When a woman finds a kitten, it begins the start of an enduring friendship. Mayumi Inaba (1950-2014) was a Japanese poet and writer of fiction. Her 1999 fictionalised memoir, Mornings With My Cat Mii, describes her twenty-year relationship with her cat, Mii. She found the cat - then a kitten - stuck in a fence. The year was 1977, and Mayumi Inaba was living in a rental property with her husband. The house she leased had plenty of access to garden spaces, and little Mii would roam and return with her paws dirty, leaving traces on the floor. While her marriage was not entirely loveless, nor was it overwhelmingly passionate and Inaba and her husband found themselves growing apart. A split was made easier by the fact that her husband was more often than not working away from home. The couple seperated and Inaba bought a small fifth floor apartment. This meant that Mii would have to adapt to having no green spaces to play in. Life continued on, with Mii finding new places to play and even making friends with the neighbours. Inevitably, Mii grew old and became sick. A long final portion of the book describes in harrowing detail Mii’s last years, spent mostly incontinent and in need of devoted care. Mornings With My Cat Mii, long hailed a Japanese classic, now appears in English for the first time, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori. It’s a sensitive and melancholic story about a single woman living alone, trying to connect to the world around her, and finding solace and emotional anchoring with her pet cat. The book is unusual in how it confronts the death of a pet in such an unsparing manner. The lengths that Inaba goes to looking after Mii (constant cleaning and putting up with bad odours) highlights the powerful emotional connection many people have with their pets. An intimate portrait of grief and solitariness. Mornings With My Cat Mii, by Mayumi Inaba. Published by Harvill/Secker. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba Researcher Keith Fisher chronicles oil’s transformation from humble substance that seeped out of the ground, to killing machine for global war. A Pipeline Runs Through It is a history of oil from ancient times to the start of the First World War. Oil has always been known about, and had various uses in antiquity, such as an adhesive or waterproofing agent. Oil seeps or springs gurgled the black stuff from the depths of the earth and it was collected for moderate use. It was in the mid-nineteenth century, when Americans discovered oil, and invented many more powerful applications for its use - lighting, heating, energy - that industrial extraction took hold. Due to its capital intensive nature, requiring enormous infrastructure for transportation, oil extraction as a capitalist project soon became monopolistic. The Standard Oil Company was the first big monopoly, and at one stage provided almost all American oil. The advantages of using oil was quickly taken up by developed economies. In the blink of an eye what had been a novelty, or luxury, turned into a necessity. The race for oil was on. Complicating factors even further was oil’s many benefits as a liquid fuel for military purposes. Once that was realised, then reluctantly digested by nations without access to oil themselves, the geopolitical carve up of the world became intense, almost desperate. It took a mere decade for the British to go from using coal for their army and navy, in which they were self-sufficient, to oil, in which they were utterly dependent. This would ultimately lead the country to costly and risky investment in the Middle East. Germany, a growing industrial power, now also needed to secure oil supplies. Suspicions grew between the two countries, especially the British, whose newspapers were flooded with anti-German propaganda. Keith Fisher has written a superbly researched history, exhaustively documented with large quotes from contemporary sources. In a way, it provides a cautionary tale on how new technologies change power dynamics in big, often violent ways. (Many indigenous peoples were dispossessed to secure valuable oil wells). It also shows how the past is prologue. Britain’s 1882 invasion of Egypt has many parallels to America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, both wars started on patently flimsy pretexts. A fascinating and indispensable study of a substance we all but take for granted. A Pipeline Runs Through It: The Story of Oil from Ancient Times to the First World War, by Keith Fisher. Published by Penguin. $39.99 Review by Chris Saliba Two award winning journalists follow Trump's topsy-turvy money trail. Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig are journalists at The New York Times. Since 2016, when Trump came to power, they have been closely investigating the former president’s finances. Both journalists won a Pulitzer Prize for their work on Trump’s income tax returns which were anonymously mailed to Susanne Craig. Lucky Loser is the result of their years of reporting, plus additional new interview material. There were perhaps two pivotal people that helped create Trump. Firstly and most importantly, his father Fred Trump, a property developer that used depression era government programs to access attractive financing deals. A lack of government oversight allowed Fred Trump to skim off extra profits by inflating building costs. Fred became a multi-millionaire. When his go-getter son wanted to enter the family business, Fred overlooked many of Donald’s faults, such as his impetuousness and failure to perform due diligence. Trump junior would rack up reckless debts, leaving a financial mess in his wake, only to have his father come in and mop things up. The mystery is why Fred, a mild mannered man who avoided the limelight, enabled his blowhard son, often referring to him as “the smartest person I know”. The second person instrumental in giving the world Donald Trump was British television producer, Mark Burnett, creator of The Apprentice. At a time when Trump's finances were in more