PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Pearson and Emory are friends from school days. Pearson is a low-level academic teaching English Literature and Emory is a journalist with her eye on bigger things. When a book about the 'last civil rights fight' – that everyone is intellectually equal, no brain is better than another, that processing issues have been the basis for perceived variation in human intelligence – becomes a runaway best seller adopted by the government of the day, Pearson and Emory find themselves on opposite sides of the Mental Parity divide. Pearson grew up as a Jehovah's Witness and was disenfranchised as a teenager so she is opposed to any form of dogma. She also chose her first two children's father on the basis of his high IQ and in all ways finds herself practically and philosophically against the notion that all brains are equal. Unable to lay low and not speak out, her life is upended – and Emory plays a large part in that! Yet things aren't what they seem, in the end... Set in a slightly alternative world, starting in 2011 and spanning 16 years, this is a wonderfully sly and snarky novel, that sometimes makes you wince with recognition, and sometimes wryly acknowledge that human beings can, indeed, be very stupid! Lindy
Lionel Shriver's novels include the National Book Award finalist So Much for That, the New York Times bestseller The Post-Birthday World, and the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian and the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and many other publications. She lives in London and Brooklyn, New York.
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Pearson and Emory are friends from school days. Pearson is a low-level academic teaching English Literature and Emory is a journalist with her eye on bigger things. When a book about the 'last civil rights fight' – that everyone is intellectually equal, no brain is better than another, that processing issues have been the basis for perceived variation in human intelligence – becomes a runaway best seller adopted by the government of the day, Pearson and Emory find themselves on opposite sides of the Mental Parity divide. Pearson grew up as a Jehovah's Witness and was disenfranchised as a teenager so she is opposed to any form of dogma. She also chose her first two children's father on the basis of his high IQ and in all ways finds herself practically and philosophically against the notion that all brains are equal. Unable to lay low and not speak out, her life is upended – and Emory plays a large part in that! Yet things aren't what they seem, in the end... Set in a slightly alternative world, starting in 2011 and spanning 16 years, this is a wonderfully sly and snarky novel, that sometimes makes you wince with recognition, and sometimes wryly acknowledge that human beings can, indeed, be very stupid! Lindy
'Seldom is a book as funny, important and timely … I was laughing out loud at the same time as my blood was running cold' JOHN CLEESE ‘Viciously funny… an exhilarating satire’ THE TIMES ‘Never shy of getting stuck in, Shriver now sets her satirical sights on groupthink and the policing of thought' Financial Times, Book of 2024 'Shriver is at the top of her game with this scary-smart and scathing satire' Booklist Praise for Lionel Shriver: ‘Shriver’s novels are wonderful… fun, smart and… unlike anything else you’ll read’ Financial Times ‘Hilarious… Fiery phrases spit and crackle’ Sunday Times ‘Wickedly witty’ Spectator ‘An independent mind and a sense of humour are dangerous things to possess. The spiky, politically incorrect novelist Lionel Shriver has them in abundance’ The Times
