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by Colin Ellard
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This “mind-expanding book” makes you feel embarrassed about human spatial intelligence, said Susan Salter Reynolds in the Los Angeles Times. There’s no excuse for getting lost in the mall once you learn how ants, pigeons, and bats face far more challenging tests. But neuroscientist Colin Ellard is also interested in exploring how our shriveling navigational talents affect the world we build. New ideas spill from each page “like winnings from a slot machine.”
Andrew Levy’s new memoir is “a tonic of a book with a terrible title,” said Karen R. Long in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Anyone who foists upon the world nearly 300 pages about migraine pain “had better write like an angel,” and Levy does. When a headache of biblical proportions downs the author for a year and a half, he decides to learn all he can, even from such past “migrainers” as Emily Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson. He transforms his suffering into an intellectual tour that “fascinates.”
The Third Man Factor
by John Geiger
(Weinstein, $24.95)
John Geiger’s new book “could have been twice as good and half as long,” said Roger Cox in the Edinburgh Scotsman. Exploring why mountain climbers and other individuals placed in extreme peril often sense the presence of a benevolent companion, the American journalist offers several interesting theories. But by crowding his pages with anecdotes that all have the same plot line, he has taken hair-raising stories of human endurance and “rendered them spirit-crushingly dull.”
Perfecting Sound Forever
by Greg Milner
(Faber & Faber, $35)
“Unapologetic sound geek” Greg Milner has found “a compelling adventure story” in the history of audio recording, said Norman Lebrecht in The Wall Street Journal. Its Moses is phonograph inventor Thomas Edison, who clung to the ideal of perfecting sound fidelity, even as relatively inexpensive gramophone discs stole his market. “There are no heroes” in Milner’s account of the post-1978 digital era, though. According to Milner, bland, dishonest reproduction is all we can hope for from our iPods.
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Facial recognition vans and policingThe government is rolling out more live facial recognition technology across England
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Dive in! The best children's books to spark a love of readingThe Week Recommends These gripping stories will keep kids hooked until the last page
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Sudoku medium: August 13, 2025The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
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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.”