Technically, the evidence is circumstantial. Pipes with cannabis residue were dug up in Shakespeare’s garden, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Shakespeare is the one who put them there. (Hey, maybe they were planted in his garden by Sir Francis Bacon, right?) So Professor Thackeray, being a smart and thorough scientist, decided to obtain conclusive proof. He asked the Church of England for permission to exhume Shakespeare’s corpse and run the necessary tests in order to answer, once and for all, the question of whether Shakespeare smoked pot. Guess what the church said. No way, not a chance, that’s not a question they want answered.
But if Shakespeare was a stoner, he faced a thorny dilemma. On the one hand, he enjoyed using drugs and wanted to include depictions of drug use in his plays. On the other hand, he didn’t want the church to ban his plays for immoral content. So how did the greatest writer of all time resolve this dilemma?
How is it possible that a bioweapons accident that killed dozens was kept secret for decades, even in the Soviet Union? As the Washington Post reporter David E. Hoffman writes in The Dead Hand, his history of the Cold War arms race, the answer lay in the nature of the weapons themselves: “Biological weapons were the ultimate challenge for spies, soldiers and scientists.”
Unlike a missile silo, easily distinguishable from the air, a laboratory where bioweapons are being developed doesn’t look that different from a benign medical laboratory. Unlike nuclear warheads, which leave clear radiological traces in their silos and are unmistakable in their use, a weaponized pathogen and the outbreak it would cause could be difficult to discern from a naturally occurring one, giving any attacker plausible deniability.
In impish yet tender style, Irvin thoughtfully explores what it means for a mother to care for a daughter in a world where male violence is everywhere. Life Cycle of a Moth is the very best kind of fiction: with the book open, you feel utterly transported; once you close it, you see how cunningly it holds a mirror up to reality. I can’t wait to read whatever Irvin writes next.
After a somewhat slow start, the action in the novel speeds up as the story advances, and the end approaches with multiple twists and surprises.
“It is surprising to think that I have had Parkinson’s for almost 30 years. For most of that time I have been remarkably well,” Smith writes in the acknowledgements. “But this disease takes no prisoners, and now I have finished my last book. There is only one Arkady and I will miss him.”
The spectres that haunt our dreams and hypnagogic states are unreal, but they are also vivid manifestations of what troubles us, Akbar concludes. Acknowledging that is not a cure for the vulnerability that night ushers in, but it is a step towards allowing a little light into the darkness. This imaginative and empathetic book will probably not guide you to better sleep, but it will be a fine companion for the wakeful hours.