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Rebel Wilson exposes A-lister who "threatened" her over book release

Rebel Wilson has slammed a Hollywood A-lister for allegedly threatening her over the release of her new memoir. The Aussie actress is set to release her autobiography Rebel Rising on April 2nd, which details her rise to stardom from Australia to the US. In the book, she has dedicated a chapter to one particular actor who she had an unfortunate experience with on the set of a movie in 2014. Now, Rebel claims Sacha Baron-Cohen, husband of Aussie actress Isla Fisher, has "threatened" her about the release of such information in the upcoming book. Taking to her Instagram, Rebel named and shamed the actor, writing, “I will not be bullied or silenced with high priced lawyer or PR crisis managers. The ‘a**hole’ that I am talking about in ONE CHAPTER of my book is Sacha Baron Cohen.” "Now the a**hole is trying to threaten me. He’s trying to stop press coming out about my new book. But the book WILL come out and you will all know the truth.” Sacha Baron-Cohen was quick to release a statement in response to the allegations, with his representative sharing the statement with <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2024/03/25/rebel-wilson-calls-out-sacha-baron-cohen-book-memoir/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TMZ</a>. “While we appreciate the importance of speaking out, these demonstrably false claims are directly contradicted by extensive detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, film footage, and eyewitness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby,” the statement said. Wilson and Baron-Cohen worked on the comedy film The Brothers Grimsby in 2014, where Rebel alleges that Baron-Cohen acted sexually inappropriate towards her for the duration of the shoot. Image credits: Getty Images

Legal

Readers Respond: What's a book you love that most people have never heard of?

Looking for a new book to kickstart your year? Look no further we've got you covered. Here are a few of our reader's book recommendations that you may not have heard of. Ruth Fontaine - I’m reading We of the Never Never atm. Not sure if it’s still well known. I’ve read it before but awhile back and love it. I love reading how they lived nearly 120 years ago. Elaine Rosenberg - The Abbey Girls Series by Elsie J Oxenham. Maryika Welter - The courage to be disliked. ... Furmitake Kogan, Ichiro Kishimi. Janice Stewart - A Fortunate Life by Albert Facey Suzanne Midson - On Our Selection by Steele Rudd. Read it when I was about 10/12. Best laugh ever. Australian humour at its best. Julie Anderson - Episode of Sparrows by Rumor Goddin Nancie Golsby - The Half Burned Tree by Dympna Cusack June Maynard - Sahara, by Paula Constant. Preceded by Slow Journey South. A thrilling, actual account of her adventure. Peter Rayner - Enforcer by Caesar Campbell Meg Milton - I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven Edie Dore - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. Christine Cornforth - A Grief Observed by CS Lewis. Wendy Oliver - The Good Earth by Pearl Buck Do you have any other recommendations that we might have missed? Image: Getty

Books

Second “royal racist” accidentally named in new book

A second member of the royal family has been accused of being "racist", after the bombshell royal exposé implied them in the scandal over baby Archie's skin colour. In Omid Scobie's new book Endgame, he discusses the comments that members of the royal family made to Meghan Markle when she was pregnant with baby Archie. Markle first shared the bombshell allegations in her tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, but she refused to name the royal family member who made the comments, saying, “I think that would be very damaging to them.” On Wednesday, reports emerged that copies of the book were being <a href="https://oversixty.co.nz/entertainment/books/new-royal-book-pulled-from-shelves-over-huge-legal-blunder" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pulled from shelves</a> as the Dutch translation of the book accidentally named the person involved in the scandal. Omid Scobie admitted he does know who made the comments, but UK libel laws prevented him from naming them in the book. Now, as copies of the tell-all book have been flying off shelves, it seems another member of the royal family has been implicated in the book, which is now said to be frantically being pulled from shelves. It comes after Mr Scobie denied responsibility for the Dutch translation of his new book “accidentally naming” a member of the Royal Family. Publishers Xander Uitgevers yesterday said they were seeking to remove Mr Scobie’s work from bookshelves saying there had been an “error”. Speaking to Dutch TV on Wednesday night, Mr Scobie defended his book, saying, “The book is in several languages, and unfortunately I do not speak Dutch”. “But if there are translation errors, I’m sure the publishers will have it under control." “I wrote and edited the English version. There’s never been no version that I’ve produced that has names in it.” In the English version, Mr Scobie writes, “In the pages of these private letters [given to Oprah by Markle], two identities were revealed. UK laws prevent me from reporting who they were”. But the Dutch version reads, “In those private letters, an identity was revealed and confirmed” — before going on to name a senior royal. Dutch royal reporter Rick Evers says he was one of only two journalists to be given a manuscript of Endgame last Wednesday. Mr Evers said, “I was shocked that no one else in the world mentioned the fact that a member of the royals was named in the book as the racist”. “That was the main accusation in the book that I noticed and what I put in my (review) article, which was published with a photo of that royal." “I began to question if it was only my manuscript that had the name in it. I went to get the book from a store and it was exactly the same,” Mr Evers said. “A woman called from the publisher saying there was a legal problem and my article had to be removed.” It is unclear how the error occurred, but Mr Scobie confirmed that the first royal family member named in the book is not the one stated in the letters from Meghan Markle. Image credits: Getty Images

Legal

New royal book pulled from shelves over huge legal blunder

Copies of an explosive new book about the royal family are being pulled from shelves and destroyed after a translation error "accidentally named" the alleged "royal racist". Sales of the new book Endgame, written by Omid Scobie who also wrote Finding Freedom about Harry and Meghan's exit from the royal family, were "temporarily" put on hold just days after its release after what has been labelled an error. According to Xander, the publishers of the Dutch edition of Scobie's book, a translation error led to a member of the royal family being identified as the person who made comments about baby Archie's skin colour. “[We are] temporarily withdrawing the book by Omid Scobie from sale. An error occurred in the Dutch translation and is currently being rectified,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/royals/24884315/royal-racist-accidentally-named-omid-scobie/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Sun</a> claims that thousands of copies of the book are now being destroyed as a result. The "racist royal" scandal dates back to when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a tell-all interview in 2021, when Markle alleged that while she was pregnant with their first child, Prince Archie, there were “concerns and conversations” from a member of the royal family about how dark his skin might be. The Duchess of Sussex stopped short of naming the person involved, telling Winfrey, “I think that would be very damaging to them.” In the original edition of his book, Scobie also declines to identify the royal, claiming libel laws prevented him from doing so – although he has confirmed he knows who it is. “I do know who made the comments about Archie’s skin colour,” he told UK program Good Morning during his book press tour. “The names were mentioned in letters between Meghan and Charles that were exchanged sometime after the Oprah interview." “We know from sources that Charles was horrified that that’s how Meghan felt. Those conversations were, and that he wanted to, sort of as a representative for the family, have that conversation with her. “And it is why I personally think they have been able to move forward with some kind of line of communication afterwards. Though they may not see eye-to-eye on it.” It’s understood the royal family member accidentally named in the Dutch edition was not the person Meghan had been referring to. Image credits: Getty Images / Harper Collins

Books

8 signs you should be booking a group tour

Not sure if you should take a tour or go it alone? These are the times you’re going to want that expert on hand. 1. When you’re on a really tight schedule A tour will help you squeeze in as much as possible in a very short time. It will plan out a sensible itinerary with no backtracking or wasted journeys and will give you a realistic idea of how much you can fit in for a day. Plus you won’t have to puzzle out public transport for yourself. 2. When you’re feeling nervous Arriving in a new place can be scary sometimes, so having someone to walk you through it will make all the difference. If a city has a reputation for being unsafe or if it’s just your first time in a foreign country, a tour will give you a great worry-free introduction. 3. When there’s a big language barrier We’re lucky in that much of the world speaks English, so we can usually muddle our way around. But in some countries you’ll find there’s a significant language barrier, so having a native speaker is going to make all the difference. 4. When you want to meet some locals This might sound counterintuitive, but an organised tour can be one of the best ways to meet some locals. First of all, your guide is likely to be local and can introduce you to their hometown. Secondly, it’s daunting to walk into a crowded bar or cool café when you don’t know anyone. A guide can smooth the way and ensure you don’t get stuck in tourist traps. 5. When it’s really busy If you don’t fancy joining the huge line outside a popular museum or waiting hours for tickets, a tour could be the way to go. They can often organise private or after hours visits, get special passes to cut the line or take you to areas that are off limits to the general public. 6. When it’s the law Want to visit North Korea? You’re going to need to join a tour. Some governments have restrictions in place that mean foreign tourists can only visit when accompanied by a registered tour guide and independent travel is simply not an option. 7. When you’re doing something really adventurous Trekking, white water rafting, canyoning or safaris – for safety reasons you’re going to need to join a tour. These kinds of activities can be dangerous, so you don’t want to be risking them on your own. A tour or private guide will show you the best way to get your heart pumping. 8. When you’re going right off the grid Places like Antarctica, the Arctic, remote corners of Africa or tricky countries like Russia are best done on a tour. Often the logistics of simply getting there are impossible for the independent traveller or you will need help navigating the complex visa process. In these instances, it’s a relief to put yourself in someone else’s hands and just concentrate on having fun. Image credits: Getty Images

Travel Tips

Readers Respond: What is something you miss about pre-internet times?

