Idol: The must read, addictive and compulsive book club thriller of the summer

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The examples are all stories interestingly told. Von Tunzelmann writes clearly and well. The best reason for reading this book though is that it is a defence of history as a subject and an explanation of how it works: Fallen Idols. It's a book about statues around the world that have been felled or taken down, and the movements and the people behind them. But then - years since they last spoke - Lisa gets in touch to say that she doesn't remember it that way at all. Her memory of that night is far darker. It's Sam's word against Lisa's - so who gets to tell the story? Whose 'truth' is really a lie? Woahhh, another amazing High School bully Romance!! Norms and idols are now my new obsession and there is no way I am ever forgetting these. Daisy and her boys have one hell of a tale and the whole series is pretty awesome. Miller is absolutely obsessed with her past and her relationship with her best friend Lisa and ex-boyfriend. It's intriguing but equally terrifying to see a grown woman completely infatuated with past events to the point where she is willing to risk everything to try to return to that time. Everyone else has managed to move on but not Samantha. She has everything she could ever want- money, fame, a huge following of young women who are obsessed with her every word- but she can't let go of the past. Miller's life is a car crash in slow motion- the reader will be gripped to see what happens next. I couldn't help but think of the movie Single White Female when I read about Miller's actions!

For me, it basically ruined all the good parts by the way the MC deteriorated in the second half of the book. I didn't want to be part of this spiral into utter and absolute desolation and chaos, I really didn't want to be. Especially not in the head of this insanely unreliable narrator. Many parts of this were so cringey I really don't know how I made it through. This is supposed to be an adult woman losing her shit, but she reads like a thirteen year old. It wasn't fun, believe me. Also, while sometimes very little in the way of public approval is sought to put up a statue, there is an outcry when the statue is slated for removal. This leads into a bureaucratic labyrinth that can take years of wrangling. Hence, desecration and toppling ensue! The author is erudite and thought-provoking in discussing both the history of the statues and the men they represented (the twelve statues represented men, not women). This is the first of the six books on the Wolfson History Prize shortlist. I'm planning to read all of them before the winner is announced. Therefore, Von Tunzelman's thought experiment is, in my view, a failure. However, I do agree with her that most of the arguments are fallacies. She could just have used a better example to refute them.A strange book to review and although am giving it lower marks they are good lower marks if makes sense, an unsettlingly unable to pigeon hole book that would recommend you read if you want to shake up your mind a bit! Through these examples in “Fallen Idols”, we see that the phenomenon of statue-smashing is almost as old as the tradition of putting them up in the first place. Such iconoclasm shows us that there is rarely such a thing as ‘a settled history’, and what statues go up (and stay up) are more a representation of “whose stories we tell” and who at any particular point in time is getting to define our histories.

Determined to speak her truth and bare all to her adoring fans, she's written an essay about her sexual awakening as a teenager, with her female best friend, Lisa. She's never told a soul but now she's telling the world. The essay goes viral. For those who see music as a way to forge genuine connections and find solace in vibrant communities, these K-Pop books serve as love letters to the power of fandom (one is even about exactly that). All in all, this makes us understand that we should not take the view that toppling statues is inherently wrong or right. Statues were put up by certain people to convey a message. This message might not be relevant today and/or it might be a far cry from the actual truth about the figure it represents. As the author says, statues are poor ways of telling us who a person was when human beings are complex beings. Every case where a statue has been removed or is asked to be removed should be considered on a case by case basis. And we should not put statues on a pedestal where no one has the right to question them. In fact, we need to keep the right to question anything and everything. That is what makes the study of history so alive. On the one hand, the book is an exploration of the nature of memory and truth. How well do we really remember the past? Most people today have heard the phrase "my truth". The question is: is this something to be sneered at? Surely there isn't "my truth" and "your truth" but only "THE truth", right? But what if there isn't? What if the "truth" is dependent upon your point of view? What if someone else has a very different view of an experience you had? It's a chilling thought. She discusses the standard arguments against removal of statues. One very common claim is that the man - whether racist, misogynist… merely reflected the thoughts of the era. The author points out that this is not true – there were always people who opposed racism, slavery, colonialism and exploitation. Definitely, the slaves themselves vehemently opposed their condition.Saddam Hussein (1937–2006): statue in Firdos Square, Baghdad, Iraq, erected 2002, pulled down during the invasion of Iraq, 2003