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Author: Adam Grant
“Think Again” is a book about the benefit of doubt, and about how we can get better at embracing the unknown and the joy of being wrong.
New evidence shows us that rethinking can be taught and Grant explains how to develop the necessary qualities to do it.
Learning to rethink may be the secret skill to give you the edge in a world changing faster than ever.
How do ordinary people come to know or believe what they do? We need an account of this process to help explain why people act as they do. You might think I am acting irrationally—against my interest or my purpose—until you realize that what you know and what I know differ significantly.
My actions, given my knowledge, might make eminently good sense. Of course, this pushes our problem back one stage to assess why someone knows or believes what they do. That is the focus of this book.
Author: Zahra Hankir
In her 2023 book, “Eyeliner: A Cultural History,” Lebanese British author Zahra Hankir helps us understand how and why eyeliner became so popular.
An accomplished journalist with degrees in politics and Middle Eastern studies, Hankir often writes about the intersection of politics and culture.
Her latest work is about something personal to her but also equally universal: eyeliner.
She reminds us how, throughout history, icons such as Queen Nefertiti of ancient Egypt, pop idol Amy Winehouse, Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor, as well as the anonymous men of nomadic tribes, and you or I — anyone, really — could pick up an eyeliner pencil and feel instantly transformed.
Hankir takes us on a journey that spans generations and continents. It starts with her at 17, being “dragged” to a family engagement party, vividly remembering her mother’s hazel eyes framed in forest green on her eyelids and jet-black kohl along her waterlines.
Hankir, who grew up Arab and Muslim in a predominately white neighborhood in the UK, candidly writes in the first part of the book about how eyeliner was a way for her to feel a sense of belonging.
“Originated in the East, I often felt as if I were traversing space and time and conversing with my ancestors while wearing it in the West,” Hankir writes in one passage. To her, eyeliner was a way to celebrate her identity and honor those who came before.
Then she detaches from her personal narrative and goes deeper into cultural history.
To minorities and communities of color, eyeliner transcends aesthetics, she writes. She emphasizes the rich historical and cultural significance of eyeliner through a journalistic eye, describing it as a tool infused with centuries of layered histories, including those of empires, royalty, nomads, and anyone in between.
You’ll see it sported by women on the New York City subway, models on the Paris runway, as well as Bedouin men in the remote deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. Members of the Taliban similarly smear a form of eyeliner onto their lids to repel the sun, as do those from indigenous tribes along mountain ranges.
“Eyeliner: A Cultural History” explores how, in ancient and modern times, the act of lining the eyes was imbued with various meanings ranging from the spiritual to the seductive.
The Prophet Muhammad is said to have used eyeliner, specifically kohl, which was believed to possess medicinal qualities. The Old Testament also describes eye paint in association with characters such as Jezebel, implying that eyeliner could have served as a means to challenge the social norms of the time.
Eyeliner can change the shape of your eye, making it appear larger or smaller, more fierce or subdued, depending on the angle, tint and intent.
Like the mighty pen, it can be a sword, as Hankir quotes in a popular Taylor Swift lyric: “Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man.”
Overall, the history of eyeliner is rich and varied, as Hankir writes, with each culture and era assigning its own meanings and purposes to this seemingly simple cosmetic tool.
Hankir edited the 2019 anthology “Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World” in which Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, wrote the foreword.
This book will help you understand why the Brexit issue is so intractable, saying that it has always been the ordinary people of Northern Ireland who have paid the price. They deserve better.
The border has been a topic of dispute for over a century, first in Dublin, Belfast and Westminster and, post Brexit referendum, in Brussels. Yet, despite the passions of Nationalists and Unionists in the North, neither found deep wells of support in the countries they identified with politically.
The writer reveals the political, economic, social and cultural consequences of the border in Ireland. The book is a timely intervention by a renowned historian into one of the most misunderstood issues of our time, according to a review on goodreads.com.
Author: Ahmed Saadawi
This novel by Iraqi author Ahmed Saadawi blends elements of horror, satire, and magical realism to craft a compelling commentary on the human condition in war-torn Baghdad.
Set in the aftermath of the 2003 US invasion, the story follows a junk dealer named Hadi who decides to assemble a “human” from the body parts of victims left on the streets after suicide bombings and insurgent attacks.
Hadi’s creation is a patchwork creature that comes to life and begins roaming the streets of the city, seeking revenge on those responsible for the deaths of the individuals from whom it was assembled.
As the creature carries out its violent mission, a rich cast of characters is drawn into the story, including an elderly woman haunted by the ghost of her late husband, a journalist seeking to break a major story, and a government agent tasked with hunting down and destroying the creature.
Through these interwoven narratives, Saadawi creates a darkly humorous and thought-provoking allegory for the chaos in post-invasion Iraq. The monster serves as a physical embodiment of the trauma, violence, and social breakdown experienced by the Iraqi people, with its bloodthirsty quest for vengeance mirroring the cycle of retribution that gripped the country.
What struck me most was how Saadawi was able to seamlessly blend elements of horror, magical realism, and social commentary to craft a work that felt both unsettlingly strange and yet hauntingly relatable. The character of the monster became a powerful metaphor for the dehumanizing effects of the war.
Saadawi’s prose is both lyrical and grounded, capturing the details of daily life in Baghdad, while also imbuing the narrative with moments of poetic beauty and philosophical rumination. His characters, too, are richly drawn, each struggling with their own personal demons and moral quandaries as they are swept up in the chaos unfolding around them.
Ultimately, "Frankenstein in Baghdad" is a powerful and imaginative work that uses the framework of the classic gothic horror tale to explore the enduring trauma of war and the dehumanizing effects of violence. Through its metaphorical monster and tapestry of interlocking stories, the novel offers a vivid, unsettling, and ultimately unforgettable portrait of a society grappling with the aftermath of invasion and occupation.
Author: Cormac O Grada
Soldiers have never been the only casualties of wars. But the armies that fought World Wars I and II killed far more civilians than soldiers as they countenanced or deliberately inflicted civilian deaths on a mass scale. By one reputable estimate, 9.7 million civilians and 9 million combatants died in World War I, while World War II killed 25.5 million civilians and 15 million combatants.
But in The Hidden Victims, Cormac O Grada argues that even these shocking numbers are almost certainly too low.
Carefully evaluating all the evidence available, he estimates that the wars cost not 35 million but some 65 million civilian lives—nearly two-thirds of the 100 million total killed. Indeed, he shows that war-induced famines alone may have killed.