Times are changing and in an increasingly digital world, there are a few things that just don't feel the same. We asked our readers what they missed the most about the pre-internet times and while some shared their nostalgia, others believe that the change is for the better. Jeanie Houston - The joy of getting a letter from loved ones overseas. Tina Karanastasis - Having pen pals (a fad in my younger years), writing and receiving handwritten letters, building relationships through shared moments and time spent together face to face. Deirdre Hudson - Being able to go anywhere without someone calling you Lois Parkes - Going to a library to research the answer Gini Glenn - Nothing! I love the internet and mobile phones. You can always leave your phone at home or turn it off. Lovely to have choices. Teresa Hamilton Gross - Having a conversation with someone who is not looking at their cell phone. Jan Gundersen - Being out at a restaurant & talking to each other! Don Gregor - Getting lost while driving/traveling. Met the most interesting people and had the most memorable times. Ann Hazlewood - Sitting around talking to family Ellen Clarke - Sitting around the kitchen table & everyone talking at once, miss it! Christine Armstrong - Letters! I miss getting letters from friends and family in the mail box Beverley Collison - Listening to stories of the older generation when I was younger. And telephone conversations. Did we miss anything? Let us know if there are other things that you miss from the pre-internet times!

Retirement Life

How to start your own book club

Starting a book club is easy – all you need is to love reading. Here’s how to get yours off to a flying start. Finding Fellow Readers Ask around your existing personal networks, including neighbours, friends, social media, or a community noticeboard. Once you mention you want to start a club, you’ll be surprised how many people may want to come along. Ask at your local bookshop and library for ideas – many run regular reading groups and can point you in the right direction for good books. Identify what common interests you and your group have and use these to help draw like-minded people. Once you start looking, you’ll find book clubs for men or women, seniors, sci-fi lovers, teenagers or cookery buffs. The Time, the Place Once you have a group, agree on how often you want to meet – typically clubs meet monthly, though the time-poor may want to make it bi-monthly. For many clubs, meeting at home works best as you don’t have to get dressed up, and noisy public venues can make talking hard. If members bring a plate of food or a bottle, it takes the pressure off the host. But try rotating your meeting location as this will help to stimulate fresh thoughts. Idea Tailor your venue according to the book’s subject matter. The Light Between the Oceans by M.L. Stedman was discussed over fish’n’chips by one club, while The Red Tent by Anita Diamant was chewed over at a Middle Eastern restaurant. Size Matters According to Christine Callen, a book club veteran of 15 years, you need a minimum number of people per meeting to make it interesting. “Seven is the magic number – fewer and there’s not enough for healthy debate,” she says. “You can have ten people in the club – not everyone will be able to make it every time – seven provides enough opinions.” Choosing the Books If you’re the club instigator, it’s easier if you pick the first book. Seek out book reviews in good magazines and newspapers and at bookshops. The flavour of the books you choose will be largely dictated by the personalities attending – you might like to have a wide range of genres from sci-fi to romance to travel epics. Or stick to one genre, such as history books. Decide on a strategy and a time frame – say five to 12 books across the year – then review how everything appeals to the majority. Take turns to come up with a list of four or five titles, then circulate the list via email shortly after your last discussion. Members can then vote on their preferred next book and meeting time. The member scheduled to host the next meeting coordinates the responses to decide the title and date most voted for. Starting Discussion Callen recommends beginning by asking all members to briefly give their opinion on the book. “Everyone arrives and has a drink to loosen up,” she explains. “Then we take it in turns to go around the room and each give the book a mark out of ten, saying in a few sentences what we liked or disliked about it. This gives everyone a chance to speak early in the night and stops one person dominating the conversation from the start.” Tip There is no one way to interpret a book. In fact, differing opinions are good. This article first appeared in <a href="http://www.readersdigest.co.nz/home-tips/How-to-Start-Your-Own-Book-Club">Reader’s Digest</a>. Images: Getty

Books

"Get my voice back": Kathy Griffin's intense pre-op drama

Kathy Griffin has shared footage of her pre-operation appointment before she undergoes vocal cord surgery in an effort to save her voice. The American comedian took to TikTok to show fans the process of her surgeon sticking a camera scope up her nose and through to her vocal cord to get a clearer view of the damage. "First step is the numbing spray. Then the scope goes up the nose, down into the vocal cords!" she explained with captions. "As you can see, the left chord is paralyzed.” After she was instructed to make noises to test the cords, Griffin is seen following the doctor’s orders and watching her vocal cord movement on the screen. Griffin reflected post-operation in the same clip, with the 62-year-old lying in a recovery bed following the surgery. <div><iframe title="tiktok embed" src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2Fembed%2Fv2%2F7242029180651687214&display_name=tiktok&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40kathygriffin%2Fvideo%2F7242029180651687214&image=https%3A%2F%2Fp19-sign.tiktokcdn-us.com%2Fobj%2Ftos-useast5-p-0068-tx%2F202ea4a9813e435c92a1c6996f018c11_1686166329%3Fx-expires%3D1686236400%26x-signature%3D%252Bk5fTTtG0O6jMWR7Pnky9ekvIlw%253D&key=5b465a7e134d4f09b4e6901220de11f0&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=tiktok" width="340" height="700" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div> "I just had my latest surgery on my left vocal cord, because I want to be in good shape for my big Vegas show," she said. "This is just part of my recovery post-lung cancer surgery," she added. "I'm cancer-free, so anyway a little scratchy today, but I'll be in good shape.” "I so appreciate you guys following along on my journey to get my voice back after lung cancer,” Griffin captioned the video, also sharing it to her Instagram. Griffin had part of her lung removed in 2021 after being diagnosed with lung cancer and was in remission four months later. Her latest hospital visit comes after she revealed her diagnosis of “complex PTSD” in early 2023. Griffin shared her diagnosis in a TikTok in April, asking her followers for recommendations on how to cope with anxiety and depression. "Let's talk about PTSD. Never talked about it publicly," she said. "You can laugh or whatever, but I've been diagnosed with complex PTSD, and it's called an extreme case." Image credit: TikTok

Caring

Stan Grant’s new book asks: how do we live with the weight of our history?

