Reader’s Digest UK – July 2019

FOR MORE, GO TO READERSDIGEST.CO.UK/CULTURE JULY 2019 • 127

A Wrinkle in Time BY MADELEINE L’ENGLE

A Wrinkle in Time was my introduction to science fiction. When

I picked it up at our school library, I had never read anything

like it before. The protagonist, Meg Murry, is an ordinary girl

thrust into extraordinary circumstances when her beloved

father goes missing on another planet. My own father was an

aerospace engineer who helped send astronauts into outer

space, so I felt a special connection to Meg and her journey

across the universe to bring her dad home.

Cry, the Beloved Country BY ALAN PATON

Cry, the Beloved Country is about a man and his son—and

another man and his son—and how poverty, racism, and

violence shape their lives. While it might be hard to believe that a

book that takes on such difficult topics could be uplifting, it is. It’s

full of characters who insist on answering the worst of human

nature with the best of it.

Mighty Be Our Powers BY LEYMAH GBOWEE

In 2011, Leymah Gbowee won the Nobel Peace Prize for her

role in organising a women’s movement that helped end

Liberia’s civil war. She opens her unforgettable memoir by

declaring “This is not a traditional war story... You have not

heard it before, because it’s an African woman’s story, and

our stories rarely are told.” Her book is about the power of

women coming together—and the important work of

bringing them together. n

Books

THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

Melinda Gates is a businesswoman and co-founder
of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with her
husband, Bill Gates. Her new book, The Moment of
Lift, is out now, published by Pan Macmillan