Will I ever learn?

Once again, just about two months after the last occasion, on more or less the same errand, I fell yesterday for 40 pages of TLS for £3.50.

Instead of a monster edition of everything that Evelyn Waugh ever wrote, we have three books totalling around 1,750 pages about the life and times of Oscar Wilde. Not greatly encouraged by the performance noticed at reference 2. Fast forward.

Ten pages of books of the year by literary and other celebrities. About three column inches each. Fast forward.

Fast forward to page 26 to an article written around a couple more books about depression and the efforts of big pharma to cure it, or as some cynics would say, to make a lot of  money from it. A not very flattering mention of the Cipriani noticed at reference 3 - but without serious dissent from his cautious conclusion: the drugs do seem to be better than doing nothing. So not doing the drugs - is not a good plan. But remember to take care to get one that suits; this is not a one-size fits all world. Read the article but pass on the books.

Fast forward over the article about happiness, to land on a depressing article about Gaza. A place with about the same area as the Isle of Wight but with 15 times the population, that is to say around two million. The heirs to all those who fled or were ejected from what is now southern Israel at the time of the 1948 war. A mess which is now 70 years old, looking to be getting worse rather than better, with no end in sight. Depressing both for the misery it represents and our collective failure to sort it out.

Fast forward to find an unusual, Turkish flavoured take on the Arab Revolt and Palestine, reprinted from 1938, just before the end of the 40 pages. Ostensibly a review of a book called 'The Arab Awakening' by George Antonius. Available from Abebooks for around £15 including postage, if you don't mind waiting for it to come from the US.

And that was about it. Now taking bets on how many months it will be before I next give it a go.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/09/literary-stuff.html. The last fall.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/01/wilde-two.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/04/belgravia.html. No follow up post in the event, having failed to get sufficiently to grips with the two papers concerned.