https://www.scmp.com/rss/16199/feed Michael Clugston has worked as a journalist in Canada, Japan and Hong Kong. His writing has appeared in various newspapers and magazines including Maclean’s, Canadian Geographic and Outside. A former senior subeditor at the South China Morning Post, he currently freelances from his home in Canada. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Ageism Unmasked by Tracey Gendron, pub. Steerforth “Great hair auntie, how young you look!” It’s a compliment … right? Or is it? Naturally we mean well by such remarks. But Tracey Gendron wants us to reflect on the ageist biases that dwell within many of our innocent, everyday actions, thoughts and, of course, comments: “I’m having a senior moment”; or “at your age you probably haven’t heard of …” The author is chief of the gerontology department at Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3167562/ageism-unmasked-damage-caused-bias-towards-old-people?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3167562/ageism-unmasked-damage-caused-bias-towards-old-people?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Feb 2022 11:15:12 +0000 Flying Blind by Peter Robison pub. Doubleday Desperation gripped the cockpit of the doomed Boeing 737 MAX airliner over Jakarta, Indonesia, as the sun rose on that October morning in 2018. The chaos had begun mere seconds after the wheels of Lion Air Flight 610 left the ground: alarms sounded; warning lights flashed; the control column shook violently. The pilot and co-pilot were veteran professionals who had jointly racked up 11,000 hours in older 737 models, before the MAX. Yet this situation... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3160046/how-decades-deskilling-boeing-doomed-two-737-max?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3160046/how-decades-deskilling-boeing-doomed-two-737-max?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Dec 2021 11:45:18 +0000 The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, pub. Viking Bestselling novelist Amor Towles creates plucky and likeable heroes who rise admirably above grim and complex circumstances. True to form, his third novel, The Lincoln Highway, begins with our hero, 18-year-old Emmett Watson, facing a heavy load of misfortune. Emmett returns to his forlorn Nebraska home after serving a reformatory term for killing a man by accident. Emmett’s bankrupt father has just died after years of farming failure. His mother... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3152557/lincoln-highway-treachery-tragedy-triumphs-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3152557/lincoln-highway-treachery-tragedy-triumphs-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 17 Oct 2021 08:15:22 +0000 On the Map: Why the World Looks the Way It Does by Simon Garfield Profile Books The largest atlas ever published was so big it required its own plane for delivery to buyers, Simon Garfield tells us in On the Map. You needed US$100,000 to buy the book and six strong lads to carry it. The atlas was amazing but user-unfriendly - a bit like this admirable but occasionally unwieldy book. Garfield is a British journalist whose previous book, Just My Type, was a bestselling exploration of his love... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1078606/book-review-map-simon-garfield?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1078606/book-review-map-simon-garfield?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Somebody Else's Century by Patrick Smith Pantheon Books HK$208 Patrick Smith is a literary journalist with decades of living in Asia and a taste for the big questions. His 1997 book Japan: A Reinterpretation, attacked and loosened some of the cornerstones of post-war thinking on Japanese history and won the coveted Kiriyama Prize. Now, in Somebody Else's Century, he surveys China, India and Japan as they emerge with new-found confidence from 150 years of grappling with... https://www.scmp.com/article/727690/somebody-elses-century?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/727690/somebody-elses-century?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000 The Courier's Tale by Peter Walker Bloomsbury HK$156 Michael Throckmorton seemed to lead a charmed life, and he needed all those charms to survive. He was a courier in the 16th century, a postman who travelled back and forth on the dangerous roads between London and Italy, carrying letters between a furious Henry VIII and Henry's cousin, Reginald Pole. Why furious? Well, if you're a history buff you'll already know the answer. Pole, like Throckmorton, was a historical character... https://www.scmp.com/article/725799/couriers-tale?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/725799/couriers-tale?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Sep 2010 16:00:00 +0000 Secrets of Bali by Jonathan Copeland with Ni Wayan Murni Orchid Press HK$240 Any visitor to Bali with a shred of curiosity will wonder what, exactly, is going on: all that art, music, dance and celebration. Everyone's a sculptor, painter or jeweller, it seems. Don't these three million people know the world is supposedly hurtling towards a Western monoculture? As Secrets of Bali makes amply clear, the profusion of visible culture is just the gateway to a complex inner world of belief and... https://www.scmp.com/article/722740/secrets-bali?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/722740/secrets-bali?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000 Naming Nature by Carol Kaesuk Yoon W.W. Norton HK$136 In 18th-century Europe, it was all the rage to collect new discoveries from the natural world, from butterflies and beetles to plants and fish. But how to name these creatures, flooding into Europe in ships returning from far longitudes? With no standard naming system, things got chaotic: one collector made up a 30-word name for a single species of plant. Imagine studying a textbook full of those. Into this chaos, history delivered... https://www.scmp.com/article/721050/naming-nature?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/721050/naming-nature?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:00:00 +0000 Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution by Nick Lane W.W. Norton HK$136 Billions of years ago, the third planet from the sun probably had that Mars look - reddish, dusty and devoid of life. Today it's our blue and green home, teeming with creatures. How did this astonishing change come about? That daunting question is the subject of Nick Lane's latest book, Life Ascending - The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution. A British biochemist and writer, Lane has already proven... https://www.scmp.com/article/719390/life-ascending-ten-great-inventions-evolution?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/719390/life-ascending-ten-great-inventions-evolution?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:00:00 +0000 Plenitude by Juliet B. Schor The Penguin Press HK$208 The crash of 2008-09 put the nail in the coffin of capitalist business-as-usual. Now the scramble is on as the world searches for a sustainable, green way of living that doesn't wreck the planet. Well, that's the direction Juliet Schor would like to see, anyway. A Boston College sociology professor, economist and best-selling author, Schor has written Plenitude as a road map for lightening our carbon footprints over the next few years, as... https://www.scmp.com/article/715723/plenitude?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/715723/plenitude?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 May 2010 16:00:00 +0000