Links tagged with “nybooks”
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The Balletic Millennial Bedtimes of ‘Normal People’ | Lorrie Moore | The New York Review of Books
From 2020. I liked, about millennials, “They have no authentic counterculture…”. If all culture is easily accessible, can there be any counter? (I don’t know if this is right, but interesting.)
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‘Les Temps Modernes’: End of an Epoch | by Mitchell Abidor | The New York Review of Books
Article from 2019 on the magazine’s 2018 closure.
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Crotch Shots Galore | by Joan Acocella | The New York Review of Books
I don’t know much about the history of musicals or Bob Fosse and this was an interesting read.
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When They Came from Another World | by James Gleick | The New York Review of Books
Good on the time-travelly aspects of the film and book.
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On Edward Hopper by Mark Strand | The New York Review of Books
I particularly like the first half, on Hopper’s preparatory drawings. “It was not that he needed to be sure how to paint a sugar dispenser or salt shaker as in Nighthawks (1942), but that they should become his.”
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How & How Not to Be Good by John Gray | The New York Review of Books
Critiquing Peter Singer’s “effective altruism”. (subscribers only)
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A General Feeling of Disorder by Oliver Sacks | The New York Review of Books
For that first section’s description of migraines. Just right.
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New York: Conspicuous Construction by Martin Filler | The New York Review of Books
Interesting to read something about all the new, huge, expensive, foreign-investor-owned, residential buildings going up in New York, rather than London for a change.
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A Message to the 21st Century by Isaiah Berlin | The New York Review of Books
“If you are truly convinced that there is some solution to all human problems, that one can conceive an ideal society which men can reach if only they do what is necessary to attain it, then you and your followers must believe that no price can be too high to pay in order to open the gates of such a paradise.”
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James Ferguson illustrations | The New York Review of Books
I love these watercolour(?) caricatures/portraits, the solidity of them. (I also love that the NYRB’s search results can generate results like this for one of their illustrators.)
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The Real Harlem by Darryl Pinckney | The New York Review of Books
On the changing faces of Harlem over the decades. Gentrification etc, how it’s never a clear, simple phenomenon.
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A Passage from Hong Kong by Maya Jasanoff | The New York Review of Books
About shipping containers, the ships and a journey on one of the ships. A good read.
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Turkey Goes Out of Control by Christopher de Bellaigue | The New York Review of Books
I’ve vaguely followed news stories about Turkey but had somehow missed Gülen and his apparently vast, behind-the-scenes, apparently cult-like following.
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Rumsfeld’s War and Its Consequences Now by Mark Danner | The New York Review of Books
This series of articles on Rumsfeld is a good read. But this, the first article, is the only one that’s available to non-subscribers.
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After You’ve Gone by Thomas Nagel | The New York Review of Books
On thinking about the world after we, as individuals, die. And the importance of “the collective afterlife”, “the survival and continued renewal of humanity after our personal death”. (Subscribers only)
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They’re Taking Over! by Tim Flannery | The New York Review of Books
About how jellyfish are filling the oceans, destroying everything else, and are really hard to fight (they’re still a problem when they’re dead). A bit longer and more interesting than the LRB review of the same book.
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Lead Poisoning: The Ignored Scandal by Helen Epstein | The New York Review of Books
“America’s failure to address the lead paint problem early on may well have cost the American population, on average, five IQ points.” If you ever need another example of why government regulation of industries is necessary.
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The Way They Live Now by Michael Lewis | The New York Review of Books
A good review by Michael Lewis of John Lanchester’s ‘Capital’. I’ve realised there’s, often something extra enjoyable in reviews of very British books by Americans, and vice versa.
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Double Agents in Love by Lorrie Moore | The New York Review of Books
A decent, and favourable, review of ‘Homeland’. Good on the second series’ confusion, and the romance that doesn’t quite work: “Give Danes and Lewis a country cabin, a roaring fire, and a bottle of wine, and we feel only anxiety.”
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Diving Deep into Danger by Nathaniel Rich | The New York Review of Books
About commercial “saturation diving” - really deep sea diving. A really good read.
