In this excruciatingly honest autobiographical work, author Mehta conducts an exquisite exploration of his love life as a young man, attempting to focus an objective lens on the most subjective of Continue reading »
Imagine: you're a middle-aged adult and your elderly parent offers you a packet of love letters ("red letters") from an adulterous relationship that took place just before you were Continue reading »
Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker: The Invisible Art of Editing
Ved Mehta
A poignant tribute from a flawed but well-placed Boswell, Mehta's book revisits (through memories, letters and interviews) the career of William Shawn, who edited the New Yorker from 1951 to 1987. Continue reading »
In 1949, at age 15, Mehta left his native India to spend three years at the Arkansas School for the Blind. In this vivid memoir, written with great sensitivity and without self-pity, he describes the Continue reading »
This sixth volume of Mehta's lively, affecting autobiography covers his experiences at Pomona College, Calif., in the 1950s, when, despite his blindness, he tried to carry on the normal life of an Continue reading »
Mehta, the well-known Indian-born writer, affectionately relives his undergraduate years at Oxford's Balliol College in an amusing, wonderfully observant, self-deprecating memoir. Despite his Continue reading »
In a quietly devastating, gripping political chronicle based on his frequent trips to India between 1982 and 1994, Indian-born Mehta, a New Yorker staff writer, ruefully portrays a nation mired in Continue reading »
It’s on You: How Corporations and Behavioral Scientists Have Convinced Us That We’re to Blame for Society’s Deepest Problems
Nick Chater, George Loewenstein
In this sharp takedown, psychologist Chater and behavioral economist Loewenstein (Exotic Preferences) argue that “nudge” theory, the notion of personal decision-making as the Continue reading »
Journalist Badkhen (Bright Unbearable Reality) asks in these soul-stirring essays whether language can capture the enormity of grief and offer hope amid catastrophe. Through her Continue reading »
Journalist Moor (On Trails) defines trees as “a way of being” in this impassioned examination of their history and biology. Since human ancestors lived among their branches, Continue reading »
Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI
Carissa Veliz
Today’s algorithmically generated “predictive” decisions, from loan approvals to missile strikes, are, despite their scientific veneer, no less expressions of cultural and Continue reading »