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The Yuan dynasty endured for a century, leaving behind an architectural legacy without equal, from palaces, temples, and pagodas to pavilions, tombs, and stages.
With a history enlivened by the likes of Khubilai Khan and Marco Polo, this spectacular empire spanned the breadth of China and far, far beyond, but its rulers were Mongols.
Yuan presents the first comprehensive study in English of the architecture of China under Mongol rule.
Author: Ia Genberg
While departing Sweden this summer, I purchased Ia Genberg’s “The Details” at the airport, rushing to my gate and promptly forgetting about it — but it was fitting. I rediscovered it in my travel bag this autumn on a different, shorter flight, the perfect type of book for floating through clouds and toggling between cities, countries, or memories.
First published in Swedish as “Detaljerna” in 2022, it won the prestigious August Prize and was shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize, with the English translation by Kira Josefsson praised for preserving the novel’s crisp, luminous prose.
Josefsson is known for bringing contemporary Swedish literature to English-speaking readers with clarity and nuance.
Genberg, born in Stockholm in 1967, is a journalist by profession and knows how to tersely capture both facts and feelings accurately and concisely. “The Details” is her fourth novel, following earlier works, all well received.
This novel, written from the perspective of the same woman, is structured in four vignettes, each dedicated to a different person who meant a great deal to the narrator. These chapters are seemingly separate yet somehow are also intertwined, forming a mosaic of memory and intimacy.
Johanna, who was once such a close figure who later becomes a famous television host and a complete stranger; Niki, a roommate with a peculiar past who vanishes into thin air; Alejandro, whose presence is intense yet fleeting; and Birgitte, her mother. All four resurface in vivid flashes that explore how relationships shape identity, linger, and sometimes fade.
While reading, I felt as though I simultaneously knew these people and did not know them at all. It made me wonder who I would write about — or who might write about me — if such a format were to be replicated.
The structure mirrors the workings of recollection, with characters appearing in gestures, shared objects and sudden absences — gradually forming a tapestry of intimacy and longing. It is a melancholic book.
Genberg’s prose is restrained yet lyrical, attentive to the smallest details that define connection. The novel’s power lies less in plot than in atmosphere, evoking a pre-digital world where people could disappear entirely. I wonder if she should have dedicated a chapter to her own name.
The novel lingers long after the final page. You can finish it by the time your luggage arrives at the next destination.
Author: ADAM SCAIFE
Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile anyone who is curious about weather.
Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, “The Little Book of Weather” is an accessible and enjoyable mini-reference about the world’s weather, with examples drawn from across the globe.
It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics—from weather forecasting and extreme events to the future of weather with climate change.
Despite sleep’s critical role in maintaining health and cognitive function, humans sleep less than any other primate. “The Sleepless Ape” reveals the reasons for this evolutionary paradox, showing how our unique sleep patterns evolved when our ancestors left the safety of the forest for more dangerous ground, which led them to form more secure, social sleeping arrangements. As a result, early humans developed shorter, deeper, and more flexible sleep patterns that provided survival advantages and freed more time for crucial activities such as toolmaking, social interaction, and migration.
David Baron’s “The Martians” reconstructs a bizarre tale told through newly discovered clippings that began in the 1890s when Percival Lowell, a wealthy Harvard scion declared “there can be no doubt that living beings inhabit our neighboring world.”
So frenzied was the reaction that international controversies arose and a new genre called science fiction arose.
While Lowell’s claims were savagely debunked, his influence sparked a compulsive interest in Mars that continues to this day.
In “Plato’s Second Republic”, Andre Laks argues that the “Laws,” Plato’s last and longest dialogue, is also his most important political work, surpassing the “Republic” in historical relevance.
Laks offers a thorough reappraisal of this less renowned text, and examines how it provides a critical foundation for the principles of lawmaking.
In doing so, he makes clear the tremendous impact the “Laws” had not only on political philosophy, but also on modern political history.
Laks shows how the four central ideas in the “Laws” — the corruptibility of unchecked power, the rule of law, a “middle” constitution.