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/heidi-norman-859">Heidi Norman</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-technology-sydney-936">University of Technology Sydney</a> This month, journalist and public intellectual Stan Grant published his fifth book, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460764022/the-queen-is-dead/">The Queen is Dead</a>. And last week, he abruptly stepped away from his career in the public realm, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-19/stan-grant-media-target-racist-abuse-coronation-coverage-enough/102368652">citing</a> toxic racism enabled by social media, and betrayal on the part of his employer, the ABC. “I was invited to contribute to the ABC’s coverage as part of a discussion about the legacy of the monarchy. I pointed out that the crown represents the invasion and theft of our land,” <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-19/stan-grant-media-target-racist-abuse-coronation-coverage-enough/102368652">he wrote</a> last Friday. “I repeatedly said that these truths are spoken with love for the Australia we have never been.” And yet, “I have seen people in the media lie and distort my words. They have tried to depict me as hate filled”. Grant has worked as a journalist in Australia for more than three decades: first on commercial current affairs – and until this week, as a main anchor at the ABC, where he was an international affairs analyst and the host of the panel discussion show Q+A. The former role reflects his global work, reporting from conflict zones with esteemed international broadcasters such as CNN. His second book, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460751985/talking-to-my-country/">Talking to my Country</a>, won the Walkley Book Award in 2016. <hr /> Review: The Queen is Dead – Stan Grant (HarperCollins) <hr /> In this new book, Grant yearns for a way to comprehend the forces, ideas and history that led to this cultural moment we inhabit. The book, which opens with him grappling with the monarchy and its legacy, is revealing in terms of his decision to step back from public life. Released to coincide with <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronation-arrests-how-the-new-public-order-law-disrupted-protesters-once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity-205328">the coronation</a> of the new English monarch, Charles III, The Queen is Dead seethes with rage and loathing – hatred even – at the ideas that have informed the logic and structure of modernity. Grant’s work examines the ideas that explain the West and modernity – and his own place as an Indigenous person of this land, from Wiradjuri, Kamilaroi and Dharawal country. That is: his work explores both who he is in the world and the ideas that tell the story of the modern world. He finds the latter unable to account for him. “This week, I have been reminded what it is to come from the other side of history,” he writes in the book’s opening pages. “History itself that is written as a hymn to whiteness […] written by the victors and often written in blood.” He asks “how do we live with the weight of this history?” And he explains the questions that have dominated his thinking: what is <a href="https://theconversation.com/whiteness-is-an-invented-concept-that-has-been-used-as-a-tool-of-oppression-183387">whiteness</a>, and what is it to live with catastrophe? <h2>The death of the white queen</h2> In his account, his rage is informed by the observation that the weight of this history was largely unexplored on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II’s death last September. The death of the white queen is the touchpoint always returned to in this work – and the release of the book coincides with the apparently seamless transition to her heir, now King Charles III. <figure class="align-right zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527406/original/file-20230522-29-dcc0ot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="" /></a><figcaption></figcaption></figure> In the lead-up to the coronation, “long live the king” echoed across the United Kingdom. Its long tentacles reached across the globe where this old empire once ruled, robbing and ruining much that it encountered. The death of the queen and the succession of her heir occurred with ritual and ceremony. Small tweaks acknowledged the changing world – but for the most part, this coronation occurred without revolution or bloodshed, without condemnation – and without contest of the British monarchs’ role in history and the world they continue to dominate, in one way or another. Grant argues the end of the 70-year rule of Queen Elizabeth II should mark a turning point: a global reckoning with the race-based order that undergirds empire and colonialism. Whereas the earlier century confidently pronounced the project of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-power-of-yindyamarra-how-we-can-bring-respect-to-australian-democracy-192164">democracy</a> and liberalism complete, it seems time has marched on. History has not “ended”, as Francis Fukuyama <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-history-francis-fukuyamas-controversial-idea-explained-193225">declared</a> in 1989 (claiming liberal democracies had been proved the unsurpassable ideal). Instead, history has entered a ferocious era of uncertainty and volatility. Grant reminds us that people of colour now dominate the globe. Race, <a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-is-real-race-is-not-a-philosophers-perspective-82504">as we now know</a>, is a flexible and slippery made-up idea, changing opportunistically to include and exclude groups, to dominate and possess. Grant examines this with great impact as he considers the lived experience of his white grandmother, who was shunned when living with a black man, shared his conditions of poverty with pluck and defiance, then resumed a place in white society without him. And writing of his mother, the other Elizabeth, Grant elaborates the complexity of identity not confined to the colour of skin, but forged from belonging to people and kinship networks, and to place – which condemns the pseudoscience of <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/speeches/power-identity-naming-oneself-reclaiming-community-2011">blood quantum</a> that informed the state’s control of Aboriginal lives. This suspect race science has proved enduring. Grant’s account of the death of the monarch is a genuine engagement with the history of ideas to contemplate the reality of our 21st-century present. <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527467/original/file-20230522-27-ts8u8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="" /></a><figcaption>Grant argues the end of the queen’s 70-year rule should mark ‘a global reckoning with the race-based order that undergirds empire and colonialism’. Yui Mok/AP</figcaption></figure> <h2>Liberalism and democracy = tyranny and terror</h2> In several essays now, Grant has engaged with the ideas of mostly Western philosophers and several conservative thinkers to explain the crisis of liberalism and democracy. Grant argues that, like other -isms, liberalism and democracy have descended into tyranny and terror. The new world order, dominated by <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-stan-grant-on-how-tyrants-use-the-language-of-germ-warfare-and-covid-has-enabled-them-204183">China</a> and people of colour, is in dramatic contrast to the continued rule of the white queen and her descendants. In this, perhaps more than his other books and essays, Grant moves between big ideas in history – the <a href="https://theconversation.com/criticism-of-western-civilisation-isnt-new-it-was-part-of-the-enlightenment-104567">Enlightenment</a>, modernity and democracy – to consider himself, his identity, and his own lived experience of injustice, where race is an undeniable organising feature. In this story he explains himself, as an Indigenous person, “an outsider, in the middle”; “an exile, living in exile, struggling with belonging”; living with the “very real threat of erasure”. <h2>Love, friendships, family, Country</h2> In the final section of the book, Grant’s focus switches to the theme of “love”, and to friendships, family and Country. He speculates that his focus on these things is perhaps a mark of age. Now, he accounts for the things in life that are truly valuable – and this includes deep affection for the joy that emanates from Aboriginal families. Being home on his Country, paddling the river, he finds quiet and peace. The death of the monarch of the British Empire, who ruled for 70 years, should speak to the history of empire and colonial legacy and all its curses – especially in settler colonial Australia. Yet her passing – which coincides with seismic change in the global economic order with China’s ascendance and the decline of the United States and the UK, the global cultural order and the racial order – has been largely unexamined in public discourse in Australia. The history of colonisation and of ideas that have debated ways to comprehend the past have been a feature of Grant’s intellectual exploration, including on the death of the queen. As he details in his new book, the reaction from some quarters to this conversation has exposed him to unrelenting and racist attack. In this work and in others, exploration of the world of ideas to understand the past and future sits alongside accounts of the everyday; of the always place-based realities of Aboriginal accounts of self. The material deprivations and indignities, the closely held humility that comes with poverty and powerlessness - shared socks, a house carelessly demolished, burials tragically abandoned – are countered by another reality: the intimacy of most Aboriginal lives, characterised by deep love, affection, laughter and belonging. These place-based, “small” stories Grant shares sit alongside the bigger themes of modern history, such as democracy and freedom. In this latest work, Grant details his sense of “betrayal” at the discussion he sought about the monarch’s passing and the discussion that was actually had, the history of ideas and his own place in this. And now, of course, he has announced his intention to exit the public stage. Racism, we are reminded, is an enduring feature of the modern world – a world yet to allow space for an unbowing, Wiradjuri-Kamilaroi-Dharawal public intellectual.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204756/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/heidi-norman-859">Heidi Norman</a>, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-technology-sydney-936">University of Technology Sydney</a> This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/stan-grants-new-book-asks-how-do-we-live-with-the-weight-of-our-history-204756">original article</a>. Images: Q+A / ABC

Books

7 hot things to do this winter

The best thing about winter in Australia is that in most parts of the country the weather doesn’t stop you from spending time outside. While swims at the beach might be out, there are still many things you can do out in the fresh winter air. We’ve rounded up some of our favourites. 1. Christmas in July picnic While people may think picnics are a summer-only activity, when it’s a sunny winter's day there is nowhere better to be than outdoors. As long as you suitably rug up, a picnic in your local park with family and friends is the perfect way to spend the day. With July coming up why don’t you get your family and or friends together and throw a Christmas in July party. It’s even an appropriate time get out the Christmas jumpers – something we cannot do on December 25th in this country. 2. A trip to the zoo Visiting the zoo is a great day out for all, young and old. Many zoos across the country put on special shows and activities during the school holidays (think June/July), so this is a great time to think about taking younger family members or the grandkids. 3. Wine and cheese tasting Whether you want to head out to some wineries for the day or have your own wine and cheese tasting soiree at home, winter is the perfect time to kick back with a lovely glass of red and a platter of cheeses. While Australia has many amazing wineries that everyone should try, we also love the idea of holding a wine tasting party. You can assign one type of wine to each of your guests and even theme the day (wines from one country or each person brings a wine from where they grew up) to make it more fun. 4. Walk in a national park We are so blessed with beautiful national parks in Australia, and many of them have lots of walking trails ranging from easy to more strenuous. While rainy, snowy or extremely windy days won’t be ideal for heading out for a walk, the crisp winter air combined with the sun offers the perfect conditions for a long walk. Just don’t forget a raincoat, some water and your mobile phone in case you need them. 5. A day trip to a remote pub Life is all about experiences and they say that those who mix things up, are generally happier people. So quick, get out of town for the day. Research small towns nearby and look for a lovely pub to go for a nice lunch at. You might even want to make a special playlist of old songs to make the car journey extra fun. 6. Have a bake off with your friends It is winter, so there are bound to be some rainy or snowy days. On these days when you’re restricted to indoor activities, why not invite the grandkids, family or friends over and have a mini bake-off. Competition aside, at the end of the bake-off you’ll have some warm treats to enjoy with a nice cuppa. 7. Start a winter book club There’s no better time to start a book club than during winter. Not only is winter the perfect time to curl up on the couch with a blanket and catch up on reading, it is also a time when you’ll be more inclined to spend time indoors by the fire or heater. Why not turn your extra time spent reading into a book club? It gives you an excuse to catch up and spend hours on end chatting with friends – even if the conversation veers away from the book. Images: Getty

