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Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – March 27, 2024

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Country Life Magazine – March 27, 2024: The latest issue features:

A prickly subject

Marianne Taylor examines how we can help to halt the worrying decline of the humble hedgehog, Britain’s favourite mammal

Country Life International

  • John Lewis-Stempel reflects on an old way of life in rural France
  • Russell Higham visits Mozart’s Italian muse
  • Arabella Youens hails Mondrian’s De Stijl movement
  • Tom Parker Bowles celebrates Greek cuisine
  • Holly Kirkwood selects the best Iberian properties for sale
  • Eileen Reid explores love and logic in Paris

Bold and beautiful

Charles Quest-Ritson is wowed by the woodland garden created during the past two decades at Broughton Grange, Oxfordshire

Home is where the art is

Iron-man Sir Antony Gormley is taking over Houghton Hall in Norfolk with 100 life-size figures, as Charlotte Mullins discovers

The Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle’s favourite painting

The Dean of Westminster picks a striking work that is all about looking — and then looking again

A silent witness

In the first of two articles, John Goodall visits Lancing College Chapel, West Sussex, a masterpiece 154 years in the making

The legacy: Roy Plomley

Kate Green tunes in for Roy Plomley’s Desert Island Discs

A real nest egg

John Lewis-Stempel marvels at one of the smallest, yet mightiest miracles in the natural world

Room with a pew

Your seat in church once told a lot about your status in the parish, reveals Andrew Green

Once more into the abyss

It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it: John Lewis-Stempel hauls an errant heifer from a ditch

The Editor’s Easter quiz

Spring has sprung — how many native wildflowers can you name?

Luxury

Hetty Lintell explores exquisite gilets, bespoke tailoring and sparkling aquamarine jewellery

Interiors

Giles Kime is armed with a crystal ball for his latest building project

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson on spinach

Don’t mock them

Plant a Philadelphus, says John Hoyland, and enjoy an explosion of blooms and scent this summer

And much more

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement-March 29, 2024

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Times Literary Supplement (March 27, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Illustrating Ray Bradbury’ – Michael Caines on a writer who transcended genre; Fifteen French Kings; Spy stories; Neel Mukherjee’s art and artifice; Space colonization and Andrew O’Hagan on the Cally Road….

Arts & Literature, Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – April 1, 2024

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A dog looks out a window.

The New Yorker (March 25, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Mark Ulriksen’s “Standing Guard” – The artist depicts the tail-wagging occasion of the first signs of spring.

Bryan Stevenson Reclaims the Monument, in the Heart of the Deep South

“The Caring Hand” by Eva Oertli and Beat Huber.
“The Caring Hand,” by Eva Oertli and Beat Huber, is one of more than fifty sculptures at the new Freedom Monument Sculpture Park.Photographs by Kris Graves for The New Yorker

The civil-rights attorney has created a museum, a memorial, and, now, a sculpture park, indicting the city of Montgomery—a former capital of the domestic slave trade and the cradle of the Confederacy.

By Doreen St. Félix

The National Monument to Freedom, in Montgomery, Alabama, is a giant book, standing forty-three feet high and a hundred and fifty feet wide. The book is propped wide open, and engraved on its surface are the names of more than a hundred and twenty thousand Black people, documented in the 1870 census, who were emancipated after the Civil War. On the spine of the book is a credo written for the dead:

A Dutch Architect’s Vision of Cities That Float on Water

The Thâtre LÎle Ô in Lyon seen across the water.

Your children love you.
The country you built must honor you.
We acknowledge the tragedy of your enslavement.
We commit to advancing freedom in your name.

What if building on the water could be safer and sturdier than building on flood-prone land?

By Kyle Chayka

In a corner of the Rijksmuseum hangs a seventeenth-century cityscape by the Dutch Golden Age painter Gerrit Berckheyde, “View of the Golden Bend in the Herengracht,” which depicts the construction of Baroque mansions along one of Amsterdam’s main canals. Handsome double-wide brick buildings line the Herengracht’s banks, their corniced façades reflected on the water’s surface. Interspersed among the new homes are spaces, like gaps in a young child’s smile, where vacant lots have yet to be developed.

