Times Literary Supplement (October 16, 2024): The latest issue features ‘A world away from K-pop -The Nobel laureate Han Kang, Sylvia Plath’s final say; Alan Hollinghurst gets Brexit done; The dictotor’s treadmill; Keeping the Warburg weird…
The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust. Expect that to continue, argue Simon Rabinovitch and Henry Curr
HARVARD MAGAZINE (October 15, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Out of Reach’ – America’s housing affordability crisis…
America’s housing problem—and what to do about it by Jonathan Shaw
Latanya Sweeney confronts our all-consuming “technocracy.” by Lydialyle Gibson
College sports are changing. Will Harvard athletics? by Max J. Krupnick
The GOP’s identity crisis by Lauren Oyler
On minor characters and human possibility by Yiyun Li
From Mysticism, which was published last month by New York Review Books. by Simon Critchley
The Wall Street Journal (October 15, 2024): In Ukraine and the Red Sea, low-tech drones are changing the way wars are fought. The U.S. and other countries are investing in a new and inexpensive way to retaliate: lasers.
Chapters: 0:00 Laser weapon systems 1:03 The LOCUST 2:57 Targets 3:40 Weaknesses 4:56 Future challenges and deployment
Compared with traditional weapons, lasers present some key challenges: they have a shorter range, limited power and can be harder to fix when issues arise. WSJ explains how the BlueHalo LOCUST laser weapon system works and why the tech is so difficult to perfect.
Country Life Magazine (October 15, 2024): The latest issue features…
John Goodall charts the rise, fall and rise again of the Palace of Holyroodhouse in the Edinburgh landmark’s 900-year history
Harnessing the power of a dog’s snout can play a crucial role in protecting curlew, newts and red squirrels, discovers Alexa Phillips
Kate Green celebrates the 70th birthday of Exmoor National Park, famed for a beguiling blend of wild beauty and farmed landscape
Find out what happens when the greenery bites back as Deborah Nicholls-Lee develops a taste for Britain’s carnivorous plants
The managing director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra chooses a vibrant, glowing work
Conservation owes much to Dr Dick Potts, says Kate Green
The smooth flanks of the Downs are our oldest manmade habitat, suggests John Lewis-Stempel from a lofty perch on Caburn hill
Paula Lester puts her stalking skills to the test as she sets out in pursuit of Chinese water deer on a Bedfordshire farm
Harry Pearson hails the dandy, diving eider duck, safeguarded since the time of St Cuthbert
David Profumo relives the days when the fabled waters of Lewis were seemingly ‘paved with fish’
The advent of autumn calls for richer hues, advises Hetty Lintell
Matthew Dennison recommends a pediment for a grand flourish
Michaelmas daisies are among the shining stars of the autumn garden, declares John Hoyland
Amelia Thorpe selects sculptures to adorn any outside space
Melanie Johnson on parsnips
John Wright goes rooting around for the subtle, subterranean flavour of Britain’s native truffles
This piscatorial profession and pastime has kept artists hooked for centuries, finds Carla Passino
Snuff taking is nothing to get sniffy about, argues Harry Pearson
James Clarke examines The Secret Garden’s enduring appeal a century after the author’s death
Michael Billington is spoilt for choice with a run of first nights
Cultured Mind (October 12, 2024): Explore the top 8 exhibitions at Art Basel 2024 in Paris including Harold Ancart – “Maison Ancart”, Dana Schutz’s “The Sea and All Its Subjects” and Bracha Ettinger’s “Trust After the End of Trust”.
#ArtBaselParis2024
The Wall Street Journal (October 14, 2024): “Darwin” is one of Ukraine’s deadliest drone pilots in its war against Russia.
Chapters: 0:00 A race to adapt 1:38 “Darwin” 2:48 Artillery strikes 4:01 Personal evolution 6:37 In the bunker 8:32 Drone strike 12:20 Just the beginning
But the 20-year-old must contend with his own personal evolution after hundreds of successful missions in a modern survival of the fittest.
Einstein’s Tutor
Lee Phillips PublicAffairs (2024)
Major studies of Albert Einstein’s work contain minimal, if any, reference to the role of German mathematician Emmy Noether. Yet, she was crucial in resolving a paradox in general relativity through her theorem connecting symmetry and energy-conservation laws, published in 1918. When Noether died in 1935, Einstein called her “the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began”. In this book about her for the general reader, physicist Lee Phillips brings Noether alive.
Silk Roads
Sue Brunning et al. British Museum Press (2024)
The first object discussed in this lavishly illustrated British Museum exhibition book reveals the far-ranging, mysterious nature of the Silk Roads. It is a Buddha figure, excavated in Sweden from a site dated to around ad 800, and probably created in Pakistan two centuries earlier. No one knows how it reached Europe or its significance there. As the authors — three of them exhibition curators — admit, it is “impossible to capture the full extent and complexity of the Silk Roads in a single publication”— even by limiting their time frame to only five centuries.
The Last Human Job
Allison Pugh Princeton Univ. Press (2024)
A century ago, notes sociologist Allison Pugh, people doing their food shopping gave lists to shop workers, who retrieved the goods then haggled over the prices. The process epitomized what she terms connective labour, which involves “an emotional understanding with another person to create the outcomes we think are important”. A healthy society requires more connective labour, not more automation, she argues in her engaging study, which observes and interviews physicians, teachers, chaplains, hairdressers and more.
Becoming Earth
Ferris Jabr Random House (2024)
According to science journalist Ferris Jabr, his intriguing book about Earth — divided into three sections on rock, water and air — is “an exploration of how life has transformed the planet, a meditation on what it means to say that Earth itself is alive”. If this definition sounds similar to the Gaia hypothesis by chemist James Lovelock and biologist Lynn Margulis, that is welcome to Jabr, who admires Lovelock as a thinker and personality. He also recognizes how the 1970s hypothesis, which evolved over decades, still divides scientists.
Into the Clear Blue Sky
Rob Jackson Scribner (2024)
Earth scientist Rob Jackson chairs the Global Carbon Project, which works to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and improve air and water quality. His book begins hopefully on a visit to Rome, where Vatican Museums conservators discuss the “breathtaking” restoration of the blue sky in Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgement, damaged by centuries of grime and visitors’ exhalations. But he ends on a deeply pessimistic note on a research boat in Amazonia, which is suffering from both floods and fires: the “Hellocene”.
Even many of the ex-President’s opponents haven’t grasped the scale of the man’s villainy. By Adam Gopnik
After the 2016 election, progressives blamed white women for Hillary Clinton’s loss. This year, Black men have come under special scrutiny. By Jelani Cobb
The Russian opposition leader’s account of his last years and his admonition to his country and the world. By Alexei Navalny
Boomers Daily 