Times Literary Supplement, May 6, 2022 – This week’s @TheTLS, featuring James Fenton on Volume IV of John Richardson’s Picasso biography; @joemoransblog on the “Premonitions Bureau”; @JuliusKrein on the American Right; @MElizabethLowry on William Kentridge; @AnaAliciaGarza on James Agee – and more
Category Archives: Books
Reviews: New Books On Food Science – May 2022
May 2, 2022 – Our food system is a rich, complex blend of biology and culture. From the biodiversity in forests, oceans, and farms to the living weave of long-standing traditions and emerging trends, food touches every aspect of life on Earth. This diversity hasn’t always carried through to agricultural and culinary literatures, but fortunately this is changing. Fresh perspectives are emerging in the literary discussions of food, addressing a range of topics and cuisines. In 2022, Science will share this tapestry in a limited podcast series on science and food. Hosted by journalist Angela Saini, the series will highlight books from around the world that intersect with this theme. A different book and its author will appear monthly on the Science podcast, beginning on 26 May 2022.
Together, the books discussed in these segments expose an entanglement of biology, culinary science, and culture. In Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them, Dan Saladino addresses biodiversity loss and the future of food. Saladino covers vast swaths of time and space, taking us from wild honey gatherers in Africa to rare Orkney barley as he demonstrates that species loss is linked to cultural loss.
Food literatures also demand that we confront ourselves and our blind spots. T. Colin Campbell’s The Future of Nutrition: An Insider’s Look at the Science, Why We Keep Getting It Wrong, and How to Start Getting It Right explores the evidence of the health benefits of plant-based diets. Crucially, this book exposes the cultural and political inertia protecting animal protein from scrutiny, reminding us that scientific research is never detached from society.
Previews: New York Times Book Review – May 1, 2022
- Abandoned, Trafficked, Living as a Man: A Chinese-American Coming of Age A debut novel takes a new spin on the 19th-century western. April 18, 2022 By JENNIFER EGAN
- ESSAY At 100, the ‘Just William’ Books Are an Icon of British Childhood Richmal Crompton’s prototypical schoolboy has survived war, upheaval, changing tastes and a new world. He’s still just 11. April 22, 2022 By SASKIA SOLOMON
Previews: Times Literary Supplement – April 29, 2022
This week’s Times Literary Supplement for April 29, 2022 @TheTLS, featuring Carol Tavris on Darwinian feminism; @TomFStevenson on geopolitics; @TobyLichtig on Compartment No. 6; Edmund Gordon on the new Jennifer Egan; @hjccochrane on Primo Levi; @rinireg on borders – and more.
Science Books: Top New Picks – Nature Magazine
Andrew Robinson reviews five of the week’s best science picks.
Spark
Timothy J. Jorgensen Princeton Univ. Press (2022)
The use of electricity in medicine has long been controversial, notes health physicist Timothy Jorgensen. Eighteenth-century polymath Benjamin Franklin applied shocks to paralysed muscles with temporary success. In the 1930s, neurologist Ugo Cerletti pioneered painful but effective electroconvulsive therapy for schizophrenia and depression. Yet even today, “no one is sure exactly how ECT works”, says Jorgensen in his brilliant book. Now, business magnate Elon Musk plans to implant computer chips to treat brain disorders.
The New Fire
Ben Buchanan & Andrew Imbrie MIT Press (2022)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is not like electricity, but like fire, say Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie — academic specialists in emerging technology — in their authoritative, coruscating analysis of its current and future significance. Its potential impact ranges from illuminating to catastrophic, according to three rival and sometimes overlapping views from observers whom they label “evangelists, warriors and Cassandras”. “Three sparks ignite the new fire,” say the authors: data, algorithms and computing power.
Tomorrow’s People
Paul Morland Picador (2022)
“To most of us, the influence of demography on our future is far from obvious,” writes demographer Paul Morland. City dwellers tend to have low fertility, thereby creating an older population and eventually population decline, which could prompt migration and ethnic change, as in today’s United Kingdom — or might not, as in Japan. Morland’s careful book discusses ten indicators, one per chapter: infant mortality, population growth, urbanization, fertility, ageing, old age, population decline, ethnic change, education and food.
Restarting the Future
Jonathan Haskel & Stian Westlake Princeton Univ. Press (2022)
In the past few decades, growth has stagnated in advanced economies. This is odd, given low interest rates, high business profits and a wide belief that we live with “dizzying technological progress”, write economists Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake. They argue that the old economic model based on material production fails when it comes to intangible assets — such as software, data, design and business processes — that hinge on ideas, knowledge and relationships. Financial and state institutions must update to cope.
Inequality
Carles Lalueza-Fox MIT Press (2022)
Inequality and its origins will always preoccupy humans. In 2014, biologist Carles Lalueza-Fox led the retrieval of a genome from a European forager’s skeleton more than 7,000 years old; his later studies revealed genetic evidence of “inequality and discrimination in different times and periods”, as he describes in this significant book, written during the pandemic. He concludes by observing that COVID‑19 has had an enhanced impact on poor people, which he anticipates will feature in future genetic studies.
