Demob Happy

Flowering talent 7/10 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a precocious talent. Purple Hibiscus is a tale of sexual and politcal awakening in contemporary Nigeria. Its narrator, Kambili – like her country itself – is undergoing a huge transformation as she breaks away from her abusive, puritanical father, a wealthy philanthropist in the community but a violent [...]

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The secret history 9/10 Caché – ‘Hidden’ – directed by Michael (The Piano Teacher) Haneke, is a masterclass on how to unnerve your audience, not through what you necessarily show but by what is indeed hidden from view. Georges (Daniel Auteil) and Anne (Juliette Binoche) are a bourgeois Parisian couple with a teenage son. Georges [...]

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Overland But Underwater 7/10 Kelpe sculpt the kind of dense, no-nonsence electronic soundscapes popularised by Warp stalwarts Boards of Canada. Whereas BOC have come to sound like a parody of themselves, heirs-apparent Kelpe revisit the BOC template without the restraint and obsessiveness displayed by their forefathers. ‘Sea Inside Body’ is a massive, cavernous album awash [...]

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Inside Piers Morgan’s mind? 7/10 The Insider is an addictive read, providing compelling insight into newspaper editing and the role tabloids play in politics and public relations. Intriguing enough just to revisit ten years of scoops and scandals, it is most interesting to see how liberally supposed news stories get ‘splashed’ recklessly over tabloid covers [...]

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My name is white 6/10 Orhan Pamuk’s ‘Snow’ is an ambitious (if not over-ambitious) attempt to somehow grasp the complex struggle between fundamentalism and nationalism – and those caught in between – in his native Turkey. The rather unlikely hero Ka, a poet and exile, is drawn unwillingly into this conflict after witnessing a local [...]

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