What We Are Reading Today: In Covid’s Wake

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Updated 16 March 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: In Covid’s Wake

Authors: Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee

The Covid pandemic quickly led to the greatest mobilization of emergency powers in human history. By early April 2020, half the world’s population were living under quarantine.

People were told not to leave their homes; businesses were shuttered, employees laid off, and schools closed.

The most devastating pandemic in a century and the policies adopted in response to it upended life as we knew it.

In this book, Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee examine our pandemic response and pose some provocative questions.


REVIEW: ‘Donkey Kong Country Returns’ offers classic retro platform fun

Updated 19 March 2025
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REVIEW: ‘Donkey Kong Country Returns’ offers classic retro platform fun

LONDON: Way back in 1999, “Donkey Kong 64” was a genre-defining release for the Nintendo 64. It was the first 3D Donkey Kong game, a generation apart from the first time the gorilla appeared in computer games in 1981.

The return of “Donkey Kong” in this newly released high-definition title for the Switch, offers nothing as groundbreaking as some of his previous titles but is rather core fun for a new generation of younger players.

Indeed, it offers a rehashed, polished and enjoyable platformer for a console that is about to welcome its first major upgrade in the coming months.

At its essence, “Donkey Kong” is platformer ballet, requiring a combination of timing of directional jumps and a small variety of attacks to proceed. Set against the lush backdrop of a tropical island that takes you across nine worlds: from jungles to ruins, underground mines to factories.

With jaunty music and a storyline no more complicated than trying to rescue stolen bananas, Donkey Kong is very much a pick and play rather than a brain teaser.

The game’s simple premise has a degree of depth within it when it comes to the search for perfection. Completing one setting straight through is one thing, doing it whilst collecting all jigsaw puzzle pieces, Donkey Kong letters and bananas is another entirely.

Charming music and enemies and allies alike make up part of your journey. Diddy Kong is your key ally, in single-player mode he rides on DK’s back providing that extra jump boost, in two-player mode he can take down enemies with his banana throws.

Puzzles are straightforward enough for the younger gamer (the game is advertised as age 3 and over) and the biggest frustration is how far you have to go back if you are felled by a bad guy or in a bottomless pit.

Racing minecarts or buccaneering rhinos offer more variety away from the core jumping and the end-of-level bosses are imaginative.

A nice new touch is the use of perspective, accessed through blasting barrels, to conquer more distant parts of each world. Something that is slightly harder on the handheld versus the console as your character vanishes into a miniature.


What We Are Reading Today: Humans by Surekha Davies

Updated 19 March 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: Humans by Surekha Davies

Surekha Davies’ “Humans” traces the long, volatile history of monster-making to chart a better path for the future. Along the way, Davies reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations.

This is not a history of monsters, but a history through monsters.


What We Are Reading Today: El Salvador Could Be Like That by Joseph B. Frazier

Updated 17 March 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: El Salvador Could Be Like That by Joseph B. Frazier

“El Salvador Could Be Like That” covers the bloody civil war in El Salvador from 1979-1986. The author draws from his vast trove of articles written from the frontlines, interspersing the reporting of facts with personal stories — some funny, some tragic. 

Broad in its sweep, focused on the daily lives of the war’s victims, the book is an important contribution to remembering the lessons and recording the history of this mostly forgotten conflict.

The book “puts the reader on the ground as a witness to the unfolding of a civil war, and provides the political and historical background that surfaces the underlying factors that led to the conflict.” 

It is both a memoir and a cautionary tale of the true costs of war as seen from the ground and in the lives of Salvadorans. 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy’ by Max Hastings

Updated 17 March 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy’ by Max Hastings

“Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy” offers an absorbing and definitive modern history of the Vietnam War from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Secret War.

Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls, and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, and Huey pilots from Arkansas.

No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings’ readers know so well, according to a review on goodreads.com.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Mina’s Matchbox’

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Updated 15 March 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Mina’s Matchbox’

  • The house becomes a character in its own right — a vast, almost labyrinthine entity that mirrors the confusion and fragility of familial bonds

Author: Yoko Ogawa

Japanese novelist Yoko Ogawa, renowned for her beautifully crafted narratives in “The Housekeeper and the Professor,” and “The Memory Police,” brings her storytelling style to her latest translation to English, “Mina’s Matchbox.”

Both of those previous works showcase her ability to weave intricate tales that explore human emotions and relationships, albeit in very different contexts. This latest offering, however, presents a more intimate and poignant exploration of family dynamics through the eyes of a child.

In “Mina’s Matchbox,” translated by Stephen Snyder, we meet Mina, a young girl who leaves Tokyo to live with her aunt in a sprawling coastal house.

The narrative unfolds from Mina’s perspective, allowing readers to experience the world through her innocent yet observant eyes. As she navigates her new environment, Ogawa deftly reveals the underlying tensions and complexities within her aunt’s family.

The house becomes a character in its own right — a vast, almost labyrinthine entity that mirrors the confusion and fragility of familial bonds.

Ogawa’s prose is often described as dreamlike; there is a magical quality in the way the author constructs her sentences, drawing readers into a world that feels both familiar and surreal. Her unpretentious style captures the subtleties of emotion with remarkable clarity.

As Mina grapples with her feelings of displacement and belonging, the narrative unfolds to reveal the cracks in the family’s facade. The story serves as an incisive analysis of how external pressures can threaten the stability of family life.

Ogawa’s portrayal of the characters is nuanced, allowing their vulnerabilities and strengths to shine through, making them relatable and deeply human.

In many ways, “Mina’s Matchbox” reflects the themes found in Ogawa’s previous works, yet it stands apart as a distinct exploration of childhood and familial collapse.

The juxtaposition of Mina’s innocence against the adult world’s complexities creates a hauntingly beautiful narrative that lingers long after the last page is turned.

Ogawa continues to enchant readers, proving once again her mastery of the written word.