A book list and an inspiring robot

The above article was in the Daily Mail week beginning 13/4/15

I think I would like to live long enough to have a robot to look after me in my old age. Of the close to 100 books I read in Cameroon, Marge Piercy’s award winning science fiction novel featuring Yod the robot/cyborg remains in my memory and I named my man sheep after him. I thought about  Yod the other week in Tunisia when we sat on a table for lunch on a trip out with a group of women and someone’s older mother. On the face of it they were being immensely caring and loving bringing her with them on holiday. I don’t know what her financial contribution was. However, in that very short space of eating time there was such an undercurrent of belittling and scapegoating over what she had or hadn’t done, it made me sad and miserable for her. Why invite someone if you are not going to be truly kind?

The reality is this is life and she would probably rather this than be left alone and of course she may also be irritating and stupid at times.

I think I would prefer to see my children for the bits they found manageable and if I can’t have an ageing soul mate, go for the robot, as near to Yod as possible in terms of meeting all my human needs. It would be awesome to take part in trials. Not so awesome if you were the first human to get throttled by a robot for being insufferable.

Hazel’s African booklist

No	Name of book	Author	Comments	Score out of 10 for impact
1	Winter in Madrid	C.J. Sansom	Spanish Civil War – love story, politics, struggle for justice	7
2	Miss Smilla’s feeling for Snow	Peter Hoeg	Mystery set in Greenland – setting good, story not always believable	6
3	The Woman Who Painted Her Dreams	Isla Dewar	Interesting about relationships. Couldn’t finish it because it didn’t have a happy ending	5
4	The Bonesetters daughter	Amy Tan	Chinese family story	4
5	Gap Creek	Robert Morgan	Story of a marriage in rural America – very real	7
6	The Red Scarf	Kate Furnival	Heroine escapes from a Russian Labour camp – set in 1930s Russian politics	8
7	Crispin, the cross of lead	Avi	Medieval adventure of young boy	5
8	Letter to Daniel – dispatches from the heart	Feargal Keane	Journalist short stories	6
9	After you’d gone	Maggie O’Farrell	Set in the present – examination of relationships	8
10	Elegance	Kathleen Tessaro	Set around an old fashioned guide on how to dress	5
11	One Child	Torey Hayden	A teacher working with disturbed children	6
12	The Crystal Skull	Manda Scott	Adventure	5
13	Howling at the Moon	Walter Yetnikoff	Autobiographical about the music industry	6
14	Cat’s Cradle	Kurt Vonnegut	Satirical commentary	7
15	Necessary Journeys	Granta	Powerful short stories	8
16	Let it Bleed	Ian Rankin	Formulaic tough scot detective story	6
17	The Hanging Garden	Ian Rankin	As above	6
18	Dead Souls	Ian Rankin	As above	6
19	The Undomestic Goddess	Sophie Kinsella	Happy Ending chick lit	5
20	The Long afternoon	Giles Waterfield	Family history mid world wars in southern France	7
21	The toss of a lemon	Padma Viswanathan	Brahmin epic	9
22	The Master	Colm Toibin	Fictional portrait of Henry James	7
23	The Lighthouse	PD James	mystery	7
24	Saving Agnes	Rachel Cusk	Child-adult transition	5
25	Faceless Killers	Kurt Wallander	Swedish detective story	7
26	Eat –Pray- Love	Elizabeth Gilbert	One woman’s search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia	9
27	Angry Housewives eating bon bons	Lorna Landvik	American woman power	7
28	Small Island	Andrea Levy	Jamaican immigrants during & post ww2	10
29	The Fig Eater	Jody Shields	Slightly weird thriller set in turn of the century Vienna	5
30	Falling Leaves	Adeline Yen Mah	The true story of an unwanted Chinese daughter	7
31	Three cups of Tea	Greg Mortenson + David Oliver Relin	One man’s mission to promote peace, one school at a time.	7
32	Crow Lake		Complex family drama	9
33	Train to Liguria		Gripping story of nanny’s involvement with an Italian family during ww2	10
34			Story about visit to an adopted chinese daughter’s birth town	5
35			Family story set during the siege of Moscow in ww2	9
36	A Short History of the 20th Century	Eric Hobsbawn	History of 20th century – appealed to me because I lived the last 40 years of it.	8
37	The post American World	Fareed Zakaria	Journalist synopsis of political changes in the World 21st century – about terrorism and which countries would dominate economically in the future and why.	9
38	In search of my father	Barack Obama	Story of American president’s upbringing and influences	8
39	A Suitable Boy vol 2	Vikram Seth	Is it blasphemy to say I couldn’t get into this and did not finish it?	2
40	The Camel Bookmobile	Masha Hamilton	So captured the African mentality it left me quite raw	9
41	The White Tiger	Aravind Adiga	Brilliant take on Indian corruption – could identify with stuff I’ve seen here.	10
