(Random House, $30)
For a dull writer, Al Gore put together an awfully compelling book, said Craig Seligman in Bloomberg.com. His prose feels as canned as always, and “wit isn’t one of the arrows in Gore’s quiver.” But as the former presidential candidate looks ahead to a near future that promises, in his words, “unprecedented change,” his passion and knowledge about the subject are unmistakable. Gore foresees potential catastrophe coming soon if world leaders fail to address various threats related to climate change, runaway population growth, special-interest politics, and an ever-faster-moving global economy. He remains too earnest and dry to attract a huge audience on the power of his words alone, but with The Future he’s assembled “a wonk’s paradise of projections, calculations, and statistics.” In fact, “practically every page offers an illumination.”
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“It would be a shame,” in fact, “if The Future were dismissed as another chapter in familiar political battles,” said Ben Geman in TheHill.com. Gore is “obviously right” that sweeping changes are coming. In his view, the main drama ahead will be a multiple-front battle between financial interests building an ungovernable borderless economy and the billions of individuals who are learning to use new communication technologies to defend shared human values. Gore’s future, it should be said, also includes soldiers wearing telepathy helmets and goats producing spiders’ silk. When he says up front that he never intends to subject himself to another run for national office, that may be all the proof we need.
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Political cartoons for November 30Cartoons Sunday's political cartoons include the Saudi-China relationship, MAGA spelled wrong, and more
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Rothermere’s Telegraph takeover: ‘a right-leaning media powerhouse’Talking Point Deal gives Daily Mail and General Trust more than 50% of circulation in the UK newspaper market
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The US-Saudi relationship: too big to fail?Talking Point With the Saudis investing $1 trillion into the US, and Trump granting them ‘major non-Nato ally’ status, for now the two countries need each other
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”