Arts & Literature, Books, Newspapers, Previews, Reviews

The New York Times Book Review – March 24, 2024

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (March 23, 2024): 

In Téa Obreht’s Latest, a Refugee Seeks Home in a Ruined World

An illustrated cross section of a house, showing rooms full of animals, trees, water plants and people.

“The Morningside” reckons with climate change and its fallout while finding hope in the stories we preserve.

By Jessamine Chan

THE MORNINGSIDE, by Téa Obreht

The elegant, effortless world-building in Téa Obreht’s haunting new novel, “The Morningside,” begins with a map. Island City resembles Manhattan, but alarmingly smaller, the borders of the city redrawn by the rising water. There’s the River to the east, the Bay to the west. Here, hurricanes and tides have made building collapse a constant danger, the freeway is visible only on low-tide days, food is government rations, the wealthy have fled “upriver to scattered little freshwater townships,” and gigantic birds called rook cranes are everywhere.

An Exquisite Biography of a Gilded Age Legend

In Natalie Dykstra’s hands, the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner is a tribute to the power of art.

The serpia-toned photograph portrays a woman in a dark taffeta dress wth a bustle. Her hat is adorned with a dark plume.

By Megan O’Grady

CHASING BEAUTY: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, by Natalie Dykstra

Bright, impetuous and obsessed with beautiful things, Isabella Stewart Gardner led a life out of a Gilded Age novel. Born into a wealthy New York family, she married into an even wealthier Boston one when she wed John Lowell Gardner in 1860, only to be ostracized by her adopted city’s more conservative denizens, who found her self-assurance and penchant for “jollification” a bit much.

Luminous Fables in a Land of Loss

The Tiger's Wife: A Novel See more

By Michiko Kakutani

Téa Obreht’s stunning debut novel, “The Tiger’s Wife,” is a hugely ambitious, audaciously written work that provides an indelible picture of life in an unnamed Balkan country still reeling from the fallout of civil war. At the same time it explores the very essence of storytelling and the role it plays in people’s lives, especially when they are “confounded by the extremes” of war and social upheaval and need to somehow “stitch together unconnected events in order to understand” what is happening around them.

Government, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Previews, Reviews

Opinion & Politics: Reason Magazine – May 2024

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REASON MAGAZINE (March 21, 2024) – The latest issue features ‘What If America Runs Out Of Bombs?’ – Due to overzealous interventionism, the U.S. is dispensing munitions faster than they can be replaced…

What if America Runs Out of Bombs?

An illustration of Uncle Sam as a PEZ dispenser, dispensing bombs | Photo: Julian Dufort; Wikimedia

The U.S. is dispensing munitions to Ukraine and Israel faster than they can be replaced.

By MATTHEW PETTI 

How Capitalism Beat Communism in Vietnam

Two photos illustrate Vietnam's progress over time | Photo: Hanoi, Vietnam, 1985; Christopher Pillitz/Gettya; Photo: Hanoi, Vietnam, 2020; Manan Vatsyayana/AFP via Getty

It only took a generation to go from ration cards to exporting electronics.

RAINER ZITELMANN

Anti-Chinese Xenophobia Fueled America’s First Drug War

opium | Photo: An opium den in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, in 1898; REASON 31 Strohmeyer & Wyman/Library of Congress

Opium dens in San Francisco were patronized “by the vicious and the depraved,” politicians of the 1800s claimed.

JACOB SULLUM

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Science Magazine – March 22, 2024

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Science Magazine – March 21, 2024: The new issue features ‘Looking for Love’ – Revealing the genetic basis of mate preference…

Mars rover probes ancient shoreline for signs of life

Plans for Perseverance to explore past crater rim may be in jeopardy

More math, less “math war”

A false “equity versus excellence” debate over mathematics curricula has long disrupted education in the United States

A genetic cause of male mate preference

A gene for mate preference has been shared between hybridizing butterfly species

Collateral impacts of organic farming

Clustering organic cropland can reduce pesticide use on nearby conventional farms

Economics, Financial, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Previews, Reviews

The Economist Magazine – March 23, 2024 Preview

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The Economist Magazine (March 21, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Israel Alone’ – At a moment of military might, Israel looks deeply; ‘How To Trade An Election’ – It is getting harder for investors to ignore politics; China, Iran and Russia versus The West – Assessing the economic threat posed by the anti-Western axis…

