The discerning reader’s essential read
© 2010 FiveBooks, an intelligent general reader
FiveBooks Interviews
The journalist and author says three things define our number system: only ten digits, zero to nine; a place value system, which isn’t true of Roman numerals; and the use of zero, because zero enables easy multiplication and it then becomes feasible for the lay person to calculate.
The author shows us the roofs of old Delhi where every family tended their own flock of pigeons, a journey from Belgrade to Pakistan in a Fiat 500 and a village where conflicts were solved by getting stoned on bhang lassi, a potent yoghurt drink and a tragic bandit queen. He chooses the best five Indian journeys.
The historian and author plunges us deep into the world of walled-up skeletons, Vikings, poisoning, intrigue, witchcraft and rebellion. Her book choices reflect the best of British historical fiction – novels that never compromise on painstaking research.
The Professor of Communication and Culture says music is a technology of the self, a set of tools and techniques which we use to work out harder at the gym or set the tone for a date. ‘I think anyone can relate to that. Can anyone bear listening to Phil Collins while they’re trying to pump some iron at the gym?’ he asks. He chooses five books on what music means.
The author of Torture and Democracy gives a harrowing interview on the effects of violence, torture and trauma on the human being. He says many army torturers can’t confess for fear of losing their pensions, and if they don’t confess they can’t get help. Torture, he says, is a slippery slope.
The author of The Happiness Hypothesis says there is an eternal battle between the Apollonian spirit of order and the Dionysian spirit of revelry and collective ecstasy. Even though Apollo has the upper hand in the West, you can’t stamp Dionysus out completely.
The bestselling author defines the existential origin of evil as the refusal to acknowledge and confront our own mortality. The murderer, he says, is the person who tries to avoid the inevitability of his own death by taking the power of life into his hands. He chooses five books that give a secular definition of evil, always intertwined with love.
The Professor of Culture says celebrity is all about displaying status. Charisma attaches itself not just to individuals but to people with a particular social position. A duchess must never be more than 100 yards from her carriage because you need a carriage in order to qualify as a duchess! Great monarchs of former history established their rule by being intensely visible in a series of processions and displays. He chooses five books on celebrity.
In this interview, which helps define an emerging political figure, possible Presidential contender for 2012 Mitch Daniels plants himself firmly on the dynamist, anti-traditionalist side of the conservative divide.
从《中国的好女人们》(The Good Women of China)、《天葬》(Sky Burial)、《见证中国》到即将出版的《中国母亲》(Chinese Mother，暂译)，薛欣然深入中国乡野，记录下那些被忽视的社会底层族群的故事，她说：”我要帮他们在历史里留下声音！”