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In “The Seed Detective,” Adam Alexander shares his own stories of seed hunting, with the origin stories behind many of our everyday vegetable heroes.
Taking us on a journey that began when we left the life of the hunter-gatherer to become farmers, he tells tales of globalization, political intrigue, colonization and serendipity – describing how these vegetables and their travels have become embedded in our food cultures.
Author: John Mullan
To mark 250 years since the birth of one of the most famous women authors in English literature, John Mullan’s “What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved” has been reissued.
First published in 2012, the book is a kind of literary scavenger hunt, with Mullan as guide — witty, knowing and visibly delighted by the patterns and puzzles he uncovers.
We go on the journey with him, uncovering the meanings embedded in the seemingly minor, but not minute, details of Austen’s fiction.
The Lord Northcliffe professor of modern English literature at University College London, Mullan is a leading authority on Austen. He has edited “Sense and Sensibility” and “Emma” for Oxford World’s Classics and has published widely on 18th- and 19th-century literature.
In this work he poses 20 questions such as: “Why is the weather important?” “How much money is enough?” “Why is Darcy so rude?” and “What do the characters call each other?”
That last question forms one of the book’s most interesting chapters for me. It’s about the seemingly stealthy and subtle ways in which the characters address others by a name and the power of not saying their name at all.
In Austen’s world, names are never casual. A shift from a formal title to a first name can signal a change in status, desire or familiarity. A name can be a quiet form of rebellion or a coded expression of closeness or longing. It matters whether someone is “Miss Bennet” or “Elizabeth,” whether a man dares to use her given name directly and whether that liberty is permitted or returned.
Again and again, Mullan shows us how much Austen could signal with the smallest of choices. What seems like a passing detail is likely loaded with meaning.
This new edition, with a fresh preface, is a fitting tribute to Austen’s longevity. Rather than framing her novels as relics to admire, Mullan treats them as living texts full of sly codes and sharp decisions.
It offers fans of Austen’s work something they crave: evidence. A deep dive into the text itself.
By the end, the title becomes clear, not just because Mullan asked the right questions but because, through his close reading and sharp observations, we begin to get answers.
To Austen, who died in 1817, everything mattered: names, clothes, weather, silence. And more than two centuries later, her world — precise, constrained, emotionally charged — still has plenty to show and tell.
Author: Mark Tuitert
Olympic champion speed skater Mark Tuitert merges ancient philosophy with modern resilience in “The Stoic Mindset,” published in 2024.
The guide transcends typical self-help tropes, offering strategies to transform adversity into strength through the principles of Stoicism.
This ancient philosophy provides a tool kit for staying calm, focused, and strong in the face of life’s chaos. Emerging in Ancient Greece and later popularized in Rome, it is less about dusty theories and more about how to live well.
Tuitert’s narrative begins with his own crucible: the pressure-cooker world of elite athletics, where injuries and setbacks threatened his career. His discovery of Stoicism became his mental armor. The book meticulously unpacks core tenets, focusing on actionable responses, reframing obstacles as opportunities, and cultivating “amor fati” (love of fate).
What resonates most is Tuitert’s rejection of passive acceptance. Instead, he advocates active resilience, using journaling, mindfulness, and preemptive adversity training to fortify mental agility.
His chapter on failure dissects how embracing vulnerability fuels growth, illustrated by his comeback from a career-threatening injury to clinch gold at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Tuitert’s prose is refreshingly pragmatic. He avoids academic jargon, grounding Seneca and Marcus Aurelius’ wisdom in relatable anecdotes — from navigating corporate burnout to parenting challenges. His emphasis on practice over theory stands out as well.
Some may criticize the athletic parallels as niche, but Tuitert universalizes them deftly.
While examining Tuitert’s practical Stoicism, I happened to contrast his Olympic-forged resilience with Nietzsche’s fiery critique of Stoic detachment, revealing how one stabilizes storms while the other ignites revolutions.
I found that Tuitert seeks mastery through emotional discipline, whereas Nietzsche champions vitality through embracing chaos.
In an era of digital overload and anxiety, “The Stoic Mindset” is a tactical manifesto for clarity.
Tuitert’s genius lies in making a 2,000-year-old philosophy feel urgently contemporary, proving that true victory is not avoiding storms but learning to dance in the rain.
Author: ELLEN WOHL
When we look at a river, either up close or while flying over a river valley, what are we really seeing? “Following the Bend” takes readers on a majestic journey by water to find answers, along the way shedding light on the key concepts of modern river science, from hydrology and water chemistry to stream and wetland ecology.
In this accessible and uniquely personal book, Ellen Wohl explains how to “read” a river, blending the latest science with her own personal experiences as a geologist and naturalist who has worked on rivers for more than three decades.
Author: Georgios Varouxakis
How did “the West” come to be used as a collective self-designation signaling political and cultural commonality? When did “Westerners” begin to refer to themselves in this way? Was the idea handed down from the ancient Greeks, or coined by 19th-century imperialists?
Neither, writes Georgios Varouxakis in “The West,” his ambitious and fascinating genealogy of the idea. “The West” was not used by Plato, Cicero, Locke, Mill, or other canonized figures of what we today call the Western tradition. It was not first wielded by empire-builders.
It gradually emerged as of the 1820s and was then, Varouxakis shows, decisively promoted in the 1840s by the French philosopher Auguste Comte (whose political project, incidentally, was passionately anti-imperialist).
The need for the use of the term “the West” emerged to avoid the confusing or unwanted consequences of the use of “Europe.” The two overlapped, but were not identical, with the West used to differentiate from certain “others” within Europe as well as to include the Americas.
What lies beyond ChatGPT for businesses?
In The AI-Centered Enterprise: Reshaping Organizations with Context-Aware AI, authors Ram Bala, Natarajan Balasubramanian and Amit Joshi argue that the next leap in artificial intelligence is not about flashy prompts, but rather perception, reasoning, and organizational transformation.
The book, published earlier this year, introduces the concept of “context-aware AI,” systems that do not just process information but understand it in real-time business scenarios.
These are tools that adjust to their environment, collaborate across teams, and make decisions with nuance; a significant step forward from today’s mostly predictive systems.
The authors, all professors and practitioners in the AI and analytics space, offer a clear roadmap for businesses to prepare.
Their proposed model, the “3Cs” — “Calibrate, Clarify, Channelize” — breaks down how leaders can align AI tools with company values, ensure teams understand how to use them, and direct efforts where they will have the most impact.
For readers in Ƶ, where AI is central to Vision 2030 initiative, this book can serve as a strategic lens.
While it does not focus on the region, its practical insights are useful for decision-makers looking to scale AI responsibly across sectors such as healthcare, logistics, and government services.
More guidebook than manifesto, “The AI-Centered Enterprise” avoids jargon and balances case studies with actionable ideas.
It will not dazzle readers chasing science-fiction futures, but it is a timely read for professionals who want to lead, not just react, in the age of intelligent systems.
