Category Archives: Reviews

Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – Dec. 9, 2024

Magazine - Latest Issue - Barron's

BARRON’S MAGAZINE (December 7, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Bull Case for Investing Abroad’…

International Roundtable: 4 Experts, 12 Stock Picks

Investing abroad has been a tough sell, but overseas markets offer growth—and value.

MicroStrategy Is Winning by Breaking Wall Street’s Rules. Avoid the Stock.

Investors effectively are paying nearly $240,000 for each of the company’s 402,100 Bitcoins, well above the market price. 

What Happens if You Die Without a Will? You Could Leave Heirs—and Pets—With Even More Grief.

People can avoid messy family fights by preparing a will. It needn’t be a complicated document.

Inflation Isn’t Dead Yet. How to Protect Your Retirement Income.

Rising prices are here to stay. Use these investments to beat the inflation trap.Long read

Preview: Johns Hopkins Magazine – Winter 2024/25

Cover of the Winter 2024 edition of Johns Hopkins Magazine

Johns Hopkins Magazine (December 6, 2024): Microplastics are among and in us; meet opera composer and hitmaker Kevin Puts; the science of seeing faces in nature; addressing the epidemic of eatings disorders in America, and more

Eating malfunction

Next to opioid use disorder, anorexia is the most deadly mental health illness. In all, 5% of patients will die within the first four years of diagnosis as a result of heart failure, organ shutdown, low blood sugar, or suicide. The Eating Disorders Coalition reports that every 52 minutes, at least one person loses their life as a direct result of an eating disorder.

A Teeny-Tiny Problem of Epic Proportions

Maya Dizack, BSPH ’24 (ScM), set out years ago on a journey down the Mississippi River to see how widespread microplastics were in this major body of water. Her findings were more alarming than expected. But just how concerned

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (December 6, 2024): The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, Ben Sutton, and our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, are in Florida and report on the sales and the mood on the first VIP day at Art Basel Miami Beach.

On 8 December, the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris will reopen, more than five years after the fire that partly destroyed it. Ben Luke talks to one of the architects responsible for its rise from the ashes, Pascal Prunet. And this episode’s Work of the Week is The Madonna and Child with Saints (1526-27) by Parmigianino, better known as The Vision of Saint Jerome.

The painting this week returned to public display for the first time in 10 years, in a new exhibition at the National Gallery in London, following conservation, and we talk to Maria Alambritis, the show’s co-curator.

Art Basel Miami Beach, until Sunday, 8 December.

Notre-Dame reopens on Sunday, 8 December.

Parmigianino: The Vision of Saint Jerome, National Gallery, London, until 9 March 2025

Research Preview: Science Magazine-Dec. 6, 2024

Science issue cover

Science Magazine – November 29, 2024: The new issue features ‘Programmed T Cells’ – Targeting the brain and other tissues to treat cancer and inflammation…

Programming tissue-sensing T cells that deliver therapies to the brain

‘Brutal’ math test raises the bar for AI

Model-stumping benchmark shows human experts remain on top—for now

Beneath Antarctica’s ice, a fiery future may await

Researchers probe volcanoes’ response to a changing world

War-torn Ukraine is breeding drug-resistant bacterial strains

Urgent action underway to bolster treatments and prevent dangerous microbes from spilling across borders

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Dec. 6, 2024

Image

Times Literary Supplement (December 4, 2024): The latest issue features ‘HIs Other Country’ – The James Baldwin revival continues in the 100th anniversary year of his birth. A trickle of biographies has become a flood, and the causes for which he stood, racial equality and gay rights, speak to the times.

Knowing his name – Celebrating the centenary of James Baldwin’s birth

By Fred D’Aguiar

Bring back the big fish

Mississippi River levee, 1940

Record-label scouts chase ‘strange compositions’

By Harry Strawson

No sacred cows

Obelisco de Buenos Aires, Plaza de la República, 1997

A video game challenges the history of Argentina

By Mia Levitin

The Economist Magazine – December 7, 2024 Preview

The Economist Magazine (December 5, 2024): The latest issue features ‘America’s Gambling Frenzy’….

America’s gambling boom should be celebrated, not feared

The gambling frenzy is mostly about people being free to enjoy themselves

France steps into deep trouble

It has no government and no budget, and is politically gridlocked

Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea should resign, or be impeached

His coup attempt was foiled. But grave tests still remain for the country

Joe Biden abused a medieval power to pardon his son

The president’s reversal is understandable, hum

MIT Sloan Management Review – Top 2024 Articles

MIT Sloan Management Review (December 4, 2024): Looking beyond AI, many of our top 10 stories involve tough culture and people management challenges, like dealing with the informal meetings that happen after formal meetings (No. 2) and getting people to stop self-censoring with company leaders (No. 5). These two stories, by Phillip G. Clampitt and Jim Detert, respectively, truly struck a nerve with readers. At a time of radical change, communication and trust have never been more important.

#10
Building Culture From the Middle Out

Spencer Harrison and Kristie Rogers

Midlevel leaders are critical to fostering an organizational culture that’s healthy and vibrant.

