What We Are Reading Today: ‘Understanding the Digital World’
Kernighan touches on fundamental ideas from computer science and some of the inherent limitations of computers, and new sections in the book explore Python programming, big data, and much more
Updated 09 November 2024
Arab News
Author: BRIAN W. KERNIGHAN
In this updated edition of “Understanding the Digital World,” Brian Kernighan explains how computer hardware, software, and networks work.
Topics include how computers are built and how they compute; what programming is; how the Internet and web operate; and how all of these affect security, privacy, property, and other important social, political, and economic issues.
Kernighan touches on fundamental ideas from computer science and some of the inherent limitations of computers, and new sections in the book explore Python programming, big data, and much more.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Butterflies of the World’
Updated 1 min 17 sec ago
Arab News
Authors: Blanca Huertas and Shinichi Nakahara
Conspicuous for their beauty, butterflies are one of the most popular and well-studied insects.
This book explores the astonishing variety of butterfly species around the world and examines their central role in maintaining a range of delicate ecosystems.
Their sensitivity to changes in the environment across their life stages makes them effective indicators for monitoring the health of habitats and populations.
The use of a variety of strategies has ensured their survival, such as the ability to shift host plants at different life stages and the colorful wing patterns they use for mimicry, camouflage, and predator deterrence.
Bjorn Borg discusses cocaine, overdoses and quitting tennis in his 20s in a memoir and AP interview
In his 292-page book, the 11-time Grand Slam champion writes about panic attacks and his drug use, which he says started in 1982
Book also contains revelations about his love life, various adventures and regrets, and detailed recollections of particular matches
Updated 18 September 2025
AP
NEW YORK: Bjorn Borg starts his new memoir, “Heartbeats,” with a story about being rushed to a Dutch hospital in the 1990s after overdosing on “alcohol, drugs, pills — my preferred ways of self-medication,” and the Swedish tennis great closes it by revealing that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
“It’s good,” Borg, 69, said in a recent video interview with The Associated Press from his home in Stockholm, “to have a good beginning and a good ending.”
In between, the 292-page book, which will be released in the US by Diversion Books on Sept. 23, contains revelations about his love life, various adventures and regrets, and the 11-time Grand Slam champion’s detailed recollections of particular matches.
Bjorn Borg quit tennis at age 25 because he stopped caring when he lost
Famously private, Borg kept a lot to himself during his days on tour — as well as since he surprisingly retired in his 20s.
He brings readers back to when, having lost the 1981 Wimbledon and US Open finals to rival John McEnroe, Borg realized he was done.
“All I could think was how miserable my life had become,” he writes.
Swedish Bjorn Borg returns a forehand to his opponent French Francois Jauffret during their match at the French Tennis Open in Paris June 7, 1976. (AFP file photo)
He was 25 and, while he would briefly return to tennis, he never competed at another Grand Slam event.
After the 1981 final at the US Open, a tournament he never won, Borg grabbed some beers and sat in the pool at a house on Long Island, where friends planned a party to celebrate a victory.
“I was not upset or sad when I lost the final. And that’s not me as a person. I hate to lose,” he told the AP.
“My head was spinning,” he said, “and I knew I’m going to step away from tennis.”
Bjorn Borg wasn’t always calm on a tennis court
Borg writes about his childhood and his relationships with his parents (and, later, his children).
He writes about earning the nickname “Ice-Borg” for calmness on court — often contrasted by fans to the more fiery McEnroe and Jimmy Connors. And Borg writes that did not come about “organically,” but rather via “the bitter experiences” of a 12-year-old kid.
“I behaved so badly on the tennis court. I was swearing, cheating, behaving the worst you can imagine,” he recalled in the video interview.
He said his hometown tennis club banned him for six months and, when he returned, “I did not open my mouth on the tennis court, because I was scared to get suspended again.”
“Boiling inside? Yes,” Borg told the AP. “I had to control my feelings. ... You cannot do that in one week. It took years to figure out how I should behave on the court.”
Former top seeded Swedish tennis player Bjorn Borg returns the ball during a training session on the central court on April 10, 1992. (AFP file photo)
Borg discusses cocaine and 2 overdoses that landed him in the hospital
Borg writes about panic attacks and his drug use, which he says started in 1982.
“The first time I tried cocaine,” he says in the book, “I got the same kind of rush I used to get from tennis.”
He also writes about “the worst shame of all,” which he says came when he looked up from a hospital bed in Holland to see his father. Borg also clarifies that an earlier overdose, in 1989 in Italy, was accidental, not a suicide attempt.
