Midweek Notes

You may recall that Simon Schama,"What objects say about our times," Financial Times, 22 January, previews among other things"A History of the World in 100 Objects," Neil MacGregor's new series on the history of material culture that runs throughout 2010 on BBC. Manan Ahmed reminds me that you can listen to the series on BBC's site.

Carnivalesque LVIII, an early modern edition of the festival is up at The Gentleman Administrator. It takes the form of"A Book of Blogge Cookrye" and calls for

1 pitcher of sex

2 pinches of violence

2 slabs of domestic debate

1 qrt. of the exotic

2 litres of Samuel Pepys &

1/2 pint of Shakespeare

Adam Kirsch,"Vanishing Act," Tablet, 26 January, reviews Yehuda Bauer's The Death of the Shtetl.

Samuel Brittan,"The Many Faces of Liberalism," Financial Times, 22 January, reviews Raymond Plant's The Neo-Liberal State, Simon Griffiths and Kevin Hickson, eds., British Party Politics and Ideology after New Labour, and Timothy Ferris's The Science of Liberty.

Dwight Garner,"North Korea Keeps Hiding, and Fascinating," NYT, 26 January, reviews Barbara Demick's Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, Ralph Hassig's and Kongdan Oh's The Hidden People of North Korea: Everyday Life in the Hermit Kingdom, and B. R. Myers's The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves — and Why It Matters.

Elizabeth Hand reviews Patti Smith's Just Kids for the Washington Post, 26 January.