Don’s Blog

When you live in a country where you’re not perfectly fluent in the language (and reading isn’t really popular activity) you’re always on the look-out for English language magazines.  Fortunately, there is a source available and they actually are offering one-year subscriptions to the electronic editions of numerous different magazines for free!

More details at:  http://goreadgreen.com/category/subscriptions/featured/

(It’s not quite the same as “real paper” but you do get to view every page of the magazine..)

A while ago I posted a list of my favourite audio programs/podcasts on the internet. 

It’s now time to add two more to that list:

TVO’s Big Ideas

Broadcast on TVO this program is also available as both an audio and a video podcast it bills itself as "TELEVISION FOR PASSIONATE THINKERS"…

The Economist Audio Edition

The entire content of each week’s edition of The Economist is converted to audio format and available for download/listening to.  Unfortunately the entire contents are only available to subscribers—but a few audio/video podcasts are posted each day here.

I’ve been a reader (and big fan) of The Economist for over 18 years.  Although not a “light read” it’s easily the most informative and in-depth news magazine in the world–with the only draw-back being that it’s expensive…

However right now there’s a great deal for a short-term subscription for those of you that want to give it a try…12 issues of The Economist for only $15!  (approx. what two issues would cost at the new-stand.)

https://www.economistsubscriptions.com/mail/ca/

Promotion Code:  68C2 

(Warning:  it’s an expensive habit once you become addicted.)

I just finished reading the best novel that I’ve read in the past few years–and thought I should share it with those of you who are reading my blog…

Karen Connelly’s “The Lizard Cage” is lot of reading (hardcover, 500 pages) but is definitely worth the effort.  For those of you who have not heard of her, Karen Connelly is a Canadian author whose first book ”Touch the Dragon” was a journal of her experience as a Rotary Exchange Student in Thailand in the 1980s (and won a few literary prizes.) 

I’ve included a summary of the story below–although I should point out that it doesn’t really do justice to the book as it’s her writing style that really makes this book a great read.

In her long-awaited first novel, Karen Connelly recreates the world of a Burmese prison, and of the country’s tumultuous years in the late 1980’s, when millions of people rose up to protest against the brutality of their military government. This is a story of human resilience, love and humour — a potent act of empathy and witness.

Inside his solitary confinement cell, Teza, who once electrified the people of Burma with his protest songs against the dictatorship, now applies his acute intelligence and Buddhist patience to finding meaning in the interminable days. Arrested by the Burmese secret police, cut off from his family for the first seven years of a twenty-year sentence, he searches for news and human connection in every object and being that is grudgingly allowed into his cell.

Despite his isolation, Teza has a profound influence on the people around him. His integrity and humour inspire the conscience-ridden senior jailer to radical change. His very existence challenges the brutal authority of the junior jailer, perversely nicknamed Handsome. Even though his server, the criminal Sein Yun, sees compromising Teza as his ticket out of jail, the singer befriends him, and falls into a trap of forbidden food, conversation, and the most dangerous contraband of all, pen and paper.

Lastly there’s Little Brother, an orphan who’s grown up inside the jail, imprisoned by his own deprivation. Teza and the boy are prisoners of different orders, but their extraordinary friendship frees both of them in utterly surprising ways. Overturning our expectations, Karen Connelly presents us with a world that celebrates human spirit, and spirit itself, in the midst of injustice and violence.

Source:  http://www.karenconnelly.ca/book_details_the_lizard_cage.aspx