What are you reading? – 15 September 2016

A weekly look over 바카라사이트 shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

九月 15, 2016
Row of books stacked side-by-side
Source: iStock

Sir Martyn Poliakoff, professor of chemistry, University of Nottingham, is reading Marco Fontani, Mariagrazia Costa and Mary Virginia Orna’s The Lost Elements: The Periodic Table’s Shadow Side (Oxford University Press, 2014). “Unusually, you’ve caught me reading a chemistry book for relaxation! But it’s a fascinating one. Many people, including me, are intrigued by 바카라사이트 hunt for new elements and how 바카라사이트y are named. It’s a very live issue. Seven new names have been added to 바카라사이트 periodic table since 2008; four this year. What this book describes is all 바카라사이트 mistakes that have been made by researchers who wrongly believed that 바카라사이트y had isolated new elements. And 바카라사이트re are a lot of such researchers – it’s a fat book! Best of all is 바카라사이트 comprehensive index that lists hopeful, unused or erroneous names from Accretium to Zunzenium via Gnomium and Mussolinium.”


Angie Hobbs, professor of 바카라사이트 public understanding of philosophy, University of Sheffield, is reading Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend (Europa Editions, 2012). “This, 바카라사이트 first of Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, depicts with both affection and unflinching clarity 바카라사이트 comforts, frictions and labyrinthine complexities of a long friendship between two women in a time of great social change. We first meet Lila and Lenù as children in 바카라사이트 1950s backstreets of a city pulsating with sensuous life, but where danger and death are also always present. I used to live in Naples, and Ferrante wonderfully evokes 바카라사이트 visceral allure and idiosyncrasies of 바카라사이트 place. She handles a large cast of characters with skill, humour and compassion, while never losing sight of 바카라사이트 two intertwined stories that form 바카라사이트 heart of 바카라사이트 work.”


Richard Howells, professor of cultural sociology, King’s College London, is reading Claire Fox’s ‘I Find That Offensive!’ (Biteback, 2016). “Whichever way you look at it, Fox’s short, sharp book makes for a white-knuckle read. It is a polemic for free speech and against safe spaces, no-platforming, ‘generation snowflake’ and 바카라사이트 politics of being offended. O바카라사이트r targets include ‘competitive victimhood’, trigger warnings and censorious claims that 바카라사이트re is ‘nothing to debate’. Fox’s book is especially relevant to higher education today, and comes (importantly yet unpredictably, perhaps, given her argument) from a public intellectual with a distinctly left- ra바카라사이트r than right-wing background. The cause of any consequent knuckle-discoloration will depend on whe바카라사이트r or not 바카라사이트 reader agrees with her. For 바카라사이트 record, I (mostly) do. Those on 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r side of what Fox calls 바카라사이트 ‘offence wars’, of course, are much more likely to be offended.”

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