Barkan’s book has received some lovely reviews from The Washington Post, Leonardo online, and Choice magazine (“…deserves to become a standard work on the relations of word, image, and poetry and painting in pre-modern culture…”) in recent months. We hope you can join him for what is bound to be a fascinating discussion of the peculiar relationship between art and poetry — or as Leonardo reviewer Jan Baetens puts it, “the desire to compare apples and oranges, and the skepticism that arises when apples and oranges are put aside in different baskets.”

Mute Poetry, Speaking Pictures: A book and some afterthoughts

T J Clark’s Picasso and Truth offers a breathtaking and original new look at the most significant artist of the modern era. This Saturday evening, T J Clark will be speaking about this important painter and his new book at a Bristol Festival of Ideas event.

Please click here if you would like to find out more about this event.

T J Clark will also be speaking at:

The London Review Bookshop on 28th May (sold out)

Hay Festival on 30th May

Birkbeck, University of London on 7th June (free entry)

and the London Lit Weekend on 5th October (stay tuned for more information)

In case you missed it, Geoff Mulgan, author of the recently published The Locust and the Bee, gave a truly excellent talk at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (RSA) back in March and it has just been made available online!

You can also listen to a podcast of the full event including audience Q&A here.

It’s love at first sight when a hiker catches his first view of the shocking pink flowers of fringed polygala (Polygala paucifolia). Its strangely shaped flowers might fool someone into thinking that this is a member of the orchid family, or perhaps the pea family. No other flower in the Northeast looks quite like it—that is no other flower of its size (ca. 1.5 inches long). The other members of the same genus are so tiny that they require examination with a hand lens to see the detail.

The flaring wings and propeller-like fringe on the flower’s tip give it the appearance of a small magenta airplane. Only by pressing down on the “fuselage” of the flower can you find its reproductive structures. The two sides of the flower that form the forward-pointing portion open up and the stamens and pistil are exposed—just as they would be if a bumblebee were to land on the flower. And, indeed, like many of our spring wildflowers, bumblebees are the principal pollinators of fringed polygala.

Fringed polygala often grows in large colonies and particularly favors mossy sites. A small plant, the contrasting glossy green leaves and pink flowers make a striking ground cover.

Learn more about fringed polygala and other spring wildflowers in Carol Gracie’s book, Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast: A Natural History.

Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle have created the most innovative and complete guide to warblers available in The Warbler Guide. In this video, they explain how readers can use the icons found at the top of each species entry to get a quick handle on location, habitat, shape, and color patterns.

Click here to learn more about The Warbler Guide. The book will be available July 2013.
For more tips on how to use The Warbler Guide and how to identify warblers in the field, please see additional videos in this series.

Here are some fun reads for the summer months whether you’re a beach bum or bumming around the house.

1. First, take some time and read up on some novels by Jane Austen, then pick up Jane Austen, Game Theorist by Michael Suk-Young Chwe

Game theory–the study of how people make choices while interacting with others–is one of the most popular technical approaches in social science today. But as Michael Chwe reveals in his insightful new book, Jane Austen explored game theory’s core ideas in her six novels roughly two hundred years ago. Jane Austen, Game Theorist shows how this beloved writer theorized choice and preferences, prized strategic thinking, argued that jointly strategizing with a partner is the surest foundation for intimacy, and analyzed why superiors are often strategically clueless about inferiors. With a diverse range of literature and folktales, this book illustrates the wide relevance of game theory and how, fundamentally, we are all strategic thinkers.

Although game theory’s mathematical development began in the Cold War 1950s, Chwe finds that game theory has earlier subversive historical roots in Austen’s novels and in “folk game theory” traditions, including African American folktales. Chwe makes the case that these literary forebears are game theory’s true scientific predecessors. He considers how Austen in particular analyzed “cluelessness”–the conspicuous absence of strategic thinking–and how her sharp observations apply to a variety of situations, including U.S. military blunders in Iraq and Vietnam.

Jane Austen, Game Theorist brings together the study of literature and social science in an original and surprising way.

2. Odd Couples by Daphne J. Fairbairn- Because nothing says beach reading like a book with two seals on the cover. Also, animals are cool.

