Category Archives: Reviews

Arts & Literature Preview: Kenyon Review – Fall 2024

Fall 2024 | Journal

Kenyon Review – December 8, 2024: The 2024 The Fall 2024 issue of The Kenyon Review includes the winner and runners-up for the Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers, selected by Richie Hofmann; the winner of the First Annual Poetry Contests selected by Pádraig Ó Tuama; and a Rural Spaces folio guest-edited by Jamie Lyn Smith, Brian Michael Murphy, and Andrew Grace, with poetry by ethan s. evansJP GrasserFaylita Hicks, and Alberto Rios; fiction by Nick BertelsonChee BrossyKai Carlson-Wee, and Issa Quincy; and nonfiction byapyang Imiq translated by brenda lin; and much more, including interior and cover art by Ming Smith.

The New York Times Magazine – Dec. 8, 2024

Current cover

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (December 7 2024): The 12.8.24 Issue features William Langewiesche on the secret Pentagon war game how nuclear escalation spirals out of control; Daniel Bergner on a mysterious gap in psychosis rates; Alexis Okeowo on an endless war in Ethiopia; and more.

The Secret Pentagon War Game That ​Offers a Stark​ Warning for Our Times

The devastating outcome of the 1983 game reveals that nuclear escalation inevitably spirals out of control.

The Interview: Tilda Swinton Would Like a Word With Trump About His Mother

The Academy Award-winning actress discusses her lifelong quest for connection, humanity’s innate goodness and the point of being alive.

Ethiopia’s Agony: ‘I Have Never Seen This Kind of Cruelty in My Life’

A rare look inside a region still reckoning with the toll of war crimes, even as new conflicts roil the nation. By Alexis Okeowo

America’s Hidden Racial Divide: A Mysterious Gap in Psychosis Rates

Black Americans experience schizophrenia and related disorders at twice the rate of white Americans. It’s a disparity that has parallels in other cultures. By Daniel Bergner

Read this issue

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

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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.