New Books: ‘San Francisco – Portrait Of A City’ (2022)
Starting with an early picture of a gang of badass gold prospectors who put this beautiful Northern California city on the map, this ambitious and immersive photographic history of San Francisco takes a winding tour through the city from the mid–nineteenth century to the present day.
The Streets of San Francisco
An epic pictorial history of the City by the Bay
Enjoy eye-catching views of the city’s most enduring landmarks and symbols: the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, the picturesque trams that wind up and down the famously steep hills, the popular waterfront, its beautiful bay, and its spectacular cityscapes and vistas. San Francisco’s counterculture movements that shaped our collective consciousness are also featured prominently: the beats of North Beach, the hippies of Haight-Ashbury, the gay communities of Castro, and the Black Panthers of neighboring Oakland. Some of the city’s most famous residents also make appearances: Robin Williams, The Grateful Dead, Angela Davis, Janis Joplin, Sylvester, and Allen Ginsberg, among others.
This book features hundreds of newly found images from dozens of archives including museums, universities, libraries, galleries, private collections, and historical societies, from 19th-century daguerreotypes to mid-century Kodachromes to 21st-century digital pictures. Master photographers include, among others: Stephen Shore, Imogen Cunningham, Fred Lyon, Steve Schapiro, Minor White, Dorothea Lange, Albert Watson, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, William Claxton, Fred Herzog, Ansel Adams, Jim Marshall, and many local shooters. Also includes introductory essays and captions by Bay Area–based author Richie Unterberger and a “Best of San Francisco” books, music, and movies section and biographies of the photographers. Tony Bennett famously sang, “I left my heart in San Francisco,” and this meticulously researched and conceived portrait will equally inspire and make you fall in love with the spirit of the City by the Bay.
Preview: New York Times Book Review – April 24
- PICTURE BOOKS Lost, and Found, in Translation: 3 Picture Books About Language Turn Anglocentric Tropes on Their HeadEnglish is gibberish, “X” is for bear and a shared word is everyone’s cup of tea — in new work by Young Vo, Ellen Heck and Andrea Wang.By KORY STAMPERApril 22, 2022
- OUR READERS RESPOND People Cope With Tragedy by Writing Poems. Maybe They Shouldn’t.And other letters to the editor.April 22, 2022
- New in Paperback: Helen Oyeyemi and George SaundersSix new paperbacks to check out this week.By MIGUEL SALAZAR
Preview: New York Review Of Books – May 12, 2022
Painting Herself
From the beginning, female self-portraitists have chosen to show themselves at work, as if to demonstrate that they could handle a brush as well as male artists.
The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution, and Resilience: Five Hundred Years of Women’s Self Portraits
by Jennifer Higgie
The Self-Portrait
by Natalie Rudd
Preview: ‘Great Escapes Alps. The Hotel Book’
Flowering mountain slopes and traditional meadows. Icy glaciers and majestic summits. With their untouched nature and raw beauty, the Alps have always been a source of fascination. Angelika Taschen presents the best accommodation for Alpinists – historic inns, guesthouses, monasteries, mountain huts, chalets, palazzi, design hotels, even a youth hostel.
A Mountain Tour of the Alps
The Alps are Europe’s biggest and greatest mountain range. Formed millions of years ago, they became a popular destination for travelers in the late eighteenth century – first for adventurers and explorers, then for artists and writers, and finally for everyone who wanted to spend summer in the fresh air of this wonderful scenery or take part in winter sports. Angelika Taschen has followed in their footsteps and collected the finest hotels in the Alpine nations of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, and Italy.
They include the Kranzbach near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, built for a British aristocrat, Gasthof Hirschen in the Bregenzerwald, where art-loving visitors have been welcomed since 1755, and the Seehof near Salzburg with its emphasis on contemporary art and fine cuisine. The journey goes to Waldhaus Sils in Sils Maria, where many creative guests have found inspiration, to the Schatzalp in Davos, which Thomas Mann immortalized in literature in “The Magic Mountain”, and to picturesque bed & breakfasts with a personal touch such as Brücke49 in Vals and Maison Bergdorf in Interlaken.
High above Chamonix, mountaineers have stayed overnight for more than 140 years at Refuge du Montenvers with its view of the Mer de Glace, the largest glacier in France. In the exclusive Megève, too, which Baroness Noémie de Rothschild put on the tourist map, travelers experience the Alps à la française in the chalet hotel L’Alpaga; and a bit of Italian dolce vita is provided by stunning addresses in the South Tyrol such as the Ottmangut in Merano, Villa Arnica in Lana with its nostalgic atmosphere, and Pension Briol near Barbiano, constructed in 1928 in the Bauhaus style and extended in 2021 with the addition of two extremely modern buildings.
This opulent book of photographs presents the Alpine range and accommodation in large-format images, short texts, and useful details on prices and how to get there. Walkers, skiers, gourmets, and lovers of good living will find valuable tips and very special accommodation: former monasteries where guests still find peace and seclusion, a mountain hut at the heart of the Dolomites, and a youth hostel occupying what was once a sanatorium, a rare example of modern architecture in Switzerland that was declared a heritage monument in 2002.
Boomers Daily 