At a moment of military might, Israel looks deeply vulnerable

The flag of Israel being blown in a sandstorm

America should help it find a better strategy

There is still a narrow path out of the hellscape of Gaza. A temporary ceasefire and hostage release could cause a change of Israel’s government; the rump of Hamas fighters in south Gaza could be contained or fade away; and from the rubble, talks on a two-state solution could begin, underwritten by America and its Gulf allies. It is just as likely, however, that ceasefire talks will fail. That could leave Israel locked in the bleakest trajectory of its 75-year existence, featuring endless occupation, hard-right politics and isolation. Today many Israelis are in denial about this, but a political reckoning will come eventually. It will determine not only the fate of Palestinians, but also whether Israel thrives in the next 75 years.

How to trade an election

It is becoming harder for investors to ignore politics

Illustration of a ballot box falling onto a piggy bank.

Investors differ in their approach to elections. Some see politics as an edge to exploit; others as noise to block out. Even for those without a financial interest, markets offer a brutally frank perspective on the economic stakes. As elections approach in America and Britain, as well as plenty of other countries, that is especially valuable.

Magazines, Podcasts, Previews, Research, Reviews, Science

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – March 21, 2024

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Volume 627 Issue 8004

Nature Magazine – March 20, 2024: The latest issue cover features ‘Planet Eaters’ – The stars that capture and ingest nearby worlds…

How OpenAI’s text-to-video tool Sora could change science – and society

OpenAI’s debut of its impressive Sora text-to-video tool has raised important questions.

Blockbuster obesity drug leads to better health in people with HIV

Semaglutide reduces weight and fat accumulation associated with the antiretroviral regimen that keeps HIV at bay.

These ‘movies’ of proteins in action are revealing the hidden biology of cells

A burgeoning technique called time-resolved cryo-EM is granting insights into the tiny motors and devices that power life.

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement-March 22, 2024

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Times Literary Supplement (March 22, 2024): The latest issue features ‘All the Lonely People’ – Charles Foster on a modern-day epidemic; Shakespeare and Bloomsbury; D.H. Lawrence, cuckhold; Marilynne Robinson’s god; Paul Theroux’s Orwell…

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – March 20, 2024

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Country Life Magazine – March 20, 2024: The latest issue features:

Riding to the rescue

James Alexander-Sinclair hails the remarkable revival of the gardens at Dowdeswell Court, Gloucestershire, the charming Cotswolds home of Jade Holland Cooper and Julian Dunkerton

The cutting-garden diaries

In the second of a series of articles, Oxfordshire flower grower Anna Brown shares her tips on creating a floral spring spectacular

Great nurseries

Growing sweet violets has been a family passion since 1866 at Groves Nursery in Bridport, Dorset, as Tilly Ware discovers

 ‘After everything they do, we owe them’

Service dogs and horses risk life and limb to keep us safe. Katy Birchall salutes the work of a charity supporting these animal heroes in retirement

Mark Cocker’s favourite painting

The Nature writer lauds a work by a masterful wildlife painter

Where traffic stops for sacred cows

Dairy farmer Jamie Blackett is heartened to witness cattle worship on a trip to Rajasthan

New series: The legacy

In the third instalment of this new series, Kate Green celebrates the Revd John Russell’s role in the emergence of the terrier

The very nature of Middle-earth

James Clarke visits the magical Malvern Hills to explore a land-scape that so inspired Tolkien

Planters punch

Amelia Thorpe picks garden pots that make a sizeable statement

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell ushers in spring with a selection of floral favourites

Interiors

Soak up the style with an array of elegant bathroom fittings and furnishings from Amelia Thorpe

Kitchen garden cook

Fresh spring onions steal the show, says Melanie Johnson

Grandeur in granite

The restored Cluny Castle in Aberdeenshire is equipped for a future as prosperous as its colourful past, finds John Goodall

It’s a kind of dark magic

Whitby jet and mourning go hand in hand, but is it time to reassess this beautiful heritage gemstone, asks Harry Pearson

How to revive a classic

Michael Billington puts himself in the director’s chair as he ponders spectacular remakes of plays by Ibsen and Chekhov

Back to square one

What is it about cryptic crosswords that has kept us racking our brains for the past 100 years? Rob Crossan has all the answers