Books

This week’s new page-turners

• Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth: A Novel By Wole Soyinka

The first Black winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature gives us a tour de force, his first novel in nearly half a century: a savagely satiric, gleefully irreverent, rollicking fictional meditation on how power and greed can corrupt the soul of a nation. In an imaginary Nigeria, a cunning entrepreneur is selling body parts stolen from Dr Menka’s hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Dr. Menka shares the grisly news with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer, and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne. The life of every party, Duyole is about to assume a prestigious post at the United Nations in New York, but it now seems that someone is determined that he not make it there. And neither Dr Menka nor Duyole knows why, or how close the enemy is, or how powerful.

• Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters By Steven Pinker

Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding--and also appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for COVID-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorising? Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply irrational - cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives, and set out the benchmarks for rationality itself. We actually think in ways that are sensible in the lowtech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we’ve discovered over the millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, correlation and causation, and optimal ways to update beliefs and commit to choices individually and with others. These tools are not a standard part of our education, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now.

• The Ex Hex By Erin Sterling

Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths… and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she shouldn’t use her magic this way, but with only an “orchard hayride” scented candle on hand, she isn’t worried it will cause him anything more than a bad hair day or two. That is until Rhys Penhallow, descendent of the town’s ancestors, breaker of hearts, and annoyingly just as gorgeous as he always was, returns to Graves Glen, Georgia. What should be a quick trip to recharge the town’s ley lines and make an appearance at the annual fall festival turns disastrously wrong. With one calamity after another striking Rhys, Vivi realises her silly little Ex Hex may not have been so harmless after all. Suddenly, Graves Glen is under attack from murderous wind-up toys, a pissed off ghost, and a talking cat with some interesting things to say. Vivi and Rhys have to ignore their off the charts chemistry to work together to save the town and find a way to break the break-up curse before it’s too late.

Oprah Winfrey chooses Richard Powers’ ‘Bewilderment’ for book club’

NEW YORK (AP) — Oprah Winfrey’s new book club pick is Richard Powers’ “Bewilderment,” his first novel since the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Overstory” and already on the fiction longlist for the National Book Awards.

“My next selection is from one of our country’s greatest living writers, Richard Powers, who writes some of the most beautiful sentences I’ve ever read,” Winfrey said in a statement Tuesday.

The 64-year-old Powers, whose other books include “Orfeo” and “The Echo Maker,” winner of the National Book Award in 2006, said in a statement that he was “honoured and moved to be named an ‘Oprah Book Club’ selection.” ”‘Bewildered’ doesn’t begin to describe it,” he added. “This is among the most rewarding recognitions I’ve received over my 40-year career.”

Winfrey’s interview with Powers will air October 22 on Apple TV Plus. Powers is known for complex narratives that often center on science, technology and the environment. “Bewilderment,” published last week, tells of a widowed astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches who for life throughout the cosmos while singlehandedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin.

Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain

The announcement on Tuesday comes just over a month since Winfrey’s previous book club choice: Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ debut novel “The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois.”

literary lives - Diahann Carroll (1935 - 2019) A pioneering actress who broke colour barriers

Sir Christopher Ondaatje writes about the American singer, model and activist who rose to prominence in some of the earliest studio films to feature black casts. She was the first African-American woman to receive a Tony Award for a performance on Broadway.

“In the beginning, I found myself dealing with a show business dictated by male white supremacists and chauvinists. As a Black female, I had to learn how to tap dance around the situation. I had to ... find a way to present my point of view without being pushy or aggressive.”

- Diahann Carroll

Carol Diahann Johnson was born in the Bronx, New York City, on July 17, 1935, to John Johnson, a subway conductor, and Mabel (Faulk), a nurse. The family moved to Harlem while Carroll was still an infant. She was a classmate of young Billy Dee Williams, who went on to become famous in the role of Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise, at Music and Art High School in Harlem. Her parents were very supportive, enrolling her in modelling, singing and dancing classes. By the time she was fifteen, she was modelling for Ebony magazine. She also entered Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts on television using the name Diahann Carroll. She continued to study and, after graduating, went to New York University where she majored in sociology. She dropped out before graduating to pursue a career in show business, but promised her family that she would return to her studies if things did not work out in the entertainment industry.

In 1953, when she was eighteen, she appeared on TV contesting in the Dumont Television Network programme Chance of a Lifetime hosted by Dennis James. Singing “Why Was I Born?” – the

Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein song – she won the $1,000 top prize and continued winning for the next four weekly programmes. Singing was her speciality and she went on to engagements in Manhattan’s Café Society and the Latin Quarter nightclubs.

Diahann Carroll broke colour barriers with the TV sitcom ‘Julia’ in 1968

“I had a mom and pop who kept telling me that I was wonderful at a very early age. So when someone said to me, ‘Oh, you’re stuck up. Who do you think you are?’ I’d say, ‘I know who I am, and I don’t mind being stuck up.’”

- Diahann Carroll

Carroll made her film debut when she was nineteen in a supporting role in Carmen Jones (1954), which starred Dorothy Dandridge.

That same year she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best

Featured Actress in a Musical for her role in the Broadway musical House of Flowers. Her voice seemed to be her strongest talent and won her early fame, but when cast as Clara in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in 1959, her voice was dubbed by opera singer Loulie Jean Norman. Adam Clayton Powell Jr at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem – and boycotted by her father. The marriage didn’t last. Her daughter Suzanne Kay Bamford was born on September 9, 1960. The marriage ended in 1962. In 1959, Carroll began a nine-year affair with the Bahamian actor Sidney Poitier, who was to star with her in her next film. Poitier, too, was married. He convinced Carroll to divorce her husband – which she did – and agreed to do the same. However, Poitier did not keep his side of the bargain.

She made a guest appearance in the TV series Peter Gunn, in the episode “Sing a Song of Murder”. In Paris Blues (1961) she starred with Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and then in 1962 became the first Black woman to win a Tony Award for Best Actress for portraying Barbara Woodruff in the Samuel Taylor/Richard Rodgers musical No Strings.

Carroll’s relationship with Sidney Poitier ended in 1968, the year she played the title role in the television series Julia – for which she was best known and in which she became the first African-American actress to star in her own television series. She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television series, and a nomination for an Emmy Award in 1969. She was busy, in demand, and appeared as a guest on shows hosted by Johnny Carson, Judy Garland, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar, Ed Sullivan, and on Hollywood Palace. She also met and was engaged to British television host David Frost from 1970 until 1973, when she surprisingly married Las Vegas boutique owner Fred Glusman. Glusman filed for divorce four months later. Glusman was reportedly physically abusive and Carroll did not contest the divorce.

“As soon as my mother saw my father, she said, ‘Oh! I think I’m gonna marry that man.’ That’s the reason I’ve been married four times, because I think it’s that easy ... it really is not.”

- Diahann Carroll

On May 25, 1975 Carroll, then aged thirty-nine, married Robert DeLeon, the twenty-four year old managing editor of Jet magazine. DeLeon had assigned himself to a cover story on Carroll about her Oscar nomination for the film Claudine. Carroll moved to Chicago where Jet was headquartered, but the couple soon relocated