In this fascinating book length essay, Japanese author Junichiro Tanizaki mesmerises, teases, provokes and even exasperates his readers with a degree of deliberateness that is calculated yet spontaneous; facetious yet severe. Tanizaki dwells with great vigour on an aesthetic that has its edifice in the murkiness of shadows, not just symbolically, but literally. Arguing that … Continue reading In Praise of Shadows – Junichiro Tanizaki

Vaclav Smil loves to inundate his readers with data. Statistics, charts and graphs keep hurtling off the pages at the rate of knots. An apologist for facts and an acolyte of information, the Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba - and the author of more than forty books - is also an extraordinary … Continue reading How to Feed the World: A Factful Guide – Vaclav Smil

Richard Powers revealed that he read one hundred and twenty books on trees while researching his now bestselling Overstory. I know not how many books on oceans and marine life Powers read in researching for Playground, but the result is electric. The damage caused by the Anthropocene on marine ecosystems is now common knowledge. Powers … Continue reading Playground – Richard Powers

Jeff Burlingame, winner of an NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Work for Youth and Teens, and co-founder of the Kurt Cobain Memorial foundation, in this “primer,” he brings together the life and times of Kurt Cobain, a tortured genius. In a life that encompassed all of twenty-seven years, Cobain enthralled the music world like … Continue reading Kurt Cobain: Oh Well. Whatever. Nevermind – James Burlingame

Provocative, prophetic, and polemical, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds and the University of Warsaw, and acclaimed author, Zygmunt Bauman bemoans the dissipation of reliable societal structures and even individual frameworks of reference in an increasingly globalised world. Paradoxically, when a seamless movement of income, capital and labour was expected to bring … Continue reading Liquid Times – Zygmunt Bauman