T I M E L I N E

Five-time F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton is nostranger to criticism, be it from rivals or overenthu-siastic fans. But the Mercedes driver seems to havefound a trick to keeping his cool when faced with

naysayers with Don Miguel Ruiz’sbestselling book, ‘The FourAgreements: A Practical Guide toPersonal Freedom’.

View criticism differentlyFresh off his eighth win of theseason at the Hungarian GrandPrix, Hamilton mentioned how thebook helped him view criticism ina different light. “There’s an ele-ment in there (‘Four Agreements’) where it says don’t takeanything personally, so when someone says somethingabout you, it’s not actually about you, it’s how they feelabout themselves,” [sic] explained Hamilton.

About the bookBased on ancient Toltec wisdom, ‘The Four Agreements’focuses on the source of self-limiting beliefs, and offers acounter code of conduct. In the past, it has been recom-mended by author Deepak Chopra. ET

The book that helpedLewis Hamilton dealwith criticism

03Books! Books! Books! There is no end to knowledge. All youneed to do is flip through the pages to get that extra dose ofinfotainment. So simply read on...

■ SURVIVAL GAMES, ANIMAL PLANET,3.00 PM: Various species of animalsliving in wild and ferocious junglesdevelop unique strategies and tac-tics to survive and thrive.

■ ROBSON GREEN GRAND SLAM FISH-ING, SONY BBC EARTH, 5.00 PM: Actor

1615: British Ambassador Thomas Roe landed inSurat to represent King James I of England toJahangir.

1709: Creator of the first dictionary (Englishlanguage), Samuel Johnson, was born inEngland.

1793: US President GeorgeWashington laid the actual corner-stone of the US Capitol.

1837: Tiffany & Co was founded inNew York City.

1948: Operation Polo was terminatedafter the Indian Army accepted the surrender ofthe Nizam of Hyderabad's Army.

1967: Nagaland adopted English as a medium ofinstruction.

1976: Chinese revolutionary & chairman ofCommunist Party, Mao Zedong's funeral took

place in Beijing

2007: Buddhist monks joined anti-government protesters in Myanmar,starting the Saffron Revolution.

2014: Emma Watson delivered anaddress at UN Headquarters in New

York City, helping launch the UN Womencampaign HeForShe, which called for men toadvocate for gender equality.

Robson Green takes on challenges incatching different fish species toclaim the Offshore Grand Slam title.

■ YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, DISCOV-ERY CHANNEL, 7.00 PM: Smart andbrave people use science to taketheir skills to the next level, fromdoing a wheelie in a boat to usinginline skates off-road.

■ OMG! YEH MERA INDIA, HISTORY TV18,8.00 PM: The host takes the viewerson a journey to some of the unbe-lievable and exciting places of In-dia and presents interesting factsabout the location and the people.

■ HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: SUMMERVACATION, &FLIX, 3.05 PM: On a lux-ury monster cruise ship Draculameets Ericka, captain of the ship,who belongs to the family of VanHelsing that wants to destroy theentire monster race.

■ G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA, HBO,4.43 PM: Duke and Ripcord join anelite military unit, the G.I.JOE, af-ter they are attacked by an evil or-ganisation, Cobra. The two alongwith GI JOE use next-generation

MOVIES ON TVTELEVISION

THISDAY THAT

YEAR

MUST DOMUST SEESEPTEMBER18, 2019

technology to defeat the threat.

■ KNIGHT AND DAY, MOVIES NOW, 6.50PM: June Havens meets Roy Miller,a lethal operative, in an unlikelyencounter and gets entangled in hisadventures. She falls in love withhim and has to figure out if he is atraitor or a good guy.

1. ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ by MargeryWilliams

2. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll3. ‘Peter Pan’ by J M Barrie4. ‘Anne of Green Gables’ by Lucy Maud

Montgomery5. ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood

Prince’ by J K Rowling

ANSWERS

WHICH BOOK HAS THISQUOTE?