Retirement Life

5 authors who hated the film adaptation of their book

Most movies these days are adapted from something – whether it’s a book, a musical, a news story or even another film. However, commercial and critical success doesn’t necessarily guarantee everyone will be happy. Surprisingly, the authors of these 5 movies didn’t think much of the film adaptations of their books. 1. Mary Poppins Author of Mary Poppins P. L. Travers initially had no problem with her book being turned into a film, until she discovered that Disney had disregarded almost all of her edits. When it was released in 1964, then-65-year-old Travers voiced her disapproval at the animated scenes and the downplaying of Poppins’ stricter side. She reportedly spent most of the film premiere crying, and vowed never to let Disney near another of her books. 2. The Shining With such a prolific author like Stephen King, there are bound to be a few hits and misses when it comes to film adaptations. After King put his faith in acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick, whom he greatly admired, he found himself extremely disappointed in the final product, which went on to become a horror classic. “Kubrick just couldn't grasp the sheer inhuman evil of The Overlook Hotel,” the author explained. “So he looked, instead, for evil in the characters and made the film into a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones.” 3. Forrest Gump The 1995 Best Picture winner was a hit with everyone – except author Winston Groom, that is. Angry at the filmmakers for toning down the language and sexual references as well as omitting certain important plot points, Groom got back at Hollywood in the first few lines of the book’s sequel: “Don't never let nobody make a movie of your life's story,” he writes "Whether they get it right or wrong, it don't matter.” Groom sued the producers after failing to receive his promised 3% cut of the profits, and wasn’t mentioned in any of the six Oscar acceptance speeches by the cast and crew. 4. A Clockwork Orange It’s one thing to hate the film adaptation of your book, but to end up hating the book itself? It seems strange, but that’s exactly what happened to Anthony Burgess. Years after the release of the book and the film, Burgess claimed he regretted writing the book, which he wrote in three weeks and only because he was desperate for money, so was unhappy when it was turned into a film that “seemed to glorify sex and violence.” He adds, “The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die.” 5. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory One of the most beloved films of all time, the adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory certainly wasn’t beloved by Roald Dahl. He thought the 1971 film was “crummy” and that Gene Wilder’s portrayal of Willy Wonka was “pretentious” and “bouncy”, claiming director Mel Stuart had “no talent or flair”. For this reason, as long as the rights to his work is in the hands of his family, you’ll never see the book’s sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, grace the silver screen. Images: Getty

Books

“A lesson learned”: Uni student lands herself in an overdue book nightmare

A university graduate student received the shock of her academic career when an email arrived in her inbox to inform her she owed her school’s library a whopping $11,900 in overdue book fines. Hannah took to TikTok to share her story, posting a snippet of the horror email, and the news that her library account had amassed a debt of “$11,9000 owed for 119 lost books”. The books had been declared lost, though Hannah was quick to note that she was “still using” each of them, and had every intention of returning them once she was finished with her studies. To drive home the fact that the books were not missing, and instead safely in her scholarly possession, Hannah panned around the various piles of tomes stacked around her home, with a caption reading “the books aren’t lost, I’m just hoarding them until I finish my dissertation.” The email itself explained the books were marked as lost in the library’s system if they exceeded 30 days overdue, and that there was a flat rate of $100 per book in such instances. And according to the library, it was up to each patron to renew their books, and that Hannah “received overdue notices on the following dates prompting you to renew your library books before they are declared lost.” As she explained to The Daily Dot, she had checked out her collection three years prior while she’d been preparing for exams, and confirmed that she had received four reminders to either renew or return the books, but she’d put it off each time. “Then I got the automatic email,” she added, “saying all of the books were marked as lost and my account was charged $100 per book.” Hannah’s woe drew a mixed response from her audience, with some surprised that her library had even let her withdraw that many books in the first place, others unable to wrap their heads around the fact she could have let her situation get so bad, and many quick to defend the librarian, who they declared had only been doing her job. “My library only lets me check out 5 books at a time,” one wrote. “That’s why keeping library books past their due date is considered stealing,” another said, to which Hannah responded to promise her lesson had been learned. “Only 30 days over due??? Damn give a lil more time,” said one, with Hannah informing them that she’d had the books for years by that point. It wasn’t all bad for the budding scholar though, with Hannah explaining in another comment that “it was hunky dory”, as the library had waived her fees as soon as she’d responded to them, and that she’d been allowed to keep all 119 for an additional year. And, as she told another follower, “I’ve never replied to an email faster.” Images: TikTok

Books

Murder charge levelled at children's book author

Author Kouri Richins wrote a children’s book on grief following the death of her husband in 2022. She is now being charged with his murder. Richins was arrested on May 7 in Utah and is accused of charging documents of poisoning her husband with a lethal dose of fentanyl at their home in Kamas, a small mountain town near Park City. Prosecutors allege Richins called authorities in the middle of the night in March 2022 to report that her husband, Eric Richins, was “cold to the touch”. The mum-of-three told authorities she had made her husband a mixed vodka drink to celebrate him selling a home and then went to soothe one of their children in their bedroom. She later returned and found her husband unresponsive, which prompted her to call 911. A medical examiner later found five times the lethal dosage of fentanyl in his system. Additionally, Richins is facing charges involving the alleged possession of GHB - a narcolepsy drug typically used in recreational settings, including at dance clubs. The charges, which are based on officers’ interactions with Richins that evening and the account of an “unnamed acquaintance” who claimed to have sold her the fentanyl, come two months after Richins appeared on local television to promote Are You With Me, a picture book she wrote to help children cope with the death of a loved one. For a segment called Good Things Utah, Richins referred to her husband’s death as unexpected and explained how it sent her and her three boys spiralling. In terms of children, she said, grieving was about “making sure that their spirit is always alive in your home”. “It’s ... explaining to my kid just because he’s not present here with us physically, doesn’t mean his presence isn’t here with us,” she told the reporters, who commended her for being an amazing mother. Richins’ lawyer, Sky Lazaro, declined to comment on the charges. Image credit: Instagram

Legal

Aussie author of "Puberty Blues" dies at 64

Gabrielle Carey, co-author of the iconic novel Puberty Blues, has passed away at 64. The news was reportedly broken by Carey’s old friend and co-writer Kathy Lette, who was the other half of the creative powerhouse that brought Puberty Blues to life. In a post to social media, Lette shared a throwback picture of the pair in their younger years, and wrote, “I’m deeply saddened by the tragic news about my old friend Gabrielle Carey. “I have such happy memories of our teenage years. They were halcyon, heady days full of love, laughter and adventure. “We made some mischief and broke some barriers by writing Puberty Blues – our raw, earthy take on the brutal treatment of young women in the Australian surfing scene which is sadly, still so relevant. “My heartfelt condolences to her family and friends.” <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> I’m deeply saddened by the tragic news about my old friend Gabrielle Carey. I have such happy memories of our teenage years. They were halcyon, heady days full of love, laughter and adventure. 1/2 🧵 <a href="https://t.co/2wZZiRf1hd">pic.twitter.com/2wZZiRf1hd</a> — Kathy Lette (@KathyLette) <a href="https://twitter.com/KathyLette/status/1654136967636959234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 4, 2023</a></blockquote> The groundbreaking book they penned together, which went on to be adapted as both a movie and a hit TV series, was a candid - then-controversial - story of two teenage girls growing up in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. It pushed boundaries, captivated young audiences while tackling themes many did not expect for said target audience, and is regarded by many as being the first Australian teenage novel to be written by teens. From Puberty Blues, Carey went on to publish memoirs and nonfiction works, with another of her books - her 1984 Just Us, which covered her relationship with rapist and prisoner Terry Haley, who she married while he was imprisoned - also made into a telemovie in 1986. No suspicious circumstances surrounded her death, according to The Australian, though the tragic news comes just months after she wrote about her father’s suicide in The Sydney Morning Herald. At the time, Carey had revealed she was afraid of reaching 64, as that was when he too had passed on. “It was only decades later, when my father died from suicide on the very day he turned 64, that I became terrified of that number,” she wrote. “If I have inherited my father’s disposition for depression, did that mean I would also end up in an early grave? Carey’s early passing is one that has hit her friends and her fans hard, with many joining Lette in sharing their grief and their condolences on social media. “Farewell dear Gabrielle. You were a sister in the cause of mental illness, its impact & our children. I’m enriched for having known you,” one supporter wrote. “Thank you.” “Writer - Reader - Intellectual - Joycean (fanatical) - Elizabeth von Arnim devotee - Avid Gardener - Rose Petal Jam Maker - Football Follower - Kayaker - Yogi - Joker - Irrepressible Spirit - Hobbit - Underground Writer - My Friend,” friend and fellow writer Yumna Kassab wrote. “I will always miss you.” “So sorry for your loss,” one fan said in response to Lette’s tweet. “You have no idea how much as a girl growing up in a coastal town with a surfing scene I understood Puberty Blues. I saw it every day. You & Gabrielle laid it all bare & made girls stand up for themselves. Thank you”. “My deepest condolences Kathy,” another offered. “The two of you wrote something so treasured by Gen X girls. It was our ‘how to say no guide’. Our Teen handbook. But it still let us live our lives & learn as we went. RIP Gabrielle Carey.” Images: Facebook

