Jan 27, 2023
On Fridays I’ll tuck some worthwhile weekend reading in your book bag. This assignment is entirely optional, but if you opt in it’ll make you a better person. First, see if you can guess the city in our second photo challenge:
This is the capital city of a country that’s in the news quite a bit lately, although not for reasons it would choose. The building in the foreground is the Foreign Ministry.
And because it ain’t easy, here’s a second photo also taken in this week’s country, which might be another clue. Maybe.
See if you can decide where this is, and check for the answer at the end of this post.
Tomorrow I’ll be sending my weekly recap of some of the newsy things that caught my eye this week. To get everything straight to you, please get yourself a subscription. You can sign up for as little as free. Enjoy your weekend, and happy reading.
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A Book List
It’s fun to peruse others’ bookshelves, so here, you’re welcome to have a look what I’ve been reading. I only read 25 books cover to cover in 2022, substantially fewer than the year before. I blame it on Russia’s war on Ukraine. Whatever, I mean to do way better in 2023, and I’m off to a fast start. Here’s what I’ve read since early December.
Beyond the Sea by Paul Lynch • Sea tale in Lynch’s apocalyptic, vein-throbbing style.
The Man Who Died by Antti Tuomainen • Dark comedy by a Finnish writer, in English
Afterlives by Abdurazak Gurnah • Nobel Literature laureate on World War I and German East Africa
Sugar Street by Jonathan Dee • How long could you stay anonymous? It’s harder than you’d think
Weapons of Mass Delusion by Robert Draper • Reportage about the looniest of Republican far right politicians
Walking the Bowl by Chris Lockhart & Daniel Mulilo Chama • Remarkable true story of Lusaka street kids, by aid workers
Agatha by Anne Cathrine Bomann • Danish author, translated. Soon to retire psychiatrist takes on one last fateful patient
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Now, the articles
Anyone interested in the fraying edges of Ruskiyy Mir will enjoy Ilham Aliyev and the Making of Azerbaijan
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Building Fast and Slow: The Empire State Building and the World Trade Center. Take this as far as you like, there are more articles in the series. The Empire State building “came in under budget, with its design becoming a widely praised example of Art Deco architecture. The World Trade Center, on the other hand, was continuously mired in controversy and difficulty.” A comparison.
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Probable Impossibilities: Physicist Alan Lightman on Beginnings, Endings, and What Makes Life Worth Living Discussion between the poet physicist (who is also a fellow Memphian) and Maria Popova
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Inside Quebec’s Great, Multi-Million-Dollar Maple-Syrup Heist “the price of syrup has remained stable and high; it’s more expensive than oil. Is it Arab sheikhs who did this, Russian oligarchs? No. It’s Canadians, who, organized into an iron-fisted cartel, have established a stranglehold on that honey-flavored elixir.”
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I Ain't Got Nothing But Time The mostly true legend of Hank Williams
This just may be everything most people will want to know about Hank Williams.
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Article by Vladimir Putin ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians Here it is, the article Russia sent its soldiers to war with, explaining why Ukraine doesn’t exist. From the official website of the President of Russia.
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The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit
When he was arrested “His name, he revealed, was Christopher Thomas Knight. Born on December 7, 1965. He said he had no address, no vehicle, did not file a tax return, and did not receive mail. He said he lived in the woods. ‘For how long?’” Knight thought for a bit, then asked when the Chernobyl nuclear-plant disaster occurred.
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Economics, Democracy, and Freedom: It’s All One Argument
“Conservatives have convinced most Americans that the free market means personal freedom. And it does, for those with the means to eat at high-end locavore restaurants or purchase the right to skip the lines at Disney World. But that isn’t most people.... Millions of Americans live in towns where the free market has produced for them the career options of working at the Dollar Store or selling a little Oxy.”
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Here are all the short stories Tobias Wolff wrote for The Atlantic magazine and here is an interview with him.
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And you remember what they say, really they do, reading an academic paper a week will make you better looking. And this isn’t even an academic paper. It’s an interesting idea from an old blog post by Turkish economist Dani Rodrik. He posits an inescapable trilemma: "democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration are mutually incompatible: we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three simultaneously and in full.” It’s only a few paragraphs. See what you think.
Reading suggestions from Paige Turner, Staff Writer.
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How about a little weekend listening this week? Try these guys:
They are DakhaBrakha, from Kyiv (photos from their website). Their website says their music reflects “Ukrainian «ethnic chaos»” and their name “means «give/take» in the old Ukrainian language.” They’re kinda fun.
Here’s a Spotify playlist:
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And the answer to today’s photo quiz is … Armenia. First photo is Republic Square in the capital, Yerevan, and the second is Mt. Ararat, a bit of a trick, because it’s actually in Turkey, though the photo was taken at the Khor Virap monastery in Armenia. You’ll find a couple dozen other photos in the Armenia Gallery at Earthphotos.com.
See you tomorrow with a newsy wrap up of the week. Cheers.