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| The Thread's Must Read |
Three books for understanding Brexit
A few weeks ago, I was immersed in the pleasures of seeing Downton Abbey on the big screen, so I recommended two novels from the 1800s that evoke the hidebound and smug grandeur of British aristocracy.
This time, I'm taking you back to Britain, but we’ve left the lords and ladies far behind, and we’re right in the middle of the chaos called Brexit.
My first recommendation to understand the political chaos across the pond is a well-researched, highly readable and delightfully irreverent account of how Britain got here called “WTF” by Robert Peston. Peston is the political editor for ITV television, and he digs deep on the economic malaise that he thinks led to many British voters’ decision to divorce the European Union. One of Peston’s answers to that malaise? A wealth tax, much like the one Elizabeth Warren has been talking up on the campaign trail.
My second “how did Britain get here” recommendation is Fintan O’Toole’s “Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain." O’Toole is an Irish Times columnist, and he turns an analytical gaze on the concept of English identity. He believes the U.K. needs a second Brexit referendum and adds, “If you can’t have second thoughts, you don’t have democracy.”
My last “what the heck is going on in Britain?” book is a novel by Ali Smith, called “Autumn.” Published in 2017, and set in the months after the vote to leave the E.U., we eavesdrop on a friendship between an elderly man, forgotten and lonely in an elder-care home, and a young woman in her 30s who visits him.
Smith taps into the outrage that followed the Brexit referendum, writing, “All across the country, people felt it was the right thing. All across the country, people felt they’d really lost. All across the country, people felt they’d really won.”
-Kerri Miller |
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| | | Talking Volumes 2019 season guide |
MPR and the Star Tribune are proud to announce the 20th season of Talking Volumes. This season will feature interviews with Alice Hoffman, Saeed Jones, Tim O’Brien, Karen Armstrong, Lindy West and Tracy K. Smith.
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