News

Artist keeps craft alive with beautifully bound books

In a world taken over by digitised forms of just about everything, book artist Liz Constable says her beautifully bound bohemian journals, handmade envelopes and painstakingly stitched self-help books still inspire the biggest shrieks of delight from total strangers. Journaling in cafés, Constable often feels eyes shrouding over her diary. "They say, oh that looks like a very old book," Constable says. "Oh yes, it's two weeks old," she laughs. Type 'book art' into online creative depository, Pinterest, and it will come up with 636 ways of turning old, clunky books into works of art. Likewise, Google images paints a pretty picture of the ways you can up-cycle unwanted novels. But unlike the art we relegate to a shelf or a picture hook, Constable's creations are usable. They're designed to be drawn on, hauled around in a tote and pulled out to illustrate ideas, and are made with any material she can get her hands on. "It's that old worldy style," she says. "Everyone wants things to look old. You see people with laptops in bags that look like they're carrying old typewriters." What started off as a hobby 16 years ago turned into a full time business called Book Art Studios in 2007, when Constable, then a careers counsellor, says she counselled herself out of her former job and into where her heart truly lay- making books. It began with dying her journal papers with tea and coffee, then a friend introduced her to coloured dye. Now the "scavenger by nature" says her books are made with paper taken from the likes of old shipping maps, cloth and other recycled materials, before being stitched and bound in her own West Auckland studio. The UK migrant makes books for the likes of happy couples who need something special to keep track of wedding guests, to soda giant Coca Cola who commissioned Constable to make books for staff training, and Fonterra, whose Constable-made creations went all the way to a conference in China. Constable believes it's the nostalgia that inspires such gushing responses from people who frequently request to hug her when they see her creations. Not so long ago she hand delivered a job application written in a handmade book, nestled in a mail art envelope. She despairs walking into bookstores and seeing the rows and rows of identical book spines, prompting ever more thoughts about how she can make her work stand out. It's a thought at the forefront of her mind as Constable prepares to undertake something she's never done- producing her first book series en masse by enlisting the help of potential publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. After years of ensuring each of her works is unique, Constable said the decision to take hand made to mass made came after reading a theory that it takes 10,000 hours to perfect a skill. Constable realised she'd clocked up more than enough over time, and enjoyed 'the simple life' long enough to begin relishing the fruits of her labour. She wants to produce a series of semi-autobiographical self-help books, whose roots can be traced back to the death of Constable's aunt many years ago. "Oh, I see a door," were her finals words on her death bed, prompting Constable to wonder just what exactly was behind that door. "I was so curious," Constable says. The words kept coming and before she knew it, nine books were conceived. The Martha series, she calls it. Stories for adults grappling with bigger issues. In March she published and began selling another self-help book, One Small Drop, in order to help fundraise for Frankfurt. Unlike the text heavy self help books of yester-year, you can hold One Small Drop in one hand. The pages are laser cut with small drops that turn into hearts with every page turn, the colours gradually turning from dark to light. More than 7,000 authors and book makers at the book fair will be vying for the attention of publishers who scout the exhibits for "innovate business models". After attending the fair some years ago Constable walked around searching for fellow book artists, disheartened to find they were "miles away from anywhere." Her exhibit, she promises, will be like walking into one of her storybooks. "I came back and I said I'm not going to stand in a queue trying to get someone to read it. I said I don't care how it happens, I'm going to get someone to pick up the Martha series." Written by Kelly Dennett. First appeared on <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stuff.co.nz</a>. Image credit: Getty

Books

Neglected pre-war car up for sale after miracle restoration

A 1939 MG VA, initially purchased as a stripped bare shell of itself, is heading for auction. When the pre-war vehicle sold for only a few hundred dollars, it wasn’t asking for much - most likely because it wasn’t offering a whole lot either. Missing entire doors and rusting in more than one place, the car left a lot to be desired. Its original owner had tucked it away in the garage after the MG failed an MOT in 1969 - an annual test in the United Kingdom to verify a vehicle’s safety. Although they’d intended to restore it, those plans never came to fruition, with the car learning a hard lesson in dust bunnies instead. 45 years later, it finally got the chance to see the light of day again, with its next owner snatching it up from a family friend at a ‘bargain’ price. And to everyone’s delight, the vehicle finally got the makeover it had been waiting almost half a century for. The owner - who has requested anonymity - even performed the bulk of the work by themself, although they left the engine overhaul and respray to the professionals. The hard work produced some spectacular results, and with the car now rolling into auction with an asking price of ~$18,500-$22,2000, its next owner is sure to enjoy all that it has to offer. When the line of MG VAs left production, they sold for up to $650 (or roughly $35,000 in 2023), and only 2,400 of them were ever made. The vehicles were produced alongside the larger SA and WA models, with their smallest-in-the-range 108-inch wheelbases distinguishing them from their counterparts. The VA model was only produced for two years, before the Second World War saw production come to a screeching halt. The MG company itself had been founded in the 1920s, and was renowned for its range of two-seater sports cars. After years of ownership changes, and after it was absorbed into the British Leyland group, the firm - which at that point was known as MG Rover - faced financial difficulty in the early 200s, and by 2005 was forced into receivership. However, the group was then purchased by Nanjing Automobile Group, and resumed its production of vehicles in 2007. In 2011, the MG6 appeared in the market, establishing itself as the first UK model in 16 years. And as for the 1939 VA model heading to auction with Charterhouse, Richard Bromell - who is handling the sale - had one just one thing to note, “to say the MG was bought as a project makes it sound much better than it was as it was in a very sorry state indeed “Thankfully the owner was more than handy with a spanner and undertook a complete restoration of the MG.” Images: Charterhouse Auctioneers & Valuers

