Marshall, Tim: Prisoners of Geography
Take, for example, China and India:
two massive countries with huge populations that share a very long border but
are not politically or culturally aligned. It...
Cordelia Fine: Testosterone Rex
When a baby’s born, their sex is
usually the first thing we want to know about them, and the last demographic
information you’re ever likely to...
McCall Smith, Alexander: Blue Shoes and Happiness
‘ Ever since women allowed men to think that they did not need to get married, everything has gone wrong. That is what...
McCall Smith, Alexander: The Full Cupboard of Life
‘You are right,’ she said. ‘I am a
very engaged lady. I have been waiting for a long time. But you cannot push men
around. They...
McCall Smith, Alexander: In The Company Of Cheerful Ladies
‘We are all human,’ she would say. ‘Men particularly. You must not be ashamed.’
McCall Smith, Alexander: Morality for Beautiful Girls
She had realised that the best test
of a prospective husband involves no more than the asking of a very simple
question, which every woman –...
McCall Smith, Alexander: The Kalahari Typing School for Men
Unfairness seemed to be an
inescapable feature of life, at least if you were Mma Makutsi from Bobonong in
Northern Botswana, daughter of a man whose...
Alexander McCall Smith: Tears of the Giraffe
‘ God will provide,’ said Mma Potokwane calmly. ‘He will send us a new engine one day.’ ‘Maybe,’ said Mr J. L. B....
Alexander McCall Smith: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
I said to him that Zululand sounded
fine, but that every man has a map in his heart of his own country and that the
heart...
Barbara Kingsolver: Poisonwood Bible
Father feels makeup and nail polish
are warning signals of prostitution, the same as pierced ears.
Father surveyed our despair as if
he’d expected it all along,...
Tim Butcher: Blood River
For me the Congo stands as a totem
for the failed continent of Africa. It has more potential than any other
African nation, more diamonds, more...
Clive Finlayson: The Humans Who Went Extinct
We know now
that Neanderthals were pale skinned, had a range of hair colours comparable to
Caucasians, and had a gene that we share and which...
Peter Wohlleben: Tajný život stromů
„Jak mohl zbytek stromu, zvláště pak pařez, přežít několikasetletou hladovku? Tento exemplář to však zcela zjevně zvládnul. Dostávalo se mu podpory od sousedních stromů,...
Siddhartha Mukherjee: The Gene
Three
profoundly destabilizing scientific ideas ricochet through the twentieth
century, trisecting it into three unequal parts: the atom, the byte, the gene.
The simple
answer is that matter,...
Margaret Mead: Growing Up in New Guinea
“Children are taught to talk through the men’s and older boys love of playing with children.
There is no belief that it is necessary to...
Matt McLaughlin: Flying the Knife Edge
And the pick of the bunch: a woman’s bra was
kalabus bilong susu (kalabus = prison, susu = breast; literally ‘a prison for
boobs’).
Between 1990 and...