Lexicon
Max Barry
Mulholland Books
Are you a cat or a dog person?The Australian author Max Barry explores the concept of how simple questions and character traits can allow a certain few gifted people to ascertain which "category" a human's personality falls into and how that information can be used to manipulate them in his fourth novel, Lexicon.
We are thrown straight into Barry's compelling world of confusion and control when we encounter Wil waking up in a Portland International Airport bathroom as two "poets" try to extract vital information locked in his brain.
These poets, going by such names as Plath, Yeats, Eliot and the wonderfully complicated Woolf, use certain words and phrases that can "compromise" people, forcing them to obey commands, sometimes with deadly consequences.
Wonderfully crafted, dark yet humorous, fast-paced and tragic in turn, the experience leaves the reader as confused and hungry for more information as Wil as he travels across the United States and back to Broken Hill in the Australian Outback, the scene of a horrific yet mysterious massacre, to which he holds the key, all the time pursued by the sinister poets.
msmith@thenational.ae
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Most memorable achievement: Leading my first city-wide charity campaign in Toronto holds a special place in my heart. It was for Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Women program and showed me the power of how communities can come together in the smallest ways to have such wide impact.
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December 2014: Former UK finance minister George Osbourne reforms stamp duty, replacing the slab system with a blended rate scheme, with the top rate increasing to 12 per cent from 10 per cent:
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April 2016: New 3% surcharge applied to any buy-to-let properties or additional homes purchased.
July 2020: Rishi Sunak unveils SDLT holiday, with no tax to pay on the first £500,000, with buyers saving up to £15,000.
March 2021: Mr Sunak decides the fate of SDLT holiday at his March 3 budget, with expectations he will extend the perk unti June.
April 2021: 2% SDLT surcharge added to property transactions made by overseas buyers.
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