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Showing posts from April, 2017

My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal.

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                 My name is Leon by Kit de Waal. "A brother chosen. A brother left behind. And the only way home is to find him. And a family where you'd least expect it." The story is set in the 1980s with the breakdown of a family set against the 1981 riots and the Royal Wedding of Diana and Charles. The protagonist is a young boy called Leon, coming up to nine. He is keenly observant of people around him and protective towards his mum, Carol Rycroft, 25, who suffers from extreme post-natal depression after the birth of her second son, Jake. Home is a London council flat near a dual carriageway. His father, Byron is in prison. "I want you to always love each other. Look after him and look after yourself." Leon is mixed race and Jake is white, blue-eyed and blonde, the exact opposite. For the first four months Leon tries to look after his sick mother and half-brother until the money runs out and the boys go hungry. Carol won'...

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

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                      Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. "Robots will take over Earth, says royal astronomer." Daily Mail. April 2017. He follows Professor Stephen Hawking who has said that artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. (Victoria Allen. Science Correspondent) And on this premise, this is where I begin. Perhaps the author's name seems familiar? One of his well-known books is " Remains of the Day." The book under review was published in 2005, a sad and haunting book presenting a dystopian society. Deeply disturbing and frightening. "We demonstrated to the world that if students were reared in humane, cultivated environments, it was possible for them to grow to be as sensitive and intelligent as any ordinary human being." Organ donations, cloning, artificial intelligence, gene editing and robotics interested Ishiguro who believed that they could transform the way we live and int...