Money & Banking

Why reading books is good for society, wellbeing and your career

TikTok allows video up to 10 minutes, but says surveys show almost half its users are stressed by anything <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tiktok-wants-longer-videos-like-not">longer than a minute</a>. An Instagram video can be up to 90 seconds, but experts reckon the ideal time to maximise engagement is <a href="https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-reel-length/">less than 15 seconds</a>. Twitter doubled the length of tweets in 2017 to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/twitters-doubling-of-character-count-from-140-to-280-had-little-impact-on-length-of-tweets/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAE7Ou03VeQ_VU9SZA2zdsZOLh6KKtVl5dj2ti0R3YgY_T_G9h7s3Ry9GOzQNecfcZbs_ko9I9YGELzKTM_2Ox9PTglVrcKM_xbBwh23aBAm12Q126TLMvre8SujfV3KkZnRIisVGD19Q3j5uP-P3RMMJuATO_ooLJgkF19ECOs3g">280 characters</a>, but the typical length is more like <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/10/many-characters-tweet-ask-experts/">33 characters</a>. It’s easy to get sucked into short and sensational content. But if you’re worried this may be harming your attention span, you <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/02/attention-span-focus-screens-apps-smartphones-social-media">should be</a>. There’s solid evidence that so many demands on our attention make us <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/news/media-release/short-attention-spans-linked-to-social-media-distress/">more stressed</a>, and that the endless social comparison <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-social-media-makes-you-feel-bad-and-what-to-do-about-it-197691">makes us feel worse</a> about ourselves. For better mental health, read a book. Studies show a range of psychological benefits from book-reading. Reading fiction can increase your capacity for <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1239918">empathy</a>, through the process of seeing the world through a relatable character. Reading has been found to reduce stress as effectively as <a href="https://clutejournals.com/index.php/TLC/article/view/1117">yoga</a>. It is being prescribed for depression – a treatment <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-95164-009">known as bibliotherapy</a>. Book-reading is also a strong marker of curiosity – a <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/09/the-business-case-for-curiosity">quality prized</a> by employers such as Google. Our research shows reading is as strongly associated with curiosity as interest in science, and more strongly than mathematical ability. And it’s not just that curious minds are more likely to read because of a thirst for knowledge and understanding. That happens too, but our research has specifically been to investigate the role of reading in the development of curious minds. <h2>Tracking reading and curiosity</h2> Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00036846.2023.2174943">findings</a> come from analysing data from the <a href="https://www.lsay.edu.au/aboutlsay">Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth</a>, which tracks the progress of young Australians from the age of 15 till 25. Longitudinal surveys provide valuable insights by surveying the same people – in this case a group of about 10,000 young people. Every year for ten years they are asked about their achievements, aspirations, education, employment and life satisfaction. There have been five survey cohorts since 1998, the most recent starting in 2016. We analysed three of them – those beginning in 2003, 2006 and 2009, looking at the data up to age 20, at which age most have a job or are looking for one. The survey data is rich enough to develop proxy measures of reading and curiosity levels. It includes participants’ scores in the OECD <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/">Programme for International Student Assessment</a> tests for reading, mathematics and science ability. There are survey questions about time spent reading for pleasure, time reading newspapers or magazines, and library use. To measure curiosity, we used respondents’ answers to questions about their interest in the following: <ul> <li>learning new things</li> <li>thinking about why the world is in the state it is</li> <li>finding out more about things you don’t understand</li> <li>finding out about a new idea</li> <li>finding out how something works.</li> </ul> We used statistical modelling to control for environmental and demographic variables and distinguish the effect of reading activity as a teenager on greater curiosity as a young adult. This modelling gives us confidence that reading is not just correlated with curiosity. Reading books helps build curiosity. <h2>Gloom and doom-scrolling</h2> Does this mean if you’re older that it’s too late to start reading? No. Our results relate to young people because the data was available. No matter what your age, deep reading has benefits over social-media scrolling. The <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Dopamine-Nation-Finding-Balance-Indulgence/dp/152474672X">short-term dopamine rush</a> of scrolling on a device is an elusive promise. It depletes rather than uplifts us. Our limbic brain – the part of the brain associated with our emotional and behavioural responses – remains trapped in a spiral of pleasure-seeking. Studies show a high correlation between <a href="https://academic.oup.com/hcr/article-abstract/44/1/3/4760433">media multitasking and attention problems</a> due to <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315167275/emotional-cognitive-overload-anne-fran%C3%A7oise-rutkowski-carol-saunders">cognitive overload</a>. The effect is most evident among young people, who have grown up with <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11126-017-9535-6">social media overexposure</a>. US social psychologist <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00296-x">Jonathan Haidt</a> is among the researchers <a href="https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/social-media-mental-illness-epidemic">warning</a> that high social media use is a major contributor to declining mental health for teenage girls, "Boys are doing badly too, but their rates of depression and anxiety are not as high, and their increases since 2011 are smaller." Why this “giant, obvious, international, and gendered cause”? Haidt writes, "Instagram was founded in 2010. The iPhone 4 was released then too — the first smartphone with a front-facing camera. In 2012 Facebook bought Instagram, and that’s the year that its user base exploded. By 2015, it was becoming normal for 12-year-old girls to spend hours each day taking selfies, editing selfies, and posting them for friends, enemies, and strangers to comment on, while also spending hours each day scrolling through photos of other girls and fabulously wealthy female celebrities with (seemingly) vastly superior bodies and lives." In 2020 Haidt published <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00296-x">research</a> showing girls are more vulnerable to “fear of missing out” and the aggression that social media tends to amplify. Since then he’s become even more convinced of the correlation. Social media, by design, is addictive. With TikTok, for example, videos start automatically, based on what the algorithm already knows about you. But it doesn’t just validate your preferences and feed you opinions that confirm your biases. It also varies the content so you don’t know what is coming next. This is the same trick that keeps gamblers addicted. <h2>Tips to get back into books</h2> If you are having difficulty choosing between your phone and a book, here’s a simple tip <a href="https://www.katymilkman.com/book">proven by behavioural science</a>. To change behaviour it also helps to change your environment. Try the following: <ul> <li> Carry a book at all times, or leave books around the house in convenient places. </li> <li> Schedule reading time into your day. <a href="https://howtoliveameaningfullife.com/you-should-read-everyday-but-for-how-long-the-science-says/?fbclid=IwAR03mbaXPpM19aoaO4p1AsTD0EvZsLgFQJy0RoJo8JTx9g1Q6ukh4_FEbIU">20 minutes is enough</a>. This reinforces the habit and ensures regular immersion in the book world. </li> <li> If you’re not enjoying a book, try another. Don’t force yourself. </li> </ul> You’ll feel better for it – and be prepared for a future employer asking you what books you’re reading. This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-reading-books-is-good-for-society-wellbeing-and-your-career-200447" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. Images: Getty

Books

Naturally combat the onset of diabetes

Pre-diabetes is the period before diabetes is officially diagnosed. Progressing from pre-diabetes to diabetes is not imminent. There are plenty of ways you can get on top of it to reduce the risk of diabetes. 1. Cut out sugar and refined carbohydrates Eating foods high in refined carbs and sugar increases blood sugar and insulin levels, which could lead to diabetes over time. Examples of these foods are white bread, potatoes and various breakfast cereals. Limit sugar and choose complex carbs like veggies, oatmeal and whole grains. 2. Quit smoking If you’re a current smoker, cut it out! Smoking can contribute to insulin resistance which can lead to type 2 diabetes. Quitting smoking has been shown to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes over time. 3. Portion control Avoid large portions as they can contribute to the increase of insulin and blood sugar levels. Eating too much at one time can lead to higher blood sugar and insulin levels in pre-diabetics. 4. Exercise Aim for at least 30 minutes of exercise a day. You don’t have to strain yourself, you can take a walk, go swimming or dance around the house, but make sure you stay on top of it and practise these activities at least five days a week. 5. Drink more water Drinking water over other beverages may help control blood sugar and insulin levels. Drinking primarily water will stop you from over consuming beverages that are high in sugar and preservatives, in turn reducing the risk of diabetes. 6. Eat more fibre Getting an adequate amount of fibre is beneficial for gut health and weight management. Having a good source of fibre at each meal can help prevent spikes in blood sugar and insulin levels. Image credit: Shutterstock

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"The wilderness of mirrors": 70 years since the first James Bond book, spy stories are still blurring fact and fiction

