Ma, I've Got Meself Locked Up in the Mad House

Oct 7, 2024 2:22 PM

Author:Martha Long

Martha is now in her thirties. Her daughter has left home and she is lonely and vulnerable. The hard knocks have taken their toll on her health, and as she looks into the years still lying ahead of her, she shakes her head, feeling she hasn't the heart or the strength to go on.

As she teeters on the brink of a nervous breakdown, a phone call summons ghosts from the past. She discovers that one of the family is dead and the others need her help. Martha returns and when she comes face to face with the evil, psychotic Jackser, she can no longer suppress the nightmares of her childhood.

A suicide attempt sees her admitted to the 'mad house', where a hunger strike takes her even nearer to death. But finally she sees a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. Could love in an unexpected form pull her back from the brink?

Reviews

Blunt, moving and laugh-out-loud funny

—— Irish World

Gleefully iconoclastic ... not just unfailingly readable: it is also a provocative, enlightening and welcome riposte to the cyber-utopian worldview.

—— The Economist

A delight ... his demolition job on the embarrassments of "internet freedom" is comprehensive ... as we go down the rabbit-hole of WikiLeaks, Morozov's humane and rational lantern will help us land without breaking our legs.

—— Pat Kane , The Independent

A passionate and heavily researched account of the case against the cyber-utopians ... only by becoming "cyber-realists" can we hope to make humane and effective policy.

—— Bryan Appleyard , New Statesman

Evgeny Morozov is wonderfully knowledgeable about the Internet-he seems to have studied every use of it, or every political use, in every country in the world (and to have read all the posts). And he is wonderfully sophisticated and tough-minded about politics. This is a rare combination, and it makes for a powerful argument against the latest versions of technological romanticism. His book should be required reading for every political activist who hopes to change the world on the Internet.

—— Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

The Net Delusion is considerably more than an assault on political rhetoric ... a war against complacency.

—— Tom Chatfield , Observer

Required reading for all ... a compelling primer and rebuff to the "cyber utopians" ... trenchant and persuasive.

—— John Kampfner , Sunday Times

Lively and combative ... dauntingly well-informed ... injects a welcome dose of common sense into an issue that has been absurdly lacking in it.

—— John Preston , Sunday Telegraph

Piercing...convincing...timely.

—— Ben Hammersley , Financial Times

[M]ore than rewards a respectful reading, not only for the author's impressive knowledge of the internet toolbox...but because of his ability to relate such technological gadgetry to the increasing challenges that are being posed to entrenched authoritarianism

—— James M Murphy , Times Literary Supplement

Selected by the New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2011

—— New York Times

The most polymathic science writer of our time

—— Peter Forbes , Independent, Books of the Year

An engaging and lively account of an endlessly curious man

—— Independent

A fascinating window into the complex emergent urban future. This book is an extremely sophisticated, often devastatingly witty and ironic, interpretation of what is possible over the next two decades

—— Saskia Sassen (author of TERRITORY, AUTHORITY, RIGHTS)

Throw out your old atlas. The new version is here

—— Walter Kirn (author of UP IN THE AIR)

Kasarda ... and Lindsay convincingly put the airport at the centre of modern urban life

—— Economist

Highly recommended

—— Library Journal

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