Beneath the glorious surrealism and the joy of the tall tale, I found a level of existential horror and of fear. Irish actor Jim Norton’s reading of The Third Policeman (2012) is one of my favourite audiobooks, because it added a layer to Flann O’Brien’s novel that I had failed to perceive when I read the prose. I listened to these examples of triumph while starting my Couch to 5K programme and started to confront the things I deem as disadvantages in my life and work. The book is a series of case studies exploring how underdogs beat the odds. Trevor Noah quoted from David and Goliath (2013) by Malcolm Gladwell when speaking about power and legitimacy on The Daily Show. Her voice captures the thrill of live music and performance in the recordings.

I went to look for her albums, Hadeel and We Teach Life, in which you get lessons in the plight of Palestine, protest and celebration of the Arabic language. The line “Today, my body was a TV’d massacre” just kept ringing in my ear. But then we migrate to the midwest United States and we’re standing in the cold, with Darling realising that the grass is not always greener.įor a different voice, I saw a video on YouTube of spoken word artist and activist Rafeef Ziadah performing We Teach Life, Sir.

To see the country through a child’s eyes is joyous and heartbreaking. In the coming-of-age story We Need New Names (2013) by NoViolet Bulawayo, you are transported to Zimbabwe through the voice of Darling, a 10-year-old girl growing up in the shanty town of Paradise under Mugabe’s regime.

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