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Category Archives: Reviews
The New York Times Book Review- Sunday May 7, 2023
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW – MAY 7, 2023
Face to Face With Culture’s ‘Monsters’
Claire Dederer’s deft and searching book surfaces a “fan’s dilemma” over such figures as Vladimir Nabokov, Woody Allen, Willa Cather and Roman Polanski.
Expanding on a popular essay published in The Paris Review a month after the exposure of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predation, “Monsters” sustains an essayistic, sometimes aphoristic tone throughout 250-odd pages.
Dark Shadows, Dark Times
Welcome to three novels set in locales where life is exceedingly difficult.
By Alida Becker
AT THE HOUR BETWEEN DOG AND WOLF by Tara Ison
The title comes from a French expression for twilight. Sure enough, her novel sends us to the dusk that borders the familiar and the wild, the known and the unknown. It’s where our beliefs and suspicions can cast dark shadows over our lives. And, of course, the lives of others.
One Man’s Foray Into the Heartland of the Far Right
Alarmed by the country’s political divisions, Jeff Sharlet embarked on an anguished quest to understand the rise of antidemocratic extremism. In “The Undertow,” he documents his findings.
By Joseph O’Neill
THE UNDERTOW: Scenes From a Slow Civil War, by Jeff Sharlet
The premise of “The Undertow,” Jeff Sharlet’s anguished new book of reportage, is that the United States is “coming apart.” The disintegration is political. It involves the rise of the autocratically inclined Donald Trump; the attempt by members of the Republican Party to overthrow the election of Joe Biden in January 2021; and, during the Biden presidency, the overturning by the Supreme Court of Roe v Wade.
Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – May 8, 2023
BARRON’S MAGAZINE – MAY 8, 2023 ISSUE
Culture Wars Are Hitting Companies. How They’re Fighting Back.
Bud Light is the latest casualty in a battle over whether companies are embracing too many progressive goals on everything from gender identity to climate change. What’s at stake as companies fight back.
Thinking of Buying Bank Stocks? You’ll Need a Strong Stomach.
No one wants to buy bank stocks ahead of a recession, says UBS analyst Erika Najarian.
Weight-Loss Drugs Will Be Blockbusters. Here’s the Stock to Buy.
Everyone is talking about Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic. Now, the drugs are poised to go from conversation starters to profit makers.
Biofuel Stocks Are Sputtering. They Could Get a Jump Start.
An industry reckoning over carbon credits could refresh the market for renewables derived from things such as cooking oil and cow manure. These beaten-down stocks that could get a lift once headwinds subside.
Hurricanes: The Science Behind Their Destruction
Video timeline: 00:00 – What are tropical cyclones? 00:46 – The history of tropical cyclones 02:06 – How do they form? 04:33 – What happens when they reach land? 07:13 – What is the impact of climate change?
Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York this week opens Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, the latest in the hugely successful Costume Institute exhibitions. The German designer, who died in 2019, was also the inspiration for this year’s Met Gala, the museum’s star-studded fundraiser.
We talk to Stephanie Sporn, a fashion historian and arts and culture writer, about the exhibition, the gala and the controversy around Lagerfeld’s offensive comments about a range of issues. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Good Housekeeping III (1985/2023) by the British artist Marlene Smith. She was part of the Blk Art Group, a collective of young Black British artists active in the late 1970s and 1980s, which is the subject of The more things change…, an exhibition at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery in the UK.
Smith has re-created the work, first made in 1985, for the show, and tells us more about its making, its context, and the history of the Blk Art Group. Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, until 16 July.The more things change…, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, UK, until 9 July.
June 2023 Cover: National Geographic Traveller UK
Breaking bread: dining with sheep farmers in the Faroe Islands
On their farm in the Faroe Islands, where the sheep roam the hillsides and the chickens put themselves to bed, Óli and Anna Rubeksen dish up a feast of local ingredients ranging from rhubarb to lamb hearts.
