The Leaderless Revolution by Carne Ross

The Leaderless Revolution by ex-diplomat Carne Ross has become a very popular book in recent months fuelled by the increasing discontent with the traditional political class. I am not sorry I chose to read this book at all, although I don't think this book will become a seminal work on the subject, it is certainly an interesting read, well written, with relevant and well documented case samples to back his arguments.
The key points of the book are:

1. One must take responsibility for one's acts. State has taken away that from us for its own controlling purposes with disasstrous consequences for the state and us. 2. Politics has become too professionalised and therefore dissociated from the people and their social needs. 3. Globalisation has changed the world and old political assumptions applied to international relations are no longer applicable. It is important that old assumptions are revised.

The most interesting point of the book in my opinion and one which I totally share is that indivuals have to act, have to take advantage of all the good things that globalisation has to offer to get to know other people. Meeting then face to face is the best way of ending wars, and anti-social behaviour. Once we know the others, we realise how our lives are linked to each others, and we are very much like each other. As Shakespeare said:
"Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?"
Doesn't this quote apply to all of us refgardless of the faith, or lack of? Then, why do we forget that the other is just someone like us? Perhaps the hard work our political leaders have put into convincing us of this has really paid off.
Out of this book I have learned than I am still an indivual and that my opinion counts, but that it is my responsibility to make it count. I have to make my leaders accountable for the power I vest on them with my vote, I have to look at my own behaviour towards others and the environment and follow the moral laws I was brought up, to be conscious of doing it and to be proud of my individual achievements.
Please read this book. And hopefully, you will also become more aware of your own shortcomings so that you will also work towards overcoming them.

A wonderfully written, extremely sad book

Dan Vyleta's The Quiet Twin is the work of a craftsman: the pace of the novel is superb, the characters, all of them, masterfully painted: I can see them all as part of a large Caravaggio's painting. These characters, hidden in the shadows of their own flats in a building in Vienna in 1939, are glimpsed through windows and in the courtyard of the building.

I find the courtyard and the windows of the building serve as perfect metaphors of the little bit of knowledge everyone of the inhabitants of the flats have but do not share with the others. Everyone knows something, but it is just a distorted view of some facts gathered accidentally or put out of context. When something is about to be revealed, the truth disappears into the shadows.

Of all the characters in this choral novel, the crippled Annaliese Grotten, Lieschen, is the most endearing. Her personal development through the books represents that of the people of Vienna after the Anschluss: carefree and trusting, unaware of their own deformities or the horrors around them. Lieschen, sweet and confident child of 10, discovers the horror of it all despite the efforts of Dr Beer to protect her.

Dr Beer is not an action man, he is an spectator who clumsily takes his place in stage when called to do so. One can feel his discomfort at being forced there, and accepts that he can't do more than being the witness of the dramas around him.

In a book full of metaphors, I find the quiet twin to be none other than Austria itself. The quiet, but not blameless, twin of Nazi Germany.

The closing of the book does not disappoint. Without giving much away, I'll say that the reader is left feeling like the tenants of those flats: with a certain suspicion that makes him feel uncomfortable. Suspicions are more disturbing than certainties.

I have to immerse myself in another book, a very different book as soon as possible to get rid of the feeling of guilt and impotence this book has left me with. I will not read Dan Vyleta's Pavel and I just yet.

Dan Vyleta, The Quiet Twin. ISBN 978-1-4088-2168-8

All Working Women Should Read

Mrs Moneypenny's Careers Advice for Ambitious Women

I have always had something against self-help books and I would have classified this as such. Until I read it.

The book is full of obvious statements, that we all know, and that’s the best part of the book because it is often the obvious we tend to overlook. It is also very useful to have them all compiled in one single, and attractive, book. It’s attractiveness doesn’t lay only in its cover, it has wide margins to make notes, a summary of the key action points at the end of each chapter and it makes very clear what actions apply at each stage of a woman’s career.

This is a very practical guide, with references and links to set the reader on her way to a successful career. Do not think for a minute that Mrs Moneypenny’s advice is suitable to women whose sight is on the boardroom, it applies to any woman - and man for that matter - who is interested in making a success of her working life.

My Lent resolution is to put follow her advice.

Mrs Moneypenny, Careers Advice for Ambitious Women - ISBN 9780670920815

*The eBook version is cheaper!

The Factory of Light by Michael Jacobs

I have just finished reading the delightful book. The writer has found the perfect balance between the humorous, the sentimental, and the nostalgic in this description of his personal discovery of a small community, in a remote and seemingly unremarkable village in Spain.
The pace of the book is masterly accomplished through his increasingly more personal involvement in the daily life of the community.
As it is expected of any travel book, the scenery features prominently in the book, but it is the people, each individual character so well and lovingly defined that make the book so readable. It was very easy to immerse myself in the lives of Frailes by following their inhabitants' plights.
The author becomes part of the community, he is not a mere spectator, he goes olive picking with them, helps them to restore the old cinema, shares the distress with a friend whose job is under threat, brings new people to the village and goes outside the village to meet new people using the village's contacts.
This is not an anthropological depiction of a village in Spain, nor a nostalgic view of a changing world. I find this is a book of discovery: the discovery of a place to live amid the people he enjoys doing things with.
I highly recommend this book.
The Factory of Light - Michael Jacobs. ISBN 0-7195-6163-9

New Year, New Job

I meant to change job in 2012, so imagine how pleased I am with myself when just a few days into the month, I was offered a new job. And a job that it is interesting, stimulating and promises to be very rewarding. I hope I don't sound too smug, but I think 2012 is going to be a fantastic year for me. And for this reason I am going to add this new item to my New Year Resolution List: I will help my friends and colleagues, to the best of my ability, to achieve their own goals.