The Secret Scripture

When I was a very young man I thought places for the sick and mad should be made very bright and attractive, given a sort of festiveness to alleviate our human miseries.  But maybe these places are like animals and cannot change their spots and stripes no more than leopards and tigers.

That is from Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture, the current favorite to win the Booker Prize this Tuesday.  I read it on the flight back from London and enjoyed it very much.

In addition to the Booker Prize, there is a lot coming up this week, including the beginning of the Kramnik-Anand chess match, the economics Nobel Prize, and whether a new Great Depression is on the way.  Please stay tuned…