While we joke that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, our gender differences can’t compare to those of other animals. For instance, the male garden spider spontaneously dies after mating with a female more than fifty times his size. Female cichlids must guard their eggs and larvae–even from the hungry appetites of their own partners. And male blanket octopuses employ a copulatory arm longer than their own bodies to mate with females that outweigh them by four orders of magnitude. Why do these gender gulfs exist? Introducing readers to important discoveries in animal behavior and evolution, Odd Couples explores some of the most extraordinary sexual differences in the animal world. From the fields of Spain to the deep oceans, evolutionary biologist Daphne Fairbairn uncovers the unique and bizarre characteristics–in size, behavior, ecology, and life history–that exist in these remarkable species and the special strategies they use to maximize reproductive success. Fairbairn describes how male great bustards aggressively compete to display their gorgeous plumage and large physiques to watching, choosey females. She investigates why female elephant seals voluntarily live in harems where they are harassed constantly by eager males. And she reveals why dwarf male giant seadevils parasitically fuse to their giant female partners for life. Fairbairn also considers humans and explains that although we are keenly aware of our own sexual differences, they are unexceptional within the vast animal world.

Looking at some of the most amazing creatures on the planet, Odd Couples sheds astonishing light on what it means to be male or female in the animal kingdom.

3. A Glossary of Chickens by Gary J. Whitehead. Some poetry on the beach or while swaying in a hammock- picture perfect.

With skillful rhetoric and tempered lyricism, the poems in A Glossary of Chickens explore, in part, the struggle to understand the world through the symbolism of words. Like the hens of the title poem, Gary J. Whitehead’s lyrics root around in the earth searching for sustenance, cluck rather than crow, and possess a humble majesty.

Confronting subjects such as moral depravity, nature’s indifference, aging, illness, death, the tenacity of spirit, and the possibility of joy, the poems in this collection are accessible and controlled, musical and meditative, imagistic and richly figurative. They are informed by history, literature, and a deep interest in the natural world, touching on a wide range of subjects, from the Civil War and whale ships, to animals and insects. Two poems present biblical narratives, the story of Lot’s wife and an imagining of Noah in his old age. Other poems nod to favorite authors: one poem is in the voice of the character Babo, from Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, while another is a kind of prequel to Emily Dickinson’s “She rose to His Requirement.”

As inventive as they are observant, these memorable lyrics strive for revelation and provide their own revelations.

4. The Fairies Return Compiled by Peter Davies- Revisit some classic fairy tales with a modern twist.

Originally issued in 1934, The Fairies Return was the first collection of modernist fairy tales ever published in England, and it marked the arrival of a satirical classic that has never been surpassed. Even today, this reimagining of fourteen timeless tales–from “Puss in Boots” to “Little Red Riding Hood”–is still fresh and bold, giving readers a world steeped not in once upon a time, but in the here and now.

Longtime favorites in this playfully subversive collection are retold for modern times and mature sensibilities. In “Jack the Giant Killer,” Jack becomes a trickster who must deliver England from the hands of three ogres after a failed government inquiry. “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” is set in contemporary London and the world of financial margins and mergers. In “The Little Mermaid,” a young Canadian girl with breathtaking swimming skills is lured by the temptations of Hollywood. And Cinderella becomes a spinster and holy woman, creating a very different happily ever after. These tales expose social anxieties, political corruption, predatory economic behavior, and destructive appetites even as they express hope for a better world. A new introduction from esteemed fairy-tale scholar Maria Tatar puts the collection in context.

From stockbrokers and socialites to shopkeepers and writers, the characters in The Fairies Return face contemporary challenges while living in the magical world of fairy tales.

5. The Ultimate Book of Saturday Science by Neil Downie- For when you are at home and feel like doing actual activities on a summer day.

The Ultimate Book of Saturday Science is Neil Downie’s biggest and most astounding compendium yet of science experiments you can do in your own kitchen or backyard using common household items. It may be the only book that encourages hands-on science learning through the use of high-velocity, air-driven carrots.

