Writing has a big role to play in righting the world order — Welcome to This Week, Those Books, your rundown on books new and old that resonate with the week’s big news story. The few minutes it takes to read this newsletter will make you smarter, faster. If you’d rather listen, click on the audio button above for a human, not AI…

In Gaza, there are Monday morning blues, and then some. With the Israel Defence Forces saying it is operating “across all of the Gaza Strip”, it’s important to refer back to last week’s alleged agreement between the Israeli government and the United States. On November 30 (Thursday), we heard a…

Good point. Thanks for reading

If you have an invitation, you need almost nothing more in life… — Thanks to Politico’s editor Jamil Anderlini, I recently learnt about a fascinating event in the heart of Europe: Le Bal des Debutantes, a ball that keeps an old world of debutantes and tiaras startlingly alive in an age of social media trolling, sneakers and mantras of inclusivism. Mr Anderlini described…

The day news broke that Henry Kissinger was dead social media started to be flooded with photos from Bangladesh. One sticks out particularly in my memory. It was of a young woman, who lived in the West, along with her grandmother, who lived in Dhaka. My grandma lived, despite Kissinger…

We need to do more, that's for sure. Thank you for reading.

Heat waves and hope in 2053 and are whales really worth $13 to each of us? — Welcome to This Week, Those Books, your rundown on books new and old that resonate with the week’s big news story. The few minutes it takes to read this newsletter will make you smarter, faster. If you’d rather listen, click on the audio button above for a human, not AI…

Great stuff. Thanks for this. Really makes me want to go see the film.

Who knew, but the UK PM clearly has a sensitive soul that cleaves to the marble representations by Greek sculptor Phidias to decorate the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple. Unless, it’s all about politics — “Rishi loses his marbles”™ Politico. I wish I’d been clever enough to think of the headline Politico chose for the remarkable sight of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak losing his rag over the Parthenon sculptures. The sculptures, incidentally, are known in Britain as the Elgin Marbles, in memory of the…