, as it completely changes everything. It’s a fantastic piece of writing and something I’ll give a rare perfect score.
This was the first novel Charlotte Brontë ever submitted to be published – and it was rejected. Jane Eyre was her second attempt and then after her death The Professor was re-assessed and published. Although I did quite enjoy it, I did think that it rather lacked the depth of all the other Brontë novels I’ve read and so can understand why it might have been rejected at first (even though I’m happy that it ultimately saw the light of day).
The story is about a man called William Crimsworth and it’s all told by him in the first person. After growing frustrated with family dramas, he ends up moving to Belgium to become an English teacher – hence the title “The Professor”. After dealing with a couple of workplace dramas, he ends up embarking on a relatively straight-forward romance with one of the other teachers there and that’s that. There aren’t a lot of layers to it, but it’s a decent ride nonetheless.
Back when she was first trying to get published Charlotte Brontë was using a male pen name (Currer Bell) and something that she does especially well in The Professor is write like a man. In fact, if I were given the text with no context and asked what I thought the author’s gender was, I’d have said male. Though this is a positive reflection of her skills, unfortunately the main way that it comes across is in the way that William talks about women – specifically that he is really obsessed with their appearance and always describes them as angels and things like that. It’s pretty creepy when the women he’s talking about are teenage girls in his class too. The way he describes the main love interest, Frances, is also pretty creepy, because he has a very strong focus on how young she is.
Speaking of Frances, I did think that she was one of the better things about the novel. She, perhaps, would have been the clue that the novel was actually written by a woman. At this point in history, male authors often didn’t give their female characters much depth, or made then kind of ridiculous. This is not the case at all for Frances, who is very kind and independent, but not without her weaknesses – largely linked to low self-esteem and overly high levels of modesty. I thought she was quite compelling, and it’s impressive that she came off as such when only ever seen through the lens of William’s point of view.
Another side character who I found to be an absolute delight was Mr Hunsden… except if he were real, he’d be anything but a delight. He’s a loud contrarian who is often very rude, but in the most comical of ways. Generally speaking, he is a supportive figure in William’s life, but he also endlessly berates and criticises him. He seems to generally want to disagree with anything anyone ever says, and while that means he is usually in the wrong, he also makes the occasional good point, even critiquing societal expectations of the time. Any chapter he showed up in was one that I had a good time with.
Ironically, William himself is one of the least likeable people in the book – not just because of his weird and creepy way of talking about women, but also because of a vague sense of English superiority that he seems to carry within himself in Europe. It’s not super overt, especially not enough to stop him taking a romantic interest in non-English women, but it comes up every now and then and adds to my overall sense of not liking him that much. He’s another reason I don’t rate it as highly as other Brontë novels, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an enjoyable book.
I recommend reading it if you enjoy classic novels or the Brontës in particular. Despite it’s flaws, I still enjoyed the journey and thought that it was a good book overall, even if others are better.
