Weekly newsletter 81

9 Nov 2012 • 3 min read

A selection of our best article links of the week, plus featured FiveBooks interviews, videos, quotations and more.
(http://thebrowser.com)

Weekly Newsletter

Best of the Week

Loss & Gain, Or The Fate Of The Book

Anthony Daniels | New Criterion | 1 November 2012

On the demise of printed books. "To refuse to use the new technology in the hope of preserving old pleasures would be no more authentic or honest than Marie Antoinette playing shepherdess. The regret is genuine; the refusal is not" Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/loss-gain-or-fate-book)

Barack Obama And The Death Of Normal

David Simon | Audacity Of Despair | 7 November 2012

"The country is changing. This may be the last election in which anyone but a fool tries to play the cards of racial exclusion, immigrant fear, patronisation of women, and self-righteous discrimination against homosexuals" Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/barack-obama-and-death-normal)

Why We Can't Solve Big Problems

Jason Pontin | MIT Technology Review | 24 October 2012

The public has lost its appetite for high-risk, big-ticket projects. Governments have lost their nerve. Silicon Valley has "ceased to be the funder of the future, and instead become a funder of features, widgets, irrelevances". Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/why-we-cant-solve-big-problems)

China: Worse Than You Ever Imagined

Ian Johnson | NYRB | 5 November 2012

Review-essay on recent books about the Great Leap Forward and associated famine, which killed tens of millions in China in 1958-62. The more we learn, the more terrible it becomes. Mao ranks with Stalin for murderous megalomania Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/china-worse-you-ever-imagined)

One Man, One Computer, 10 Million Students

Michael Noer | Forbes | 2 November 2012

Twenty-four months ago, Salman Khan was working alone in a walk-in closet. Now it's no exaggeration to say that his Khan Academy, funded by philanthropists, is changing the way we think about education. The potential is immense Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/one-man-one-computer-10-million-students)

The GOP And Me

Rany Jazayerli | Rany On The Royals | 6 November 2012

Most Muslims in America used to vote Republican. Not any more. What happened? This is a light-touch yet biting account of what turned one Republican-leaning Muslim American away from the party Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/gop-and-me)

Inside The Secret World Of Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win

Michael Scherer | Time | 7 November 2012

"The time of guys sitting in a back room smoking cigars, saying 'We always buy 60 Minutes' is over. In politics, the era of big data has arrived." If you want to reach Miami-Dade women under 35, you can do that Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/inside-secret-world-data-crunchers-who-helped-obama-win)

In Cold Type

Douglas McCollam | CJR | 2 November 2012

How Truman Capote snagged a six-hour interview over a bottle of vodka in Kyoto with the reclusive Marlon Brando in 1957, wrote a landmark profile of him for the New Yorker, and invented the New Journalism 10 years before Tom Wolfe Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/cold-type)
(http://www.amazon.com/Best-of-FiveBooks-2011-ebook/dp/B007GAM6RC?tag=thebro-21)

FiveBooks Interview

(http://thebrowser.com/interviews/michela-wrong-on-africa)

Michela Wrong on Africa

The long-time foreign correspondent and author of books on Zaire, Eritrea and Kenya tells us where to turn for engaging foreign perspectives on Africa
Read on (http://thebrowser.com/interviews/michela-wrong-on-africa)

Featured Topic

(http://thebrowser.com/reports/time)

Time

What is it? Why isn't it the same everywhere? Can we travel through time? Will there be an end to time? Read on to find out Read on (http://thebrowser.com/reports/time)

Reader Recommendations

@henrylf What If Everyone Did That? #philosophy t.co/8bD0CvDV #browsings (https://twitter.com/search?q=#browsings) More like this (http://thebrowser.com/browsings)

Book of the Week

Book of the Day (http://thebrowser.com/recommended/pilgrim-tinker-creek-by-annie-dillard)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Sara Maitland says (http://thebrowser.com/interviews/sara-maitland-on-silence) : “This book, which won the Pulitzer literature prize when it was released, is the most beautiful book about the wild. Dillard just recorded what she saw and what she thought about it, and this book is a collection of her observations.” FiveBooks Archive (http://thebrowser.com/fivebooks)