What We Are Reading Today: First Steps by Jeremy DeSilva

What We Are Reading Today: First Steps by Jeremy DeSilva
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Updated 21 March 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: First Steps by Jeremy DeSilva

What We Are Reading Today: First Steps by Jeremy DeSilva

In “First Steps,” Jeremy DeSilva shows how upright walking was a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human, from our technological abilities, our thirst for exploration, our use of  language and may have laid the foundation for our species, traits of compassion, empathy, and altruism. The book also examines how walking upright helped us rise above all over species on this planet.


What We Are Reading Today: John and Paul by Ian Leslie

What We Are Reading Today: John and Paul by Ian Leslie
Updated 20 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: John and Paul by Ian Leslie

What We Are Reading Today: John and Paul by Ian Leslie

Ian Leslie’s “John and Paul” traces the shared journey of John Lennon and Paul McCartney before, during and after The Beatles, offering us both a new look at two of the greatest icons in music history, and rich insights into the nature of creativity, collaboration, and human intimacy.

The two shared a private language, rooted in the stories, comedy and songs they both loved as teenagers, and later, in the lyrics of Beatles songs.


What We Are Reading Today: The Revolution to Come

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Updated 19 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: The Revolution to Come

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  • “The Revolution to Come” traces how evolving conceptions of history ushered in a faith in the power of revolution to create more just and reasonable societies

Author: Dan Edelstein

Political thinkers from Plato to John Adams saw revolutions as a grave threat to society and advocated for a constitution that prevented them by balancing social interests and forms of government.
“The Revolution to Come” traces how evolving conceptions of history ushered in a faith in the power of revolution to create more just and reasonable societies.
Taking readers from Greek antiquity to Leninist Russia, Dan Edelstein describes how classical philosophers viewed history as chaotic and directionless, and sought to keep historical change, especially revolutions, at bay.

 


What We Are Reading Today: Pronoun Trouble

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Updated 18 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: Pronoun Trouble

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  • A prolific author of books on language, McWhorter continues to captivate readers with his trademark humour and flair

Author: John McWhorter

This concise overview of English pronouns covers various linguistic topics in an accessible manner. Author John McWhorter maintains a straightforward approach but incorporates engaging elements to keep the book captivating.

McWhorter’s writing style is consistently enjoyable.

He possesses a talent for simplifying complex concepts through humour and relatable examples from popular culture.

A prolific author of books on language, McWhorter continues to captivate readers with his trademark humour and flair. In this book, the renowned linguist and professor debunks myths and illuminates the history of the most contentious language topic: pronouns. McWhorter‚ presentation of linguistics and language evolution is clear, entertaining, and persuasive.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Europe and the Wolf’ by Sara Nadal-Mesio

What We Are Reading Today: ‘Europe and the Wolf’ by Sara Nadal-Mesio
Updated 17 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Europe and the Wolf’ by Sara Nadal-Mesio

What We Are Reading Today: ‘Europe and the Wolf’ by Sara Nadal-Mesio

In this stunningly original book, Sara Nadal-Melsio explores how the work of several contemporary artists illuminates the current crisis of European universalist values amid the brutal realities of exclusion and policing of borders.  

The “wolf” is the name Baroque musicians gave to the dissonant sound produced in any attempt to temper and harmonize an instrument.

Europe and the Wolf brings this musical figure to bear on contemporary aesthetic practices that respond to Europe’s ongoing social and political contradictions.

Throughout, Nadal-Melsio understands Europe as a conceptual problem that often relies on harmonization as an organizing category.

The “wolf” as an emblem of disharmony, incarnated in the stranger, the immigrant, or the refugee, originates in the Latin proverb “man is a wolf to man.”


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Economics of Over-the-Counter Markets’

What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Economics of Over-the-Counter Markets’
Updated 16 April 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Economics of Over-the-Counter Markets’

What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Economics of Over-the-Counter Markets’

Authors: Julien Hugonnier, Benjamin Lester, And Pierre-Olivier Weill

Many of the largest financial markets in the world do not organize trade through an exchange but rather operate within a decentralized or over-the-counter structure.

Understanding how these markets work has become increasingly important in recent years, as illiquidity in certain OTC markets has appeared as the first signs of trouble—if not the cause itself—of the past two financial crises.