Christopher Nolan’s $250 million action movie version of Homer’s ancient Greek poem is an entertaining way to hide from the high temperatures for a few hours. Nolan’s trademark jumps and twists in the narrative structure are relatively easy to follow, and appropriate for The Odyssey, a narrative of tales nested in tales. My teenagers had a good time. Unlike some of Nolan’s other films, The Odyssey is not boring, thanks to the source material, which is impossible to mess up entirely. It’s a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth.
The most authentic thing about Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is its densely braided narrative, but its tormented hero sounds like the heroes of Christopher Nolan movies.
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s inside account of the Trump administration portrays a president with a vast appetite for power but who repeatedly backs down when the costs of his actions become too high.
Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
America’s centennial in 1876 was celebrated with a grand exhibition that projected an image of national unity and inventiveness in the anxious aftermath of civil war and recession.
Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America’s Future by Fergus M. Bordewich
Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff’s Muskism examines how Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, by selling a vision of the future that very few people would want to inhabit.
Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed by Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff
The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity
By Andrea Wulf
An exemplary tour of the High Enlightenment might go something like this. You’d begin in the streets of 1760s London to feel the pulse of Georgian commerce. You’d then hop aboard one of Captain Cook’s colliers and cruise through the Pacific, having encounters every day. Returning to Europe you might watch Benjamin Franklin in diplomatic action at Passy and dine with Casanova in Vienna, before sailing up the Rhine with Humboldt. Having inspected the Soho Manufactory in Birmingham and admired the picturesque scenery of the Peak District, you’d cross the Channel just in time for the grand and bloody finale in Paris.
Twilight of the Dons: British Intellectuals from World War II to Thatcherism
By Colin Kidd
Arriving as an undergraduate at Cambridge in 1961, Terry Eagleton was both overawed and underwhelmed by his supervisor, a man he calls Greenway in his memoir. ‘Greenway was the first truly civilised man I had ever encountered,’ Eagleton recalls.
This Dark Night: The Life of Emily Brontë
By Deborah Lutz
We know so little about Emily Brontë. There are just a few snapshots, like the vivid recollection of her sister Charlotte’s great friend Ellen Nussey: ‘Her extreme reserve seemed impenetrable, yet she was intensely loveable … one of her rare expressive looks was something to remember through life, there was such a depth of soul and feeling..
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