Also inside this issue:
Oman: A rich history and striking landscapes, from the Arabian coast to the Hajar Mountains.
Costa Rica: Explore Central America’s wildest corners, where quetzals hide and rivers lead to jungle lodges.
Laos: In a corner of this Southeast Asian country, life is shaped by the flow of the Mekong River.
Lisbon: Tram rides, street art and al fresco meals: Portugal’s lively capital is best explored outdoors.
Oslo: Summer is the perfect time to discover Norway’s flourishing premier city.
Bosnia & Herzegovina: Discover this Balkan country’s turbulent history, wild nature and surprising food scene.
Barbados: Inventive food and drinks projects are redefining the Caribbean island’s culinary landscape.
Paris: The French capital beckons with accommodation options to suit every pocket.
Plus, it’s the anniversary of Vienna’s World Fair; new exhibitions in London; a taste of Corfu; archaeology and Indiana Jones in Syracuse; Manila’s design-led hotels; family trips to the UK seaside; sand, sherry and Spanish history in Cádiz; a Cornish escape to Falmouth; great reads on British nature; and packing essentials.
Research Preview: Science Magazine – May 5, 2023
When a delicate balancing act goes wrong
A cardinal feature of the immune system is its ability to distinguish self from nonself. Although many early immunologists thought that its powerful defenses could rarely, if ever, be turned against the host, pioneering research on autoimmune diseases beginning in the early 1900s has documented a different reality. More than 80 different autoimmune disorders have now been described that may affect up to 5% of the population.
Russia tensions keep Arctic research on ice
Collaboration stifled as many scientists look to establish fieldwork elsewhere
Twist of fate
A physician-scientist has probed Parkinson’s disease for more than 30 years. Now, he has it
The New York Review Of Books – May 25, 2023
Bewitched by Goethe
In Johann Eckermann, Goethe found an amanuensis made in heaven.
Conversations with Goethe: In the Last Years of His Life by Johann Peter Eckermann, translated from the German by Allan Blunden, with an introduction and notes by Ritchie Robertson
A strange time to publish—strange time to publish anything—a translation of Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe (or should that be Goethe’s Conversations with Eckermann?), in six hundred static, major-key pages that can easily feel like twice as many. The big man, himself by now somewhat fallen on hard times, recorded by the little acolyte.
Saving Lives and Making a Killing
A new book reveals the split personality of the biotech industry: an altruistic enterprise that creates breakthrough treatments for patients in need, and a bare-knuckle business that seeks to generate astronomic profits and stop competitors from developing better treatments.
For Blood and Money: Billionaires, Biotech, and the Quest for a Blockbuster Drug by Nathan Vardi
A research scientist for Pharmacyclics, Sunnyvale, California, 2013. In For Blood and Money, Nathan Vardi writes that when Pharmacyclics—which developed ibrutinib, a treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia—was bought by the pharmaceutical giant AbbVie in 2015 for $21 billion, ‘the deal…set the new high-water mark for success in the biotechnology industry.’
Previews: The Economist Magazine – May 6, 2023
Governments are living in a fiscal fantasyland
The world over, they are failing to confront the dire state of their finances
If Turkey sacks its strongman, democrats everywhere should take heart
After 20 years of increasingly autocratic rule, Recep Tayyip Erdogan risks eviction by voters
Time to engage (very carefully) with the Taliban
Isolating the mullahs is not working. The West needs a more constructive approach
Airline Travel: Legacy Vs Low-Cost Carriers (WSJ)
Video timeline: 0:00 Meet Patrick Quayle, a global network planning executive 0:27 The hub-and-spoke network structure 2:50 The linear route system, point-to-point 4:45 When to update route networks
It turns out legacy airlines like American and Delta and low-cost airlines like Southwest and Spirit use different models when planning their route networks. WSJ asked United’s global network planning expert to explain how airlines plan and manage their routes.
Boomers Daily 