#9
Video — RTO Mandates: Hard Truths for Leaders

Brian Elliott

In this brief video, learn what the latest research and current examples say about return-to-office mandates — and what leaders can do instead to boost productivity and retain talent.

#8
Eight Essential Interview Questions CEOs Swear By

Adam Bryant

Get beyond job candidates’ pat answers to hiring managers’ standard queries by recasting questions to elicit thoughtful responses.

#7
Seven Truths About Hybrid Work and Productivity

Lynda Gratton

To get the most from hybrid work, leaders should prepare for trade-offs, make expectations clear, and think harder about how productivity is measured.

#6
How Tech Fails Late-Career Workers

Stefan Tams

Managers must make deliberate choices to support older workers’ use of complex technologies.

#5
What You Still Can’t Say at Work

Jim Detert

Most people know what can’t be said in their organization. But leaders can apply these techniques to break through the unwritten rules that make people self-censor.

#4
Return-to-Office Mandates: How to Lose Your Best Performers

Brian Elliott

Your organization’s highest-performing employees want executives to focus on outcomes and accountability, not office badge swipes.

#3
The Future of Strategic Measurement: Enhancing KPIs With AI

Michael Schrage, David Kiron, François Candelon, Shervin Khodabandeh, and Michael Chu

This artificial intelligence and business strategy report looks at how organizations are using AI to evolve their key performance indicators to better align with their strategies and deliver on enterprise goals.

#2
Hard Truths About the Meeting After the Meeting

Phillip G. Clampitt

Leaders must encourage respectful debate during meetings and use related strategies to avoid toxic post-meeting dynamics.

#1
Five Key Trends in AI and Data Science for 2024

Thomas H. Davenport and Randy Bean

These developing issues should be on every leader’s radar screen, data executives say.

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Dec. 5, 2024

Volume 636 Issue 8041

Nature Magazine – December 3, 2024: The latest issue features ‘In The Clouds’ – Isoprene drives formation of new particles in the upper troposphere…

Humble scientists earn more trust

Study participants rated fictional scientists who admitted their own knowledge gaps as more credible.

The cells that help the immune system fight lung cancer

Neighbouring cells bolster the immune cells’ tumour-fighting abilities.

Antarctica’s first known amber whispers of a vanished rainforest

The only continent where amber had not been found no longer has that distinction, thanks to a sediment core drilled just offshore.

This dwarf planet might have its very own ice volcano

Relatively warm regions of the object called Makemake could also be explained by a dusty planetary ring.

Current Affairs: Prospect Magazine – January 2025

Prospect Magazine (December 4, 2024) – The latest issue features Cas Mudde assessing the health of democracy and James Bloodworth explains the rise of polemicist Douglas Murray. In Ukraine, Jen Stout reports on the symbolism of Europe’s first skyscraper, while we present the shortlist of 25 Top Thinkers for 2025

Democracy is in a doom spiral—but it isn’t dead yet

The far right thrived in 2024, and the erosion of liberal democracy is the  story of the century so far. It didn’t have to be this way By Cas Muddle

Concrete resistance: how one building symbolises Kharkiv’s defiance

Want to imagine the city of the future? Try Milton Keynes Jen Stout

Prospect’s books of the year 2024: Politics & Reportage

Country Life Magazine – December 4, 2024 Preview

Country Life Magazine (December 3, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Full English’ – Why our homegrown style is back….

London Life

  • Richard MacKichan finds Sir Paul Smith rockin’ around Claridge’s Christmas tree
  • Catriona Gray meets the movers and shakers of the capital’s art world
  • All you need to know this month in the capital

Caroline Moorehead’s favourite painting

The author selects a portrait that shows the ‘very essence of what it was to be Sicilian’

The world turned upside down

Carla Carlisle—wife of a farmer and a diversifier extraordinaire— offers an insider’s view on the Government’s ‘Great Betrayal’

What to look for in winter

Now is not the time to hibernate, suggests John Wright, as he encourages us to appreciate the countryside’s stark, intricate beauty in these colder months

Putting in a Good Word

Lucy Denton delves into the remarkable history of Stationers’ Hall, the central London home of the Worshipful Company of Stationers for the past 400 years

The legacy

Amie Elizabeth White hails Henry Cole, inventor of Christmas cards

The rocky-pool horror show

John Lewis-Stempel loves to be beside the seaside as he examines the enduring appeal of England’s glorious coastline

Bowler me over

Matthew Dennison tips his hat to the rural origins of the bowler as he celebrates its 175th birthday

A touch of frost

Beware an ill wind blowing us into 2025, warns Lia Leendertz

Piste de résistance

Joseph Phelan finds a business on an upslope when he visits the last ski-maker in Scotland

Eyes wide shut

Sleep in art is often drunken, deadly or the stuff of nightmares, but rarely is it peaceful, as Claudia Pritchard discovers

Size matters

Charles Quest-Ritson cranes his neck to take in the sheer scale of the specimens at West Sussex’s Architectural Plants

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson on sprouts

Travel

  • Life in Grenada quickly grows on Rosie Paterson
  • Catamarans and cabanas
  • Jamaica’s Blue Mountains are heaven for Steven King
  • Fine dining is the holy grail for Pamela Goodman