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Getting Nearer and Nearer by David Cole | The New York Review of Books
Just for the bit about how the courts’ “job is to enforce the law, even if, and especially when, public opinion is against it. … Democracy is not particularly good at protecting the rights of minorities. … [Courts] will sometimes make decisions that result in short-term backlash.”
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The Taste for Being Moral by Thomas Nagel | The New York Review of Books
For the six types of moral response and the description of how conservatives emphasise all of them in their appeal, but liberals only, relying also on reason. Which is why conservatives tend to appeal most to most people.
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What Makes Countries Rich or Poor? by Jared Diamond | The New York Review of Books
Diamond reviewing ‘Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty’. an interesting read. Social change etc. I love that stuff.
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The Loves of Lena Dunham by Elaine Blair | The New York Review of Books
I did enjoy this review of ‘Girls’, which I haven’t seen. Good on how samey most TV drama sex is, for example. I love TV reviews that are this thoughtful; common for movies, not for TV.
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The Gay Path Through the Courts by David Cole | The New York Review of Books
Subscribers only unfortunately. But I liked this for its descriptions of how the Supreme Court rules on things, and how cases that are ostensibly about a particular crime are used to force a decision on constitutional issues. Also about how the Court tries (ideally) to follow, rather than lead, society.
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Republicans for Revolution by Mark Lilla | The New York Review of Books
“People who know what kind of new world they want to create through revolution are trouble enough; those who only know what they want to destroy are a curse.” Also for the definitions of “liberal” and “conservative” half-way through, and the potted history of the origins of neoconservatism.
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Killing Our Citizens Without Trial by David Cole | The New York Review of Books
On drone killings: “As long as the Obama administration insists on the power to kill the people it was elected to represent — and to do so in secret, on the basis of secret legal memos — can we really claim that we live in a democracy ruled by law?”
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Escape into Whiteness by Brent Staples | The New York Review of Books
Some of the details of 19th and early 20th century courts etc deciding whether specific mixed-race individuals count as white or coloured are bizarre, as if part of some kind of epic theatre piece.
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The Brilliant Music of Ravel by Charles Rosen | The New York Review of Books
As someone who’s only awareness of Ravel is what I think of as the flouncy Torville & Dean ‘Bolero’, I love the descriptions here (especially in section 3) of exactly why Ravel’s music was avant-garde. Unfortunately, subscribers only.
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Predators and Robots at War by Christian Caryl | The New York Review of Books
“The US Air Force now trains more UAV operators each year than traditional pilots.” “There are already more [military] robots operating on the ground (15,000) than in the air (7,000).” “…a pilotless aircraft … ‘has the same rights as if a person were inside it, … official policy.’”
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The Court: A Talk with Judge Richard Posner by Eric J. Segall | The New York Review of Books
Interesting (and subscribers only) but saving it for this quote: “We have a political system in which the definition of a gaffe is telling the truth.” Also, for some reason I love reading about the American judicial system.
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What Happened at the Macondo Well? by Peter Maass | The New York Review of Books
I like the parallels drawn between the oil and banking industries: “lax government regulation, corporate profits despite the risks, a fawning press”, disasters blamed on rogue companies rather than industry-wide problems.
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School ‘Reform’: A Failing Grade by Diane Ravitch | The New York Review of Books
I suspect much of this angry-making article applies to UK education too. Surely anyone working on, or funding, policies for education really should spend at least a few weeks with a variety of teachers and children.
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Our Universities: How Bad? How Good? by Peter Brooks | The New York Review of Books
I’m not sure why I keep finding these articles about universities so interesting. Maybe because it’s so hard to pin down what they’re *for*, never mind how to achieve that.
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The Mad Men Account by Daniel Mendelsohn | The New York Review of Books
“…even as it invites us to be shocked by what it’s showing us, it keeps eroticizing what it’s showing us too.” Yes, all this. I’ve never understood why the show’s supposed to be great.
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Who Is Happy and When? by Thomas Nagel | The New York Review of Books
Subjective vs objective happiness; day-to-day happiness vs life evaluation; happiness as a measure vs GDP; how inequality affects happiness and, therefore, which aspects of inequality it is right for government to try to change. (Subscribers only)