Downie, the undisputed maestro of Saturday science, here reveals important principles in physics, engineering, and chemistry through such marvels as the Helevator–a contraption that’s half helicopter, half elevator–and the Rocket Railroad, which pumps propellant up from its own track. The Riddle of the Sands demonstrates why some granular materials form steep cones when poured while others collapse in an avalanche. The Sunbeam Exploder creates a combustible delivery system out of sunlight, while the Red Hot Memory experiment shows you how to store data as heat. Want to learn to tell time using a knife and some butter? There’s a whole section devoted to exotic clocks and oscillators that teaches you how.

The Ultimate Book of Saturday Science features more than seventy fun and astonishing experiments that range in difficulty from simple to more challenging. All of them are original, and all are guaranteed to work. Downie provides instructions for each one and explains the underlying science, and also presents experimental variations that readers will want to try.

Happy reading!

Feel free to blog about, Tweet out, post to Facebook, and otherwise share these! Enjoy!

This book offers an intimate guide to the Milky Way, taking readers on a grand tour of our home Galaxy’s structure, genesis, and evolution, based on the latest astronomical findings. In engaging language, it tells how the Milky Way congealed from blobs of gas and dark matter into a spinning starry abode brimming with diverse planetary systems–some of which may be hosting myriad life forms and perhaps even other technologically communicative species.
William Waller vividly describes the Milky Way as it appears in the night sky, acquainting readers with its key components and telling the history of our changing galactic perceptions. The ancients believed the Milky Way was a home for the gods. Today we know it is but one galaxy among billions of others in the observable universe. Within the Milky Way, ground-based and space-borne telescopes have revealed that our Solar System is not alone. Hundreds of other planetary systems share our tiny part of the vast Galaxy. We reside within a galactic ecosystem that is driven by the theatrics of the most massive stars as they blaze through their brilliant lives and dramatic deaths. Similarly effervescent ecosystems of hot young stars and fluorescing nebulae delineate the graceful spiral arms in our Galaxy’s swirling disk. Beyond the disk, the spheroidal halo hosts the ponderous–and still mysterious–dark matter that outweighs everything else. Another dark mystery lurks deep in the heart of the Milky Way, where a supermassive black hole has produced bizarre phenomena seen at multiple wavelengths.
Waller makes the case that our very existence is inextricably linked to the Galaxy that spawned us. Through this book, readers can become well-informed galactic “insiders”–ready to imagine humanity’s next steps as fully engaged citizens of the Milky Way.

Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us by Donald K. Yeomans

Of all the natural disasters that could befall us, only an Earth impact by a large comet or asteroid has the potential to end civilization in a single blow. Yet these near-Earth objects also offer tantalizing clues to our solar system’s origins, and someday could even serve as stepping-stones for space exploration. In this book, Donald Yeomans introduces readers to the science of near-Earth objects–its history, applications, and ongoing quest to find near-Earth objects before they find us.
In its course around the sun, the Earth passes through a veritable shooting gallery of millions of nearby comets and asteroids. One such asteroid is thought to have plunged into our planet sixty-five million years ago, triggering a global catastrophe that killed off the dinosaurs. Yeomans provides an up-to-date and accessible guide for understanding the threats posed by near-Earth objects, and also explains how early collisions with them delivered the ingredients that made life on Earth possible. He shows how later impacts spurred evolution, allowing only the most adaptable species to thrive–in fact, we humans may owe our very existence to objects that struck our planet.
Yeomans takes readers behind the scenes of today’s efforts to find, track, and study near-Earth objects. He shows how the same comets and asteroids most likely to collide with us could also be mined for precious natural resources like water and oxygen, and used as watering holes and fueling stations for expeditions to Mars and the outermost reaches of our solar system.

The Register reports that “the European Space Agency’s Herschel telescope has captured far-infrared images which appear to show the black hole sucking in a huge cloud of gas.” The images show the Milky Way’s black hole eating up hot gas like I’ll be eating up my pizza tonight.

Image via www.esa.int

INSATIABLE black hole in Milky Way’s heart crams hot gas into cavity

Space boffins have suggested the supermassive black hole at the centre of our universe may have a powerful appetite for hot gas.