"The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning." With these opening words, Ian Fleming (1908-64) introduced us to the gritty, glamorous world of James Bond. Fleming’s first novel, <a href="https://www.ianfleming.com/items/casino-royale/">Casino Royale</a>, was published 70 years ago on April 13 1953. It sold out within weeks. British readers, still living with rationing and shortages after the war, eagerly devoured the first James Bond story. It had expensive liquor and cars, exotic destinations, and high-stakes gambling – luxurious things beyond the reach of most people. The novel’s principal villain is Le Chiffre, the paymaster of a French trade union controlled by the Soviet intelligence agency SMERSH. After losing Soviet money, Le Chiffre takes to high-stakes gambling tables to recover it. Bond’s mission is to play against Le Chiffre and win, bankrupting both the Frenchman and the union. The director of British intelligence, known only by his codename “M”, also assigns Bond a companion – Vesper Lynd, previously one of the agency’s assistants. The two infiltrate the casino, play at the tables, and dodge assassination attempts, while engaging in a dramatic battle with French communists, the Soviets, and each other. Fleming’s Bond – the sophisticated, tuxedo-clad secret agent – is an enduring image of espionage. Since 1953, martinis, gadgets, and a licence to kill have been part of how ordinary people understand spycraft. Some of this was real: Fleming drew on his own work as a spy for his novels. Intelligence work is often less glamorous than he depicted, but in both espionage and novel-writing, the difference between fact and fiction is not always easy to distinguish. <h2>Ian Fleming, Agent 17F</h2> Fleming came from a wealthy, well-connected British family, but he was a mediocre student. He only lasted a year at military college (where he contracted gonorrhoea), then missed out on a job with the Foreign Office. He could write, though. He spent a few years as a journalist, but drifted purposelessly through much of the 1930s. The outbreak of war in 1939 changed everything. The director of British Naval Intelligence, Admiral John Henry Godfrey, recruited Fleming as his assistant. Fleming excelled, under the codename 17F. He didn’t see much of the war firsthand, but was involved in its planning. He was an ideas man, not overly concerned with practicalities or logistics. Fleming came up with the fictions; other people had to turn them into realities. In 1940, for example, he developed “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/entertainment-britain-fleming-bond-finea-idCAL1663266620080416">Operation Ruthless</a>”. To crack the German naval codes, Fleming planned to lure a German rescue boat into a trap and steal its coding machine. They would obtain a German bomber, dress British men in German uniforms, and deliberately crash the plane into the channel. When the German rescue crew arrived, they would shoot them and grab the machine. Preparations began but Fleming’s plan never eventuated. It was too difficult and risky – not least because crashing the plane might simply kill their whole crew. Fleming worked on various operations. When he began writing after the war, these experiences found their way into Bond’s world. Fleming and Godfrey had visited Portugal, a neutral territory teeming with spies, where they went to the casino. Fleming claimed he played against a German agent at the tables, an experience that supposedly inspired Bond’s gambling battles with Le Chiffre in Casino Royale. Godfrey maintained that Fleming only ever played against Portuguese businessmen, but Fleming never let facts get in the way of a good story. Fleming picked up inspiration everywhere. Godfrey became the model for M. Fleming’s secretary, Joan Howe, inspired Moneypenny. The Soviet SMERSH coding device in <a href="https://jamesbond.fandom.com/wiki/From_Russia_with_Love_(novel)">From Russia, With Love</a> (1957) was based on the German Enigma machine. Many of Fleming’s characters were named for real people: one villain shares a name with Hitler’s Chief of Staff, another with one of Fleming’s schoolyard adversaries. It became something of a sport to hypothesise about the inspiration for Bond. Fleming later called him a “compound of all the secret agents and commando types” he met during war. There were elements of Fleming’s older brother, an operative behind the lines in Norway and Greece. Fleming also pointed to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Reilly">Sidney Reilly</a>, a Russian-born British agent during the First World War. He had access to reports on Reilly in the Naval Intelligence archive during his own service. Other possible models include <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_O%27Brien-ffrench">Conrad O’Brien-ffrench</a>, a British spy Fleming met while skiing in the 1930s, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Dunderdale">Wilfred “Biffy” Dunderdale</a>, MI6 Station Chief in Paris, who wore handmade suits and was chauffeured in a Rolls Royce. Stories of discovering <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/mr-bond-i-presume-20141017-117xji.html">the real-life James Bond</a> still appear. But there was also much of Fleming himself in Bond. He gave 007 his own love of scrambled eggs and gambling. Their attitude towards women was similar. They used the same brand of toiletries. Bond even has Fleming’s golf handicap. Fleming would play with this idea, teasing that the books were autobiographical or that he was Bond’s biographer. Much like a cover story for an intelligence officer, Bond was Fleming’s alter-ego. He was anchored in Fleming’s realities – with a strong dash of creative licence and a little aspiration. <h2>The changing world of Bond</h2> The success of Casino Royale secured contracts for more Bond novels. In the early 1960s, critics began to denounce the books for their “sex, snobbery, and sadism”. Bond’s attitude toward women, in particular, was clear from the beginning. In Casino Royale, he refers to the “sweet tang of rape” in relation to sex with his MI6 accomplice and paramour Vesper Lynd. But the public appeared to be less concerned. Bond novels still sold well, especially after John F. Kennedy listed one among his top ten books. The first film adaptation, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055928/">Dr. No</a>, appeared in 1962 and Fleming’s success continued apace. Bond’s world was evolving, though. From Casino Royale to For Your Eyes Only (1960), Bond battled SMERSH, a real Soviet counter-espionage organisation. The early Bond novels were Cold War stories. Soviet Russia was the West’s enemy, so it was Bond’s. But East-West relations were thawing in 1959 when Fleming was writing Thunderball (1961). The Cold War could plausibly have ended and he didn’t want any film version to look dated, so Fleming created a fictional villain: SPECTRE. This was an international terrorist organisation without a distinct ideology. It could endure beyond the battles of the Cold War – and did. It features in the 2021 Bond film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2382320/">No Time To Die</a>. Fleming’s more fantastic plots were always anchored in reality by recognisable brands and products. Bond’s watch was a Rolex; his choice of bourbon was Jack Daniels. His cigarettes were Morlands, like Fleming’s. In the novels, Bond drove Bentleys – the Aston Martin was introduced in the 1964 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058150/">Goldfinger</a>. The films have changed Bond’s brands to keep up with the world around them (and secure lucrative product-placement deals): Omega replaced Rolex in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113189/">Goldeneye</a> (1995); the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/apr/17/bond-taste-for-beer-skyfall">martini was swapped for a Heineken</a> in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1074638/">Skyfall</a> (2012). Bond now carries a Sony phone. Other changes brought the 1950s spy into the 21st century. Recent films have more diverse casting. Their female characters do more than just spend a night with Bond before their untimely deaths. The novels, too, continue to change – the 70th-anniversary editions have had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/27/james-bond-novels-to-be-reissued-with-racial-references-removed">racial slurs and some characters’ ethnic descriptors removed</a>. Some have criticised this as censorship. But as with <a href="https://theconversation.com/roald-dahl-a-brief-history-of-sensitivity-edits-to-childrens-literature-200500">recent rewritings of Roald Dahl’s books</a>, changes like this are not new. Fleming’s family has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-28/ian-fleming-james-bond-books-changes-to-new-editions/102035958">defended the alterations by citing similar removals</a> in 1955, when Live and Let Die was first published in the United States. There is a risk that this whitewashes Fleming’s attitudes, making them appear more palatable than they really were. But the revised Bond novels will include a disclaimer noting the removals. Casino Royale itself has not been altered (Bond’s rape comment remains intact), so the changes will perhaps be less extensive than the media coverage suggests. <h2>Spies After Bond</h2> Fleming is not the only ex-spy to have successfully turned his hand to spy fiction. John le Carré’s George Smiley is perhaps an anti-Bond: slightly overweight, banal, and essentially a bureaucrat. He relies on a shrewd mind rather than gadgets or guns. Le Carré introduced his readers to a more mundane, morally grey world of espionage. He had worked for MI5 and MI6 in the 1950 and ‘60s. He thought Bond was a gangster rather than a spy. Le Carré’s stories have also shaped how we think about espionage. Words like “mole” and “honeytrap” – the terminology of spycraft – <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2023/02/john-le-carre-spy-came-in-from-cold-book/673227/">entered common usage via his novels</a>. Stella Rimington, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/apr/23/stella-rimington-i-fell-into-intelligence-by-chance">the first female director-general of MI5</a>, began writing fiction after retiring from intelligence in the late 1990s. Her protagonist, 34-year-old Liz Carlyle, hunts terror cells in Britain. Like Smiley, Carlyle appears rather ordinary. She is serious and conscientious. We get glimpses of the everyday sexism she experiences. Carlyle triumphs by remaining level-headed, not by fiery gun battles or explosions. After three decades of agent-running for the CIA, Jason Mathews wrote his <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/series/The-Red-Sparrow-Trilogy">Red Sparrow</a> trilogy to occupy himself in retirement. He called it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/books/shadowing-jason-matthews-the-ex-spy-whose-cover-identity-is-author.html">a form of therapy</a>. There’s a little more Bond in Mathews’ books than in those of le Carré or Rimington. His protagonists Nate Nash and Dominika Egorova are attractive, charismatic and entangled in a personal relationship of stolen moments and high drama. This is counterbalanced by the many hours they spend running surveillance-detection routes before meeting targets. The more tedious and banal aspects of spycraft – brush passes, broken transmitters, and dead drops – accompany the glamour and romance. <h2>The wilderness of mirrors</h2> Spy fiction is never just about entertainment. The real world of espionage is so secret that most of us only ever encounter it on pages or screens. We don’t usually look to Bond films for accurate representations of espionage. But the influence of Fleming’s spy and the general aura of secrecy surrounding intelligence work lend some glamour and excitement to the work of real spies. These fictions also influence our views on real intelligence organisations, their activities, and their legitimacy. This is why the <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-cia-goes-to-hollywood-how-americas-spy-agency-infiltrated-the-big-screen-and-our-minds/">CIA invests time and money into fictionalisations</a> dealing with its work. From stories based on true events, such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1024648/">Argo</a>(2012) or <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790885/">Zero Dark Thirty</a> (2012), to fictional series like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1796960/">Homeland</a> (2011-20), the agency’s image is shaped via the media we consume. This was true when Fleming was writing, too. Soviet authorities <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Russia-and-the-Cult-of-State-Security-The-Chekist-Tradition-From-Lenin/Fedor/p/book/9780415703475">were preoccupied</a> by Sherlock Holmes’ surging popularity behind the Iron Curtain and fretted over the release of the Bond novels and films. The KGB studied both carefully. It was likely Bond who prompted KGB officers to release classified details about their most successful spy story: the career of <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-name-s-sorge-richard-sorge/">Richard Sorge</a>. Former intelligence officers such as Fleming are often quite good at fiction – perhaps because it is a core part of spycraft. A solid cover story has to be grounded in reality, with just enough fiction to protect the truth or gain a desired outcome. A good operation often requires creativity, to outwit a target or evade detection. And spreading fictions – disinformation – can sometimes be just as useful as gathering information. The world of espionage is sometimes referred to as the “wilderness of mirrors”. Spycraft relies on both reflections and distortions. The line between fact and fiction, between real stories of intelligence work and invented ones, can become blurry – and intelligence agencies often prefer it that way. Image credits: Columbia Pictures This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wilderness-of-mirrors-70-years-since-the-first-james-bond-book-spy-stories-are-still-blurring-fact-and-fiction-201373" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.

