Review: Glow

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When critics talk about boy genius authors, theyre talking about guys like Ned Beauman. The London native was the youngest writer on Grantas once-a-decade list of the best young British novelists in 2013, at age 28. Boxer, Beetle, his 2010 debut, followed a nine-toed boxer and a swastika-stamped beetle through 1930s Britain in a caper about eugenics. The Teleportation Accident, a genre bender about a man who time-travels between Weimar-era Berlin and 1930s Hollywood, got him long-listed for the 2012 Man Booker Prize. His latest, Glow, introduces a pill-popping raver named Raf who discovers that a friend has been kidnapped by mysterious forces in a white van. Its a pulpy whodunit, but it develops into something much weirder: a conspiracy thriller that involves a Burmese paramilitary group, the international trade of an MDMA knockoff called glow, and a shady mining corporation called Lacebark. The whole thing is so complicated that by the end of its slim 247 pages, you might feel as if your brain had been CrossFit training.

Thats a good thing, until it isnt. At first, the mystery is irresistible because its easy to care about Raf, a guy with so much heart he unlocks the lonely pit bull whos chained to his building to walk her around London each day. Beaumans descriptions are so vivid I started marking the best ones until Id dog-eared half the book: The moon is a silver pill half dissolved on the tongue of the night. A childs discarded glove is like the carcass of a small, blind mammal with a body made mostly of fingers. But whenever he adds an insanely complex subplot to this already idea-stuffed book, his characters are forced to divulge whats happening. (You still havent explained what exactly Lacebark are doing in London. Is it something to do with the Shan forest Concession?) Its strange that an author whos so fascinated by the human drive for pleasure would forget that great books are like great drugs. They can be as mind-bending as you like. But first, they have to be fun. B+

MEMORABLE LINE When Barky does arrive he still wears flecks of shaving cream on both ear lobes like little pearl studs, so maybe, like Raf, he got out of bed only a short while ago.

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Review: Glow

The Skanner Newspaper – More Than A Score: A New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing

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Details Written by Donovan M. Smith Special to The Skanner News Published: 28 January 2015

Activist, speaker, writer and teacher at Seattles Garfield High School, Jesse Hagopian (second to the left) is pictured here following an event hosting Olympic legend John Carlos. Hagopian is the author of a new book titled More Than a Score: A New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing. Susan Fried photo

Jesse Hagopian boasts a lot titles, but at the core he is an educator. Hagopian is a teacher at Garfield High School in the rapidly gentrifying Central District in Seattle.

He recently released his first book, More than A Score: A New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing, which analyzes the history of standardized testing in America and its close-ties to institutional racism in the country.

The Skanner News Donovan M. Smith spoke with Hagopian after an event he organized last week with Olympic legend John Carlos -- who famously raised his fist for Black Power at the 1968 Games in Mexico to discuss his book.

The Skanner News: Give our readers a general outline of what your role in Seattles education system has been.

Jesse Hagopian: I teach here at Garfield High School and Im co-advisor to the Black Student Union here. And two years ago our faculty voted unanimously to refuse to give a standardized test Measures of Academic Progress [also known as] the MAPwe thought it was harmful to our kids. They threatened all the teachers who refused with a 10 day suspension without pay. The teachers didnt back down, and instead the district had to cancel the test, and its now gone from the high schools in Seattle. And that movement helped to ignite a movement around the country where more and more teachers were refusing to give the test; students are walking out in mass like in Coloradothey had the largest walkout in probably U.S. history against high stakes tests recently; and parents are opting their kids out of the test, and its become the largest movement against high stakes testing in U.S. history. So my book is a chronical of that movement. It has an introduction by former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch. It also has the stories of the parents who opted their kids out--why they did it. The stories of the kids who led walkouts refusing to take the tests and stories of teachers from around country refusing to give it. So its a book thats a testament to the resistance to this corporate education reform and this multi-billion dollar testing industry thats trying to reduce the intellectual process of teaching and learning to a single number. And then they can use that number to label our schools failing so they can close them, so they can deny students graduation so they can bust up the teachers union and fire teachers. Im just glad that this book can be part of that resistance to this corporate reform.

TSN: The #BlackLivesMatter movement is kind of new. Does your book tie in?

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The Skanner Newspaper - More Than A Score: A New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing

Sales Ecosystem

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Ukraine Launches Recruitment Campaign: Mobilisation ads features Ukraine’s ‘cyborg’ soldiers – Video

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Ukraine Launches Recruitment Campaign: Mobilisation ads features Ukraine #39;s #39;cyborg #39; soldiers
Ukraine #39;s Ministry of Defence has launched a campaign to mobilise military recruits. The campaign features photos of Ukrainian soldiers who fought to defend the Donetsk Airport from militant...

By: UKRAINE TODAY

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Ukraine Launches Recruitment Campaign: Mobilisation ads features Ukraine's 'cyborg' soldiers - Video