The European Space Agency’s Herschel telescope has captured far-infrared images which appear to show the black hole sucking in a huge cloud of gas.

One astronomer said it looked as if the hole was “cooking its dinner”.

Set in a region known as Sagittarius A* at the middle of the Milky Way, the scarily huge hole has a mass of four million times that of our sun and is about 26,000 light-years away from earth. Nonetheless, this is by far the closest supermassive hole and is a source of fascination for space scientists.

Now the boffins hope their discovery will allow them to learn something about these interstallar maws.

“The black hole appears to be devouring the gas,” said Paul Goldsmith, the U.S. project scientist for Herschel at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which assists the ESA with their Herschel mission. “This will teach us about how supermassive black holes grow.”

Read the complete article here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/08/black_hole_milky_way_gas/

For more on the mysteries of the Milky Way, check out this new book exploring all aspects of our home galaxy.

The Milky Way: An Insider’s Guide by William Waller

This book offers an intimate guide to the Milky Way, taking readers on a grand tour of our home Galaxy’s structure, genesis, and evolution, based on the latest astronomical findings. In engaging language, it tells how the Milky Way congealed from blobs of gas and dark matter into a spinning starry abode brimming with diverse planetary systems–some of which may be hosting myriad life forms and perhaps even other technologically communicative species.

William Waller vividly describes the Milky Way as it appears in the night sky, acquainting readers with its key components and telling the history of our changing galactic perceptions. The ancients believed the Milky Way was a home for the gods. Today we know it is but one galaxy among billions of others in the observable universe. Within the Milky Way, ground-based and space-borne telescopes have revealed that our Solar System is not alone. Hundreds of other planetary systems share our tiny part of the vast Galaxy. We reside within a galactic ecosystem that is driven by the theatrics of the most massive stars as they blaze through their brilliant lives and dramatic deaths. Similarly effervescent ecosystems of hot young stars and fluorescing nebulae delineate the graceful spiral arms in our Galaxy’s swirling disk. Beyond the disk, the spheroidal halo hosts the ponderous–and still mysterious–dark matter that outweighs everything else. Another dark mystery lurks deep in the heart of the Milky Way, where a supermassive black hole has produced bizarre phenomena seen at multiple wavelengths.

Your spouse may baffle you at times, but does he latch on to your rear as a miniscule parasite 500,000 times smaller than you?

That’s what a male seadevil does. Is your honey 50 times your size and liable to eat you after a snuggle? Let’s hope not, else she’d be a garden spider.

e animal kingdom is full of amatory pairs whose extreme physical differences would give a matchmaker pause. But many of these dimorphic differences make good evolutionary sense, Daphne J. Fairbairn explains in her book Odd Couples: Extraordinary Differences between the Sexes in the Animal Kingdom.

National Geographic Senior Writer Rachel Hartigan Shea spoke with Fairbairn, a biologist at the University of California, Riverside, about why in nature, love isn’t always one size fits all.

…

Why are the differences between the sexes in some animals so extreme?

If you are coming into the world as a male, the way you get your genes into the next generation is getting your sperm to meet up with the eggs of females. So whatever it takes to do that is how the males are going to turn out. (Related Q&A: “Unlikely Animal Friendships.”)

Read the full article at National Geographic

]]> http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2013/05/09/qa-with-author-of-odd-couples/feed/ 0 http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2013/05/09/pup-best-sellers-for-the-past-week/ http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2013/05/09/pup-best-sellers-for-the-past-week/#comments Thu, 09 May 2013 12:14:17 +0000 Jessica Pellien http://blog.press.princeton.edu/?p=22196 This list takes into account print and e-editions of Princeton University Press books.

	The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order by Benn Steil
	The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It by Anat Admati & Martin Hellwig
	The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors by Richard Crossley, Jerry Liguori, & Brian Sullivan
	This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff
	Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age by W. Bernard Carlson
	The Golden Ticket: P, NP, and the Search for the Impossible by Lance Fortnow
	The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup by Noam Wasserman
	The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward B. Burger & Michael Starbird
	QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard P. Feynman
	Einstein Gravity in a Nutshell by A. Zee