Sane New World

Ruby Wax is known as an American stand-up comedian who got herself a career in the UK. Partly to her own surprise she became the face in a campaign of people with a mental illness especially in her new country. Since she was outed as a victim of regular and severe depressions, she quit her TV career, got an Oxford degree, did a TED talk and wrote a book.

Sane New World
Ruby Wax

The book is called Sane New World: Taming the Mind and tells the story about how the brain works and how 21st century challenges can cause all kind of troubles in a brain that was evolved for a completely different purpose and hardly equipped for today's stimuli-rich and information overloaded society. And although some fellow human beings seem to cope with that quite reasonably, a staggering 1 in 4 is diagnosed with a form of mental illness.

Ruby Wax is a professional comedian and has a story to tell from the inside out. The humour and the openness about her own situation make the book very readable and even outright funny despite the subject. The in-depth study she made (getting an Oxford degree in the process) gives the topic the substance it deserves. And for those who want every book to have an happy ending, the author describes her success in dealing with depressions through a technique called mindfulness.

I can recommend the book to anyone who interacts with mental patients on a regular basis (and given the ratios, who doesn't?) and to those struggling with depressions in particular. If you can't find the time to read the whole book, there is her TED Talk: "what's so funny about a mental illness?" as a first introduction. I like to conclude with quoting the closing statement from her TED Talk when talking about people with a mental illness: "..can we please stop the stigma?".

ERegoS

Ender's game

In 1985 Orson Scott Card wrote a book called Ender's Game. In that year it won both the Hugo and Nebula Award for best Science Fiction novel. A year later Speaker for the Dead was published by the same author and again won both prizes. Since then several sequels and prequels have been published creating what the fans call The Ender Saga. Now almost twenty years later the first book has been the basis for a movie with a cast including Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley. The movie was launched in early 2013 in the US but in the Netherlands our patience is tested until January 2014.

Ender's Game 

In a way it is a pity the story is labelled as science fiction because for a lot of people that might be a reason not to read the book or watch the movie while this story deserves a wider audience than just SF fans. The SF-label is correct however since the story has all the characteristics: it includes futuristic technologies, space battles, travelling to distant planets and alien civilizations. The movie will probably include spectacular effects and I intend to see the 3D version if for no other reason than to experience the scenes about training in zero-gravity.

But for me the story most certainly is not just another SF-story and the awards are an indication that others feel the same way. The author uses the future technology and space-elements as a canvas for a story about leadership, loneliness, politics and building character. And also about how to relate to others especially with whom you have hardly any common ground. All of that in multiple layers and with several unexpected turns where things are not what they seem at first sight. The book is a real page turner and all the ingredients are in there for a great movie. I'm looking forward to it!