The human body is a remarkable organism. But it is also a strange study in contrasts and unpredictability. A person can be fit as a fiddle, capable of running a 5-minute mile, and still trip on an uneven walkway visiting…Read more
Books & Ideas
UNIT REVIEW THREE LITTLE QUESTIONS What is the difference between a “settler” and an “invader”? The number of guns you bring to the invasion. It depends on who’s telling the story. Invaders become settlers after they vanquish the people they…Read more
MARCH 14, 1933, FOUND Diego Rivera sketching out the earliest designs for Man at the Crossroads. Half a world away, in a small village in the interior of New Guinea, a thirty-one-year-old Margaret Mead was confronting a crossroads of her…Read more
The Rule of Three You have probably heard that if you’re lost in the wilderness, your first concern should be to seek shelter, water, and food—in that order. This is absolutely correct. Most of us are so accustomed to being…Read more
SELECTION FROM
The World: A Family History of Humanity
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Houses of Sargon and Ahmose: Ziggurats and Pyramids POETESS, PRINCESS, VICTIM, AVENGER: ENHEDUANNA Four thousand years ago, Enheduanna was at the height of her splendour when a raider invading the empire attacked her city, seized her and evidently raped her.…Read more
2 Browsers and Dilettantes I THINK IT’S IMPORTANT to pause for a moment and explain that antiquarian booksellers have a complex relationship with their customers. I came into bookselling completely unprepared, which is perhaps a mercy because I might otherwise…Read more
The Inner Circle VIP Social Club In the fall of 2010, Brandon Korff, Sumner’s twenty-five-year-old grandson, enlisted Patti Stanger, the “Millionaire Matchmaker” of the Bravo reality-TV hit, to find a suitable romantic match for his grandfather. Sumner’s serial dating—not to…Read more
SELECTION FROM
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
Michael Lewis
After not much happening in the life of Sam Bankman-Fried for a very long time, two big things occurred in the fall of 2012, at so nearly the same time that it would soon be hard to remember that they…Read more
4. THE PSYCHOPATH TEST They had psychopaths naked and talking about their feelings!” Bob Hare laughed. “They had psychopaths on beanbags! They had psychopaths acting as therapists to their fellow psychopaths!” He shook his head at the idealism of it…Read more