disarray than usual, the flashy, media hungry businessman was seen as a logical host for the game show. Trump had a reputation among media insiders at the time, and some saw him as a bit of a joke. The show’s producers were shocked when they were shown the Trump Organisation offices at Trump Tower, where filming was to begin. The offices had an overpowering smell of mold, from the carpets, and a lot of the wooden furniture was chipped and in need of repair. It was soon obvious that a set would need to be built. There was spare office space on another floor, which would become home to The Apprentice. Trump had a habit of firing contestants that were good performers on the show, so the editors would have to go back and re-edit to make them look less competent and more worthy of being kicked off the show. In large part it was the show’s editors that made Trump look good. There were many other enablers along the way, most notably financial journalists who should have called out Trump’s boasts and falsehoods much earlier. But Trump got free pass after free pass, until the illusion of Trump’s success became so big that no amount of truth telling could kill the lies. Even Bill and Hillary Clinton attended Trump’s marriage to Melania. Is it any wonder that so many Americans came to believe Trump really was their political saviour? Lucky Loser also shows consistent behavioural patterns - a recurring victim mentality, a penchant for impulsive decision making, a delusional self-belief - that highlights a character that has not changed one bit over the decades. An exhaustively researched book that will last as a damning document. Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered his Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, by Russ Buettner & Susanne Craig. Published by Jonathan Cape. $36.99 Review by Chris Saliba A puppet comes to life in this sweet and sad story. Silvester is a retired puppet maker. He has recently sent off his collection of puppets to be archived in a museum. He is also bereaved, having lost his wife Belinda who was his partner in the puppet business. They used to do shows together for children. But that wonderful time has passed. One day Silvester decides to make a new puppet in his attic. To his surprise the puppet shows signs of life and becomes animated. Simply named “Puppet”, he walks and repeats the word “jam” after Silvester tries to feed him toast. Silvester nervously takes Puppet to the local park, where he gets into a few scrapes, but also meets the sympathetic young girl, Fleur, and her mother Antonia. It turns out Antonia and Silvester have a prior connection, an enthusiasm for puppets which Fleur has inherited. Even though Silvester may have officially retired his puppets, he is pleased to see his passion live on through the young girl. Acclaimed children’s writer David Almond’s new novel Puppet finds its obvious inspiration in Pinocchio, yet he develops his story further into a sensitive meditation on friendship, creativity and grief. With illustrations by Lizzy Stewart. For readers 8+ Puppet, by David Almond. Published by Walker Books. $24.99 Review by Chris Saliba A happiness expert uses the latest science to show how the brain defaults to negative thinking, and how we can fix that bias. Professor Bruce Hood is a psychologist and philosopher specialising in neuroscience. His latest book, The Science of Happiness, mixes the self-help genre with up-to-date scientific research to establish the best path forward in the pursuit of happiness. Seven chapters, or “lessons”, are provided that cover the various ways our brains work, or rather work against us. We learn, among other things, that we are prone to negative comparisons, need to avoid isolation and should focus our attention better. The overarching theme of the book is that egocentrism, which is our natural default position, causes significant suffering. We think too much about ourselves, which only leads to worry. The antidote to this condition is to pursue “allocentrism”, a state of mind that is more collective and outward focused. In short, we should try to do more for others, or think of ourselves more as part of a group. Scientific studies show allocentrism leads to a more sustained happiness. The Science of Happiness makes for rewarding reading, providing a simple, cohesive psychological overview of how the brain is predisposed to negative, egocentric thinking, and how by considering ourselves a small part of something bigger can bring joy. The Science of Happiness, by Bruce Hood. Published by Simon and Schuster. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba The Tiananmen Square protests are vividly evoked in this remarkable work of autobiographical fiction. Lai lives with her parents, grandmother and brother in a rundown apartment in Beijing. The family is relatively poor. Lai’s father is withdrawn, while Lai’s mother is resentful at her lot. Lai’s closest relationship is with her down-to-earth grandmother. When Lai wins a scholarship to Peking University, it opens up a new world. She begins a painful romance with the idealistic Gen, which is offset by a demanding yet exhilarating friendship with the theatrical Anna. It’s a time of student unrest as protests are made for more freedom, and Lai finds herself inexorably caught in this maelstrom. Lai Wen (a pseudonym) was born in Beijing in 1970 and left the country just after the Tiananmen protests in 1989. Tiananmen Square is an absorbing, carefully written coming-of-age novel that captures the emotional whirlpool of student life in late 1980s China, with a diverse cast of characters and some surprising events (including a gay marriage during the protests). Lai Wen is a compelling witness to history, someone who has brooded on her story for 35 years before finally deciding to tell it. A moving and profound story about power, resistance and its terrible consequences. Tiananmen Square, by Lai Wen. Published by Swift Press. $34.99 Review by Chris Saliba |
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