42	Don’t let’s go to the dogs tonight	Alexandra Fuller	Unsentimental story of white family growing up in Africa – 3 of their 5 children died.	9
43	Mango Elephants in the sun	Susana Herrera	Story of peace corps volunteer in far north – very true to reality although I have not experienced all she did.	9
44			Female journalist working in Africa.	7
45	A zoo in my luggage	Gerald Durrell	Story of visit to NW Cameroon to collect animals in the 1950s	9
46	The elegance of the Hedgehog	Muriel Barbery	Story of 2 people in a Parisian apartment block who were trying not to show how intelligent they were.	9
47	A far cry from Kensington	Muriel Spark	Mystery story set in a 1952 lodgings house.	8
48	Since I don’t have you	Louise Candlish	Story of a woman who went to Santorini after she lost her daughter	8
49	The consequences of marriage	Isla Dewar	Bibi takes a young lodger and on a journey recounts her whole life story.	9
50	The story of Lucy Gault	William Trevor	A child running away from home wrecks her and her family’s lives. Too depressing for me.	5
51	The Seventh Scroll	Wilbur Smith	Not very well developed characters, too much James Bond plot. Boring, even with a happy ending.	5
52	The Butcher Boy	Patrick McCabe	Depressing story about an impoverished boy with a ruined life.	5
53	Birds of a Feather	Jacqueline Winspear	Maisie Dobbs detective story with a psychological twist – really good read.	9
54	Sea of Poppies	Amitav Ghosh	Indian epic uniting the well created characters around a boat journey. The writing totally engaged me.	10
55	The Dark Room	Rachel Seiffert	Story of 3 Germans in 1930s Germany	8
56	Deaf Sentence	David Lodge	Funny, well written, highly original, makes something good out of something that could be dull.	9
57	Notes from the slippery slope	Horatio Clare	True life story of a young man’s addiction to drugs and its effect	7
58	The Mission Song	John Le Carre	Political intrigue thriller involving an interpreter within an African context	8
59	Beneath the Bleeding	Val McDermid	Detective/ profiler mystery about a poisoner	9
60	Slow Man	J.M.Coetzee	Story of a man in his 60s recovering after he loses a leg & his relationships with his nurses.	9
61	The God of Small Things	Arundhati Roy	Terribly sad story about caste and prejudice.   Won the Booker prize but slow and labored.	7
62	The Fourth Hand	John Irving	About a man who has a hand transplant that eventually changes his life for the better	7
63	The meaning of the 21st Century	James Martin	A fascinating and inspiring book predicting the challenges of the 21st century	10
64	Cleopatra’s Daughter	Michelle Moran	Better than average historical novel set in roman times	7
65	The Pilot’s Wife	Anita Shreve	Story of betrayal discovered when the husband dies in a plane crash.	9
66	Miss Pettigrew lives for a day	Winifred Watson	Delightful story of a governess looking for a job who finds a life.	9
67	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close	Jonathan Safran Foer	9 year old boy seeks lock for a key after his father dies in the twin towers collapse.	9
68	Fathers of International Thought	Kenneth.W. Thompson	Fathers of International Thought	7
69	The Island	Victoria Hislop	Finding out about mother’s connection to a cretan island.	7
70	Family: life, death & football	Michael Calvin	A year in the life of Millwall football club	8
71	Cross Country	James Patterson	A detective yarn set across Africa	7
72	Deception Point	Dan Brown	Well written adventure thriller	8
73	Nothing but trouble	Michael Mcgarrity	Inconclusive American mystery set in the south	6
74	The Beautyful Ones are not yet born	Ayi Kwei Armeh	Story of one man’s stand against corruption in Ghana	8
75	Letters to a Love Rat	Niamh Greene	OK chick lit. Took me a while to get into it.	5
76	Comfort and Joy	India Knight	Story about 3 Christmasses and 2 divorces	8
77	The Mystery of Capital: why capitalism triumphs in the west and fails everywhere else.	Hernando de Soto	Explains how third world fail to benefit from capitalism because they do not have a legal infrastructure that enables them to turn property and land rights into collateral.	10
78	The Memory Keeper’s Daughter	Kim Edwards	The repercussions for a doctor and his family when he gives away his baby daughter who has Downs.	8
79	Worst case	James Patterson	Easy read about a serial killer who kidnaps the children of wealthy people.	7
80	Young Adolf	Beryl Bainbridge	Witty and entertaining story about Adolf’s time in Liverpool.	8
81	The Romantic Movement	Alain de Botton	Original take on a relationship with philosophical insights.	9
82	The Pirate’s Daughter	Robert Girardi	Lovely story about a young man in modern times who falls in love with a pirate.	9
83	Body of Glass	Marge Piercy	Referred to as a ‘dystopian novel’ with a robot/cyborg Yod who chooses to end his own life to save those he loves. Google it. The story is too complicated to explain here.	10