Reading beyond recipe books

This is a heavy weight, by the size of the book and the technical contents. Despite this, it is a page turner. The book tackles the history of the discovery of cancer and how it was treated or interpreted from ages past to the current times. The approach of treating cancer has also changed with the times, from total aggressive excision to a measured approach aimed at maintaining the quality of life of the patient.  From the technical front, it explains how clinician scientists pursue the rogue cell with the relentless determination of detectives and  how there is no one standard reason to its origin. A very interesting read. The author has made medical investigation palatable for the medically uninformed.  I read it on a ebook because the book was too much of a 'heavyweight' to be read in bed.

Atwood is at it again, coming up with another Booker Award Book. This book is a 35 year follow up to The Handmaid Tale for those who wanted to know what happened to Gilead. The narrative in Testaments was made by Aunt Lydia, a captive judge turned powerful Aunt in Gilead, Agnes, a girl who barely escaped an arranged marriage to the most powerful Commander Judd by becoming an Aunt, Agnes' sidekick, Becka who joined the order of the Aunts to get away from men in general and Baby Nicole, Agnes' half sister and living in free Canada as a adoptive refugee. Religion was exploited for power and control in Gilead ,with men changing wives and having babies through Handmaids. Households among elites were dysfunctional as parents were merely custodians of children through surrogate births. By a twist of fate and willful manipulation of Lydia, 2 half sisters on both sides of the border met. They were sent to free Canada to expose the hypocrisy of those in power in Gilead. The downf...

This is a trilogy of fruitless love in the twilight of China's 'new era' from the feudal lords. Different groups of people, mostly academics and students, wanted to make a brand new world where traditions are abolished and socialism is feted. The only problem is the activists forget that their basic needs some sorting out before spear heading a new social order; the need for love. Love interests continues as old comrades in arms die for the cause and love becomes a stumbling stone between ideology and practical needs. There is a lot of dying from consumption, declaration of lofty ideals (immitating the west) and a headless stoic struggle for new freedom. Reading in today's context and seeing how the world Bajin envision it to be, I would think most activists in his time could have died for nothing.