“Stupid decision to be involved with this kind of thing. It really destroys you,” he told the AP about drugs. “I was happy to get away from tennis, to get away from that life. But I had no plan what to do. ... I had no people behind me to guide me in the right direction.”
Borg name-drops Trump, Arafat, Warhol, Hefner, Tina Turner in his memoir
In all, Borg paints the picture of quite a life.
There was a water-skiing shoulder injury before 1977 US Open. Death threats during the 1981 US Open. Getting paid in cash ... and getting robbed at gunpoint. A woman claiming he was the father of her son. Coin-throwing by spectators in Rome that led him to never return.
This is not the typical sports autobiography: There is a reference to getting a message to Yasser Arafat and, five pages later, the phrase ”Andy Warhol was someone easy to like” appears. There are name-drops of Donald Trump, Nelson Mandela, Tina Turner and “my old friend Hugh Hefner,” among many, many others.
“People will be very surprised what really happened,” Borg told the AP. “For me to come out (after) all these years, all I went through — I went through some difficult times — (it’s) a relief for me to do this book. I feel so much better. ... No secrets anymore.”
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Seven Decades’ by Michael D. Gurven
Updated 17 September 2025
Arab News
Our ability to live for decades may seem like a modern luxury made possible by clean water and advances in medicine. In fact, human longevity is a legacy of our unique evolutionary path as a species. “Seven Decades” challenges the belief that life in the past was “nasty, brutish, and short,” tracing how our capacity for long life came to be and transforming how we think about aging.
Blending vivid storytelling with cutting-edge science, anthropologist Michael Gurven weaves tales from his years of field experience among Indigenous societies whose diet and traditional lifeways are closer to how we all lived prior to industrialization, demonstrating how these communities are relatively free of the chronic diseases of aging such as heart disease, dementia, and diabetes.
He provides compelling evidence that our longevity first evolved among our hunting and gathering ancestors and shows how the human body was built to last around seven decades.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Beauty of Falling’ by Claudia De Rham
Updated 16 September 2025
Arab News
Claudia de Rham has been playing with gravity her entire life. As a diver, experimenting with her body’s buoyancy in the Indian Ocean. As a pilot, soaring over Canadian waterfalls on dark mornings before beginning her daily scientific research.
As an astronaut candidate, dreaming of the experience of flying free from Earth’s pull. And as a physicist, discovering new sides to gravity’s irresistible personality by exploring the limits of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
In “The Beauty of Falling,” de Rham shares captivating stories about her quest to gain intimacy with gravity, to understand both its feeling and fundamental nature.
This book’s grip on the reader is almost criminal: You turn the pages hunting for answers and analyses, testing your own loyalties, and questioning what is real
Updated 16 September 2025
Tamara Aboalsaud
Author: Alex Michaelides
A psychological thriller about a woman accused of murdering her husband and remaining completely silent for more than six years, and of her eager new psychotherapist, “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides invites readers to explore another’s psyche while reflecting on our own.
The 2019 novel unfolds through two perspectives. Alicia Berenson, the thoughtful artist at the center of the case, speaks through her diary, written in the weeks leading up to her husband’s death. It details her upbringing, marriage, and career during a period of unstable inspiration.
Theo Faber, a new psychotherapist at The Grove, leaves a prestigious London psychiatric hospital to join what many consider a sinking ship. He is driven purely by his obsession with Berenson’s case. He is fascinated by her past.
A true Freudian, Faber believes that adult traits and behaviors are shaped largely by childhood experiences. This theme runs throughout the book, both in Faber’s attempt to unlock Berenson’s mind and explain her silence and in the unraveling of his own life and marriage.
This book’s grip on the reader is almost criminal: You turn the pages hunting for answers and analyses, testing your own loyalties, and questioning what is real. Maybe you’ll place your trust in Faber. May you’ll suspect everyone else in Berenson’s life, painting her as lonely as she painted herself.
And maybe you’ll think again, and again.
Berenson’s only communication after the “incident” is a self-portrait titled “Alcestis,” inspired by Euripides’ play. The painting shows her standing before a blank canvas, holding a paintbrush dripping with red paint, her expression blank, mouth open yet silent, staring directly at the viewer.
With its layered psychology and mythic undertones, “The Silent Patient” leaves the reader haunted long after the final page. Michaelides is also the author of “The Maidens” and “The Fury.”
