No, it’s LiteraryMeme!
Gargoyle (crazy name, crazy guy*) has set me a meme and, just as I was starting to get a little, well, jaded about the whole thing, he’s come up with a refreshing angle.
Turn to page 123 of a book you are reading, skip five lines/sentences and produce reportage on the next three sentences.
Mmmmm… Books! (OMG, I’m turning in to Homer. Simpson! But in a booky way)
I’ve just finished the second Sam Manicom book and will shortly be reviewing both of them (once I’ve got my head around how to overlap yet keep distinctions!) and as I’ve just finished it, technically I can’t use it.
So.
The choice is between The Finalists II (excerpts from the five 2007 Costa award-winning books) or…
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (John Perkins).
And solely because of the nature of the beast, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man wins out.
She went a step further, however, and built a small factory where her creations were transformed into clothes, which she then sold at upscale boutiques through the country, as well as in Panama and Venezuela.
This passage is part of a description of Paula, a Colombian woman whom the author met in Barranquilla in 1977.
Paula is described by the author as an agent of change and someone who taught me a great deal about the consequence of the actions I took in my job.
She becomes, for John Perkins, part of the dawning realisation that what he’s been doing is bankrupting countries, enslaving them through a kind of financial serfdom to the economic Will of the US economy.
Brilliant book and a true story.
I’m supposed to hand this meme off to others but I’ll be generous; those who want to tell us of their literary pursuits, help yourselves.
But if you don’t want to play I won’t shout at you.
🙂
B.
* With apologies to Ian Hislop for stealing his wordage and the earnest hope that he will understand that plagiarism (in this case) is the sincerest form of flattery and please can I have a commission?