The Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS (December 23-30, 2022) features @pgodfreysmith on deer and birds; @LaurenElkin on Sophie Calle; @natsegnit on Craig Brown; a new poem by @glynofwelwyn ; reflections on the BBC at 100; @BorisDralyuk on A. E. Stallings; @irinibus on gifts – and more.
For the heroism of its people, and for standing up to a bully
Some years bring disorder, others a resolution. This one asked questions
He has had a crash course in the trade-offs in protecting free expression
The Globalist Podcast (December 21, 2022) – The aftermath of China abandoning its ‘zero-covid’ policy, Ukraine asks world to ‘go dark’ in solidarity on Winter Solstice,
Mr. Trump refused to disclose his taxes. A committee’s vote to release them ended an oversight battle Democratic lawmakers waged since 2019.
The visit will be the first time President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has left his country since Russia invaded in February.
Nearly all Americans over 65 got their initial Covid vaccines. But that immunity is waning, and this time, the government is offering far less support for new shots.
The legislation, which would fund the government through September, would significantly increase federal spending and provide billions of dollars in emergency aid.
December 20, 2022: Putin visits Belarus, Dutch Prime Minister apologizes for slave trade role and January 6 Panel refers criminal charges for Donald Trump to Justice Department.
The committee also accused the former president of three other federal crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. Five Trump allies were referred as well.
Former President Donald Trump’s current woes extend beyond the report by the House Jan. 6 committee, but the case the panel laid out against him further complicates his future.
After micromanaging the coronavirus strategy for nearly three years, the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, has suddenly left the populace to improvise.
The former film producer was convicted of sex crimes for the second time, though the jury could not reach a decision on three counts and acquitted him on one count.
Illustration: Adele Morgan
Literary Hub (December 19, 2022) – From 35 lists and from 29 publications (yes, there are even more lists out there, but we’re all going to die some day), tallying a total of 887 books. 84 books were highlighted on 4 or more lists, and those are collated those for you here, in descending order of frequency.
An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception. Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth–all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
Penguin Random House
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs.
The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world.In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats.
Our first stop: a cheese Danish. Can’t skip breakfast
The Republican leader’s ambition has always been his defining characteristic. Attempting to placate both Trumpists and moderates may lead to his downfall.
Memories of a high-school job at a local seafood restaurant, blurred by time.
Boomers Daily 