1. “Real isn’t how you are made/It’s a thing that happens to you.” 2. “You’re mad, bonkers, com-pletely off your head. But I’ll tellyou a secret. All the best peopleare.”3. “The moment you doubtwhether you can fly, you ceasefor ever to be able to do it.”4. “I’m so glad I live in a worldwhere there are Octobers.”5. “Age is foolish and forgetfulwhen it underestimates youth.”

BOOKS

“I never say never to anything, becauseI have said ‘never’ and been wrong”

Atwood began writing ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’,inspired by George Orwell, in West Berlin in1984. The author said the feeling of beingsurrounded by the Berlin Wall, with EastBerlin on the other side, also formed thebackdrop of her creation

Margaret Atwood re-leased the much-an-ticipated sequel to heraward-winning 1985novel ‘The Hand-

maid’s Tale’ recently. And going bythe sales figures, ‘The Testaments’,is set to become a bestseller.

A tale of dystopian times A terrifying dystopia set in the US inthe near-future, ‘The Handmaid’sTale’, has been adapted for the silverscreen, and become a feminist rally-ing point for the #MeToo generation.It was nominated for the 1986 Book-er Prize; was turned into a film in1990, an opera in 2000, and an award-winning television drama series in2017.

The show has boosted sales of thenovel, which has sold eight millioncopies worldwide in English alone.

In ‘ The Handmaid’s Tale’, the UShas become the Republic of Gilead,a totalitarian religious state wherewomen are subjugated.

The sequel More than 15 years on from the

events of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’,the oppressive theocratic

regime maintains its grip onpower but there are signs

that it is beginning to rotfrom within.

In ‘The Testa-ments’, the

lives of three radically differentwomen converge. Two of them,Agnes and Daisy, grew up in the firstgeneration since the new order tookover – while a third – Aunt Lydia,wields power through the ruthlessaccumulation and de-ployment of secrets.

Aunt Lydia was acharacter in ‘The Hand-maid’s Tale’, whileAgnes and Daisy alsocropped up. They are thedaughters of the firstnovel’s protagonist andnarrator June, who goesunder the handmaidname Offred.

When the new storybegins, Agnes lives inGilead, while her sisterlives in neighbouringCanada and is appaledby the human rights abuses being per-petrated across the border.

But the third narrator in partic-ular holds the reader in suspense: theMachiavellian leader of the Aunts –

the group of women responsible fortraining and policing the handmaids.

The reader discovers her past asa free woman and her transformationinto a monster through her survivalinstinct in the face of tyrannical men,and her aspiration for power to gether revenge.

Fact inspired fiction

Atwood took more than three decadesto create the sequel, inspired by ques-tions asked by her readers about thecharacters in the first book. The twist

of events this centuryalso spurred her intopenning a sequel.

Atwood said societychanged after the Sep-tember 11, 2001 attacks,bringing in tighter do-mestic security meas-ures, such as screeningat airports.

“Once upon a timethere was no security. Webecame more fearful,”she said. Atwood said shewas also influenced bythe 2008 global financialcrisis and US President

Donald Trump’s election victory in2016.

RecognitionThe novel is on the shortlist for theprestigious Booker Prize – Atwood’ssixth time as a Booker finalist. Shehas won the prize once (for ‘The BlindAssassin’ in 2000), along with a slewof other awards including Canada’sGovernor General’s Award and thePEN/Pinter free-speech prize.

She’s long been considered afavourite for the Nobel Prize for Lit-erature. When British writer KazuoIshiguro won in 2017, he said “I apol-ogise to Margaret Atwood that it’s nother getting this prize.’’

Atwood, who turns 80 in Novem-ber, said she is “pleased and grateful”,’but unfazed. She has no immediateplans for another installment but hasnot ruled out a third trip to Gilead.