Books

Ever feel like your life is a performance? Everyone does – and this 1959 book explains roles, scripts and hiding backstage

Shakespeare’s adage — “All the world’s a stage” — suggests human beings are conditioned to perform, and to possess an acute social awareness of how they appear in front of others. It resonates in the age of social media, where we’re all performing ourselves on our screens and watching each other’s performances play out. Increasingly, those screen performances are how we meet people, and how we form relationships: from online dating, to remote work, to staying in touch with family. While the idea of performance as central to social life has been around for centuries, <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199756384/obo-9780199756384-0228.xml">Erving Goffman</a> was the first to attempt a comprehensive account of society and everyday life using theatre as an analogy. His influential 1959 book <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-presentation-of-self-in-everyday-life-9780241547991">The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life</a> is something of a “bible” for scholars interested in questions of how we operate in everyday life. It became a surprise US bestseller on publication, crossing over to a general readership. Goffman wrote about how we perform different versions of ourselves in different social environments, while keeping our “backstage” essential selves private. He called his idea <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003160861-3/dramaturgy-charles-edgley?context=ubx&refId=6e9b71d0-973c-4ebe-b90b-41a372d12623">dramaturgy</a>. Playwright Alan Bennett <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n19/alan-bennett/cold-sweat">wrote admiringly</a> of him, “Individuals knew they behaved in this way, but Goffman knew everybody behaved like this and so did I.” <h2>Goffman as influencer (and suspected spy)</h2> In a <a href="https://www.isa-sociology.org/en/about-isa/history-of-isa/books-of-the-xx-century">poll of professional sociologists</a>, Goffman’s book ranked in the top ten publications of the 20th century. It influenced playwrights such as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/019027250907200402">Tom Stoppard</a> and, of course, Bennett, who <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Alan-Bennett-A-Critical-Introduction/OMealy/p/book/9780815335405">was interested in</a> depicting and analysing the role-playing of everyday life that Goffman identified. Goffman was <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781444396621.ch24">born in Mannville</a>, Alberta in 1922 to Ukrainian Jewish parents who migrated to Canada. The sister of the man who would become famous for his theatre analogies was an actor, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0062844/">Frances Bay</a>: late in life, she would play quirky, recognisable roles such as the “marble rye” lady on <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-of-seinfeld-131606">Seinfeld</a> and a recurring part on <a href="https://theconversation.com/ill-see-you-again-in-25-years-the-return-to-twin-peaks-32624">Twin Peaks</a> (as Mrs Tremond/Chalfant). The path to Goffman’s book was an unusual one. It didn’t come from directly studying the theatre, or even from asking questions about theatregoers. While completing postgraduate studies at the the University of Chicago, Goffman was given the opportunity to conduct fieldwork in the Shetland Islands, an isolated part of northern Scotland, for his <a href="https://www.mediastudies.press/pub/ns-ccic/release/4">PhD dissertation</a>. Goffman pretended to be there to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470999912.ch3">study agricultural techniques</a>. But his actual reason was to examine the everyday life of the Shetland Islanders. As he observed the everyday practices and rituals of the remote island community, he had to negotiate suspicions he may <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Goffman-Social-Organization-Sociological-Routledge/dp/0415112044">have been a spy</a>. In Goffman’s published book, the ethnography of the Shetland Islands takes a back seat to his dramaturgical theory. <h2>More than a popular how-to manual</h2> <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-presentation-of-self-in-everyday-life-9780241547991">The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life</a> quickly became <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Sociological-Bent-InsideMetro-Culture/dp/0170120015">a national bestseller</a>. It was picked up by general readers “as a guide to social manners and on how to be clever and calculating in social intercourse without being obvious”. This fascinating and complex academic work could indeed be read as a “how-to” manual on how to impress others and mitigate negative impressions. But Goffman <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Erving-Goffman/Smith/p/book/9780415355919">didn’t mean</a> “performance” literally. Reading the book as a guide to middle-class etiquette misses some of its nuances. One is the sophisticated understanding of how reality and contrivance relate to each other. A good performance is one that appears “unselfconscious”; a “contrived” performance is one where the fact the social actor is performing a role is “painstakingly evident”. In everyday language, we tend to describe the latter as trying too hard. But Goffman is making a more general point, about the way we all perform ourselves, all the time – whether the effort is visible or not. If “All the world is not, of course, a stage”, then “the crucial ways in which it isn’t are not easy to specify”. <h2>Playing roles and being in character</h2> Today, we regularly use theatrical terms like “role”, “script”, “props”, “audience” and being “in and out of character” to describe how people behave in their everyday social life. But Goffman is the one who introduced these concepts, which have become part of our shared language. Together, they highlight how social life depends on what Goffman terms a shared definition of particular situations. Whether we are performing our work roles, having dinner with someone for whom we have romantic affections, or dealing with strangers in a public setting, we need to produce and maintain the appropriate definition of that reality. These activities are “performances”, according to Goffman, because they involve mutual awareness or attentiveness to the information others emit. This mutual awareness, or attention to others, means humans are constantly performing for audiences in their everyday lives. <h2>Being in and out of character</h2> It matters who the audience is – and what type of audience we have for our performances. When thinking about how people adapt their behaviour for others, Goffman differentiates between “front regions” and “back regions”. Front regions are where we must present what is often referred to as the “best version of ourselves”. In an open-plan office, a worker needs to look busy if their supervisor is about. So, in the front region, they need to look engaged, industrious and generally perform the role of being a worker. In an open-plan office, a worker needs to be constantly “in character”, as Goffman puts it. Back regions are where a social actor can “let their guard down”. In the context of a workplace, the back regions might refer to the bathroom, the lunchroom or anywhere else where the worker can relax their performance and potentially resort to “out of character” behaviour. If the worker takes a diversionary break to gossip with a colleague when their supervisor is no longer in earshot, they could be said to be engaging in back region conduct. Front and back regions are not defined by physical locations. A back region is any situation in which the individual can relax and drop their performance. (Of course, this means regions overlap with physical locations to some extent – people are more likely to be able to relax when they’re in more private settings.) Thus, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/opinion/open-plan-office-awful.html">open-plan offices</a> are often unpopular because workers feel they are constantly under surveillance. Conversely, the work-from-home arrangements that have become more common since the era of COVID lockdowns are popular because they allow people to relax their work personae. Renowned writer Jenny Diski <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n05/jenny-diski/think-of-mrs-darling">reflected</a> in 2004, "reading Goffman now is alarmingly claustrophobic. He presents a world where there is nowhere to run; a perpetual dinner party of status seeking, jockeying for position and saving face. Any idea of an authentic self becomes a nonsense. You may or may not believe in what you are performing; either type of performance is believed in or it is not." <h2>21st-century Goffman</h2> Dramaturgy has survived the onset of our new media environment, where the presentation of the self has migrated to platforms as diverse as <a href="https://theconversation.com/instagram-and-facebook-are-stalking-you-on-websites-accessed-through-their-apps-what-can-you-do-about-it-188645">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-corn-how-the-online-viral-corn-kid-is-on-a-well-worn-path-to-fame-in-the-child-influencer-industry-189974">TikTok</a>. In some ways, it’s more relevant than ever. Goffman’s approach has been applied to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/no-sense-of-place-9780195042313?cc=au&lang=en&">electronic media</a>, radio and <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Media_and_Modernity/asB7QgAACAAJ?hl=en">television</a> <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003160861-19/reception-goffman-work-media-studies-peter-lunt">studies</a>, <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262515047/new-tech-new-ties/">mobile phones</a> – and, more recently, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13548565211036797">social media</a> and even <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0263276419829541">AI studies</a>. The “successful staging” (as Goffman terms it) of our social roles has only become more complex. This is perfectly illustrated by “BBC Dad” Robert Kelly, whose 2017 <a href="https://junkee.com/bbc-dad-pictures-kids-now-marion-james/324165">live television interview</a> from his home study was interrupted when his children wandered into the room. This was before COVID lockdowns, when our home and work lives (and personae) increasingly merged. “Everyone understands that now,” <a href="https://junkee.com/bbc-dad-pictures-kids-now-marion-james/324165">wrote Reena Gupta</a> in 2022. “You or someone in your family or circle of friends has been BBC Dad.” Maintaining and maximising performances still matters. And so does Goffman. This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/ever-feel-like-your-life-is-a-performance-everyone-does-and-this-1959-book-explains-roles-scripts-and-hiding-backstage-195939" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. Images: Getty

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