What We Are Reading Today: Required Reading: The Life of Everyday Texts in the British Empire

Photo/Supplied
Photo/Supplied
Short Url
Updated 30 August 2024
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: Required Reading: The Life of Everyday Texts in the British Empire

Photo/Supplied
  • Mukhopadhyay’s account is populated by a cast of characters that spans the ranks of colonial society, from bored soldiers to frustrated bureaucrats

Author: Priyasha Mukhopadhyay

In Required Reading, Priyasha Mukhopadhyay offers a new and provocative history of reading that centers archives of everyday writing from the British empire. Mukhopadhyay rummages in the drawers of bureaucratic offices and the cupboards of publishers in search of how historical readers in colonial South Asia responded to texts ranging from licenses to manuals, how they made sense of them, and what this can tell us about their experiences living in the shadow of a vast imperial power.
Taking these engagements seriously, she argues, is the first step to challenging conventional notions of what it means to read.
Mukhopadhyay’s account is populated by a cast of characters that spans the ranks of colonial society, from bored soldiers to frustrated bureaucrats. These readers formed close, even intimate relationships with everyday texts. She presents four case studies: a soldier’s manual, a cache of bureaucratic documents, a collection of astrological almanacs, and a women’s literary magazine. Tracking moments in which readers refused to read, were unable to read, and read in part, she uncovers the dizzying array of material, textual, and aural practices these texts elicited.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Yuan’ by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt

What We Are Reading Today: ‘Yuan’ by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt
Updated 25 September 2024
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: ‘Yuan’ by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt

What We Are Reading Today: ‘Yuan’ by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt

The Yuan dynasty endured for a century, leaving behind an architectural legacy without equal, from palaces, temples, and pagodas to pavilions, tombs, and stages.

With a history enlivened by the likes of Khubilai Khan and Marco Polo, this spectacular empire spanned the breadth of China and far, far beyond, but its rulers were Mongols.

Yuan presents the first comprehensive study in English of the architecture of China under Mongol rule.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Joy of Quantum Computing’

Photo/Supplied
Photo/Supplied
Updated 24 September 2024
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Joy of Quantum Computing’

Photo/Supplied
  • The only prerequisite is precalculus; readers need no knowledge of quantum physics

Author: JED BRODY

“The Joy of Quantum Computing” introduces quantum computing succinctly, and with minimal mathematical formalism.

Engagingly written — a feast for the reader’s inner nerd — it presents the most famous algorithms and applications of quantum computing and quantum information science, including the “killer apps,” Grover’s search algorithm and Shor’s factoring algorithm.

The only prerequisite is precalculus; readers need no knowledge of quantum physics.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Ministry of Time’

Photo/Supplied
Photo/Supplied
Updated 23 September 2024
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Ministry of Time’

Photo/Supplied
  • In the story he is assigned to a female bridge who starts teaching him about life in the present day and how he can manage to live in the modern world, despite the major lifestyle changes he experiences throughout his day

Author: Kaliane Bradley

Kaliane Bradley’s 2024 novel “The Ministry of Time” invites readers along on an interesting adventure of time travel which also investigates the complexities of human emotion.

Set around a secretive organization that controls time, the story explores themes of destiny, choices, and the consequences of dealing with historic events.

The story follows a secret project designed to rescue some well-known characters from the past and transport them to the future.

In the future each visitor will be assigned a “bridge,” who is an officer to help them adapt to their new era.

One of the visitors from the past is Cmdr. Gore, an explorer who died in a failed Victorian Arctic expedition, according to history books.

In the story he is assigned to a female bridge who starts teaching him about life in the present day and how he can manage to live in the modern world, despite the major lifestyle changes he experiences throughout his day.

One of the strengths of this book is the author’s writing style, which is lyrical yet accessible. It takes the reader to different times and places easily. Each chapter is carefully crafted and contains clear descriptions that allow the reader to live the historic event.

Moreover, the dialogue is written with humor and awareness of the unfolding drama, which in some ways keeps readers engaged, while adding twists to maintain the tension without losing track of any character’s development.

Bradley’s story also explores how a simple change in history can create damage through time, leaving an impact not only on historic events but also on how the events affect personal relationships.

Some readers may find the timeline and character count a little overwhelming, but the author weaves these concerns together to a satisfying, thought-provoking conclusion.

Bradley’s imaginative storytelling and captivating writing skills make this novel a must-read for people who enjoy fiction and are fascinated by the possibilities of time travel.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Modeling Social Behavior’

Photo/Supplied
Photo/Supplied
Updated 23 September 2024
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: ‘Modeling Social Behavior’

Photo/Supplied

Author: PAUL E. SMALDINO

This book provides a unified, theory-driven introduction to key mathematical and agent-based models of social dynamics and cultural evolution, teaching readers how to build their own models, analyze them, and integrate them with empirical research programs.

“Modeling Social Behavior” equips social, behavioral, and cognitive scientists with an essential tool kit for thinking about and studying complex social systems using mathematical and computational models.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Cobalt Red’

Photo/Supplied
Photo/Supplied
Updated 22 September 2024
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: ‘Cobalt Red’

Photo/Supplied

Author: Siddharth Kara

This book offers details of an investigation into the human rights abuses behind the Congo’s cobalt mining operation — and the moral implications that affect us all.
“Cobalt Red” is the searing, first-ever expose of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people, according to a review on goodreads.com.
To uncover the truth about brutal mining practices, the writer investigates militia-controlled mining areas and gathers shocking testimonies of people who endure immense suffering and even die while mining cobalt.