“I never say never to anything, be-cause I have said ‘never’ and beenwrong,’’ concluded the author. AP

Here are key dates in the life and career ofthe award-winning Canadian novelist

➤ NOVEMBER 18, 1939: She is born inOttawa, her father, a forest entomologist, andher mother, a nutritionist.

➤ 1961: Graduates from the University ofToronto with a degree in English. The follow-ing year she completes a Masters at Harvard-linked Radcliffe College, in the eastern US cityof Boston.

➤ 1969: Publishes her firstnovel ‘The Edible Woman’, asatire about a youngwoman unable to eat aftergetting married.

➤ 1985: Publishes ‘TheHandmaid’s Tale’, which becomes a feministclassic, about a totalitarian society of thefuture. It is later adapted into a film, cult tel-evision series and opera.

➤ 1996: Releases her historical novel ‘AliasGrace’, which is also adapted for television.

➤ 2000: Wins Britain’s top literary award,the Booker Prize, for ‘The Blind Assassin’ pub-lished the same year.

➤ 2017: A US televisionstreaming platform airs thefirst ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’series, which wins a host oftop awards. In July 2019, afourth series wasannounced. AFP

Award-winning author Margaret Atwoodreturns to Gilead with ‘The Testaments’,

the sequel to ‘The Handmaid’sTale’

Atwood said a deterioration inwomen’s rights insome parts of theworld, including inthe US, prompted herto write the sequel

Author Preeti Shenoy on why everyone should read more

As the author of several best-sellingbooks like ‘Life Is What You MakeIt’ and its sequel, ‘Wake Up, Life IsCalling’, Preeti Shenoy has carved

a niche for herself. She is on Forbes’ longlistof the most-influential celebrities in In-dia. Though she has been writing foras long as she can remember, the47-year-old author says growingup she had never imaginedherself as an author.

Do what you loveExplaining how she beganher journey, she said, “WhenI was little, I would write injournals, diaries, and for collegemagazines. It really started assomething I loved to do. Writing al-lowed me to express myself in a way I would-n’t be able to otherwise. I had absolutely noclue that one day I’d be in the position I amin today.”

Do your researchIn ‘Life Is What You Make It’, Shenoy exploredthe different dimensions of bipolar disorderthrough the story of her protagonist, Ankita.

She gets afflicted with the condition aftera tragedy and the story is about how

she combats it. Shenoy said thebook was inspired by an exhibi-

tion she attended in UK inwhich people suffering frombipolar disorder had createdworks of art. To write the sto-ry, Shenoy spoke with theseartists, and their families to

understand the impact of thiscondition. She also travelled to

the National Institute of MentalHealth and Neuro-Sciences, Ben-

galuru, to research on the subject.

Build your skillsNoting the top skills that make for a good writer,

Shenoy shared that all writers require disci-pline, perseverance, an affinity for solitude,empathy and observation skills. An avid read-er herself, she said one cannot write good sto-ries without being a reader, as it reflects in thequality of their writing. IANS+AGENCIES

Better with Books: 500 Diverse Booksto Ignite Empathy and Encourage Self-Acceptance in Tweens and TeensBY MELISSA HART This collection of themed booklists is a valuable resource foranyone who gets confused bywhat they should be reading.The lists, which include bookspublished in the last decade, aregrouped by age and themes.

Wonderland: An AnthologyBY MARIE O’REGAN AND PAUL KANE This compilation of stories inspiredby ‘Alice inWonderland’includes a wide-ranging list of fan-tasy and horrorauthors, includingM R Carey and L LMcKinney.

A D D T H I S T O Y O U R R E A D I N G S H E L F

Theauthor is

among the top fivehighest selling

authors in India and onForbes’ longlist of

the most influentialcelebrities in

India

Fabulous Monsters: Dracula,Alice, Superman, and OtherLiterary FriendsBY ALBERTOMANGUEL The author exploreshow literary char-acters transcendthe pages of booksto influence thelives of readers.

Discipline + perseverance= good writing