Category Archives: Reviews

Preview: London Review Of Books – Nov 3, 2022

London Review of Books (LRB) – November 3, 2022:

Kissinger’s Duplicity

Charles Glass – Although World War Three had come perilously close, Martin Indyk absolves Henry Kissinger: Soviet actions were ‘yet again characterised by an ultimate timidity in the face of American resolve’. ‘Resolve’ is one way of describing the risk of nuclear Armageddon. Another is ‘recklessness’.

Wartime Objectors

Susan Pedersen – The problem with individual conscientious objection is that we are mutually dependent whether we acknowledge it or not. You may refuse to get vaccinated on grounds of conscience but will benefit from herd immunity if others do; you may refuse to pay taxes but will still get your rubbish collected; you may refuse to take up arms in war but will be protected from harm if others serve.

Droning Things

James Meek – If an innocuous merchant ship passing through the Baltic or the North Sea had a handful of ordinary, secretly armed trucks lashed to its deck, would any Nato country notice? Would the drones be detected or intercepted? If they were launched and hit their targets, could it ever be proven where they originated? As a threat to Europe, this is creative licence. But using swarms of Shahed-136s and other forms of missile to destroy a country’s energy system, on the eve of winter, is exactly what Russia is doing to Ukraine.

Review: Abbott’s Discrete New Glucose Monitor

Abbott Laboratories newest continuous glucose monitor is now available at participating retail pharmacies and through durable medical equipment suppliers. The Freestyle Libre 3 was approved by the FDA in June and is a step up from previous Abbott systems.

Abbott Laboratories and Dexcom are the leaders in the CGM market, which hit $5.1 billion in revenue in 2021 and is expected to reach $13.2 billion by 2028, according to Vantage Market Research. Abbott’s CGM systems, called FreeStyle Libre, generated $3.7 billion in revenue last year, with 4 million users globally.

CNBC’s Erin Black, a type 1 diabetic, tested out the Libre 3 for over a month. Here is her review.

International Art: Apollo Magazine – November 2022

Apollo Magazine – Inside the November 2022 Issue:

  • The enduring genius of the Peanuts comics
  • The tussle over Tutankhamun’s tomb
  • A Chinese dragon-handled cup in Baltimore
  • Around the world in early colour photographs
  • Plus: art and illness, plastic sushi, auction-house machinations and reviews of William Kentridge, Renaissance lace and the Empress Eugénie in England

Book Previews: The Review Of Politics – Fall 2022

Book Cover

The Review of Politics – Fall 2022

Caleb J. Basnett, Adorno, Politics, and the Aesthetic Animal

Sara Brill, Aristotle on the Concept of  Shared Life

Stuart Elden, The Early Foucault

David Graber and David Wingrow, The Dawn of Everything:  A New History of Humanity

Ioanna Tourkochoriti, Freedom of Expression:  The Revolutionary Roots of American and French Legal Thought

The Review of Politics publishes high-quality original research that advances scholarly debates in all areas of political theory. We welcome manuscripts on the history of political thought, analytical political theory, canonical political thought, contemporary political thought, comparative political thought, critical theory, or literature and political thought.

Books: The New York Times Book Review – Oct 23, 2022

Cormac McCarthy’s New Novel: Two Lives, Two Ways of Seeing

The New York Times – In “The Passenger,” a pair of siblings contend with the world’s enigmas and their own demons. The term “Janus word” was coined in the 1880s by the English theologian Thomas Kelly Cheyne to describe a word that can express two, more or less opposite meanings. Cheyne gave it the name of the two-faced Roman god who looks forward and back at the same time. 

Ken Burns Wishes More People Would Call Willa Cather a Great American Novelist

“What about ‘O Pioneers!’ or ‘My Ántonia’?” asks the documentarian and author of the forthcoming photo book “Our America.” “For that matter, what about Gabriel García Márquez? We do not have a copyright on the word ‘American.’”

Paul Newman’s Humanity and Star Power

When the actor appeared in the movie version of “Nobody’s Fool,” Richard Russo saw another side of him.

Culture: The New Review Magazine – Oct 23, 2022

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Historian, novelist and former @ObserverUK foreign correspondent Neal Ascherson turns 90 Interview by @TimAdamsWrites @AOlmosPhotos

Book of the day Liberation Day by George Saunders review – a world of tricks and treats

The Lincoln in the Bardo author reinvents the possibilities of the short story in this wonderfully absurd return to the form

World Economic Forum: Top Stories – Oct 21, 2022

World Economic Forum – Top Stories of the Week:

00:16 Why more people than ever are short-sighted – The trend is worst in children and young adults, and half the world’s population could be short sighted by 2050.

01:37 Six species saved from extinction – Recent ecosystem restorations have rescued some species from the brink of extinction.

03:30 You could soon 3D-print furniture at home – Scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a new wood-based ink that can be used for making 3d printed furniture

04:48 How Dark Data Affects Your Carbon Footprint -Companies generate 3.5 trillion gigabytes of dark data every day. But what is dark data?

The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.

Preview: The New Republic Magazine – November 2022

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⁠ Cover illustration by @alvarotapiah


The Chief Justice Who Isn’t

How John Roberts lost control of the Supreme Court

Did Liz Truss Kill Reaganomics?

Here in the United States, Republicans still fully intend to cut taxes. But they’ve largely stopped campaigning on it.

The New Republic – November 2022

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

This week: we talk to Emma Brown of Just Stop Oil about why the group targeted Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery, London, for its climate emergency protest.

Stacy Boldrick, assistant professor of museum studies at the University of Leicester, discusses the climate protests in the context of the long history of iconoclasm and attacks on works of art. The first version of Paris+, Art Basel’s fair in the French capital, opened this week, and we ask Melanie Gerlis, a columnist for the Financial Times and The Art Newspaper, how it compares to Paris’s previous fair, Fiac, and to the Frieze fairs in London last week.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is Frank Bowling’s Suncrush (1976), which features in an exhibition of the Guyana-born artist’s work at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Reto Thüring, the curator of the show, tells us about the painting and Bowling’s 10-year stay in America in the 1960s and 1970s.

Links:juststopoil.orgStacy Boldrick, Iconoclasm and the Museum, Routledge, 212pp, £27.99, $35.96 (pb)Paris+, until 23 October.Melanie Gerlis, The Art Fair Story: a Rollercoaster Ride, Lund Humphries, 104pp, £19.99, $34.99 (hb)Frank Bowling’s Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 22 October-9 April 2023; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 13 May-10 September next year. Related shows: Equals 6: A Sum Effect of Frank Bowling’s 5+1, University Hall Gallery, UMass Boston, 14 November-18 February 2023; Revisiting 5+1, Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery, Staller Center for the Arts, Stony Brook University, 10 November-23 February 2023.

Research Preview: Science Magazine – Oct 21, 2022

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Science Magazine – Butterfly wing patterns are mosaics of colored scales. According to new research, ancient and deeply conserved multifunctional gene regulatory elements play a crucial role in creating these diverse patterns.

Heart risks fuel debate over COVID-19 boosters

With benefits unclear, some scientists question new round of shots for young people

Brazil’s election is a cliffhanger for scientists

Second Bolsonaro term could be “final nail” for science and environment

How the Black Death left its mark on immune system genes

Study of DNA from medieval victims and survivors finds gene that helped protect people from deadly pathogen

Has a new dawn arrived for space-based solar power?

Better technology and falling launch costs revive interest in a science-fiction technology