1. Eric Topol, Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity. Longevity research goes mainstream! Very clearly written, well argued, and focused on the science. I cannot pretend to evaluate the details of the material, but this seems a step ahead of the other, typically less serious books on the same topic.
2. Daniel Dain, A History of Boston, 772 pp., clearly written and consistently interesting. Most of all one receives the sense of Boston as a place with a long history of radical ideas. Has it moved away from that tradition or cemented it in? I find that more and more of America has little acquaintance with New England and its history, and this book is one good way to remedy that. Remember Rt.128? Paul Revere?
3. Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee, In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us. A reasonable, evidence-based, non-crazy account of governance failures and excesses during the Covid crisis. For me there was not so much new here, but I am glad to see saner voices moving into the discourse.
4. Making and Meaning: The Wilton Diptych, National Gallery of London. If you want to learn about a historical figure (in this case Richard II), read a book about an art work associated with them.
5. Zaha Hadid, Complete Works 1979-Today. Architecture, plus excellent preliminary sketches of the works. The Weil am Rhein works are my favorite of what I have seen by her. Exactly the kind of picture book that will become more valuable in an age of strong AI. Here are seventeen buildings by her.
John McWhorter, Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words. Mostly about actual pronouns, not the PC debates.
There is Paul Bluestein, King Dollar: The Past and Future of the World’s Dominant Currency.
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