France Today Magazine (September 20, 2024): Our Great Destinations feature, which sees Caroline Mills explore the western section of the sprawling Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, includes both household names (Bordeaux, Cognac) and hidden gems (Le Train de la Rhune tourist train!).
Part of the intrigue has been which movement would run out of steam first: Trump’s MAGA, through its failures, or Obama’s liberalism, through its successes. By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
Contemporary cycling is all about spandex and personal bests. The bicycle designer Grant Petersen has amassed an ardent following by urging people to get comfortable bikes, and go easy. By Anna Wiener
More than beauty, more than color, the artist reveals the doubts that bind us. By Jackson Arn
Some botanists maintain that peas are capable of associative learning, others that tropical vines have a sort of vision. If plants possess sentience, what is the morally appropriate response?
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger
The Nation of Plants by Stefano Mancuso, translated from the Italian by Gregory Conti
Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence by Paco Calvo with Natalie Lawrence
A collection of excerpts from women’s diaries written over the past four centuries offers a vast range of human experience and a subtle counterhistory.
Secret Voices: A Year of Women’s Diaries edited by Sarah Gristwood
The painter Paula Modersohn-Becker’s ascension to greater visibility raises questions about how we assess artistic talent, how reputations are made, and how we reevaluate once-neglected artists, particularly women.
Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich bin Ich/I Am Me an exhibition at the Neue Galerie, New York City, June 6–September 9, 2024, and the Art Institute of Chicago, October 12, 2024–January 12, 2025
The podcast investigates the events in Haditha, Iraq, and compiles a database to show the inherent problem of the military judging its own members. By Willing Davidson
Scientists have shattered our self-image as principled beings, motivated by moral truths. Some wonder whether our ideals can survive the blow to our vanity. By Manvir Singh
For years, Russia has been using the Norwegian town of Kirkenes, which borders its nuclear stronghold, as a laboratory, testing intelligence operations there before replicating them across Europe. By Ben Taub
It’s hard to empirically determine whether they drive voters to the polls. But they might have less measurable effects.
Susan Katz Keating, the editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune, discusses how she’s changing the publication and assesses the threat of political violence.
The A.I. revolution is coming to a pharmacy near you.
By Dhruv Khullar
Monocle on Sunday (September 1, 2024): Emma Nelson, Marta Lorimer and Yossi Mekelberg on the weekend’s biggest talking points.
We also speak to ‘The Foreign Desk’ team at the Globsec Forum in Prague, and Monocle’s Helsinki correspondent Petri Burtsoff joins for a roundup of the latest Nordic news.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Rachel Kushner’s fourth novel tells the story of a spy-for-hire who infiltrates the ranks of a radical French commune.
Why have right-wing ideas found such an eager audience among tech elites during Biden’s presidency?
During the last half-century, artists, curators, and scholars have been increasingly preoccupied with the idea of spectacle and with how to embrace, critique, or co-opt the power of work that envelops and overwhelms the viewer.
Jenny Holzer: Light Line – An exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, May 17–September 29, 2024
Tricks of the Light: Essays on Art and Spectacle by Jonathan Crary
The Avant-Gardists: Artists in Revolt in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, 1917–1935 by Sjeng Scheijen
Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism by Stephen Breyer
In his new book, Reading the Constitution, Stephen Breyer criticizes recent Supreme Court decisions on issues such as abortion and gun rights as the product of rigid and imperfect reasoning rather than of ideology, and he argues for a more pragmatic jurisprudence.
At the Democratic National Convention, the sense of relief was as overwhelming as the general euphoria—but the campaign against Donald Trump has only just begun. By Jonathan Blitzer
How declining enrollment is threatening the future of American public education. By Alec MacGillis
After the President’s debate with Trump, Democratic politicians felt paralyzed. At the D.N.C., they felt giddy relief. How did they do it?
Monocle on Sunday (August 25, 2024): Juliet Linley, Myriam Zumbühl and Florian Egli join Monocle’s editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, to discuss the weekend’s hottest topics.
We also speak to Monocle’s senior news editor, Christopher Cermak, on the highlights from the Democratic National Convention and get the latest news from Thailand with Monocle’s Bangkok correspondent, Gwen Robinson. Plus: Isabella Smith from Books & Company in Copenhagen shares the best new titles for autumn.
How Vice-President Harris’s public persona has evolved, from tough prosecutor to frozen interviewee to joyful candidate. By Vinson Cunningham
His campaign is careening, his poll numbers are slipping, and, after something of a summer lull, he is due for several confrontations in court.
As the oceans ebb and surge, staggering ingenuity has gone into inventing the measure. By Brooke Jarvis
Boomers Daily 