Fragility: A History of Plaster by Alain Corbin (Polity, \u00a312.99)<\/p>\n
If we now live in the Digital Age, should we think of the first half of the 19th century as the Plaster Age? Alain Corbin, emeritus professor of history at the University of Paris<\/a> I, thinks so with this curious yet curiously compelling little book (a mere 70 pages). Corbin considers this era of history, from the French<\/a> Revolution and the political regimes that succeeded it, through a plastered lens, marking its increased role in social, political and artistic structures with the overriding consequence of chipping away at France\u2019s increasingly friable establishment. The subject, taking in such details as plaster being used to house the Paris poor and Napoleon\u2019s death mask, may prove too dry and recherch\u00e9 for some. But the author casts his arguments with conviction. <\/p>\n Free Creations of the Human Mind: The Worlds of Albert Einstein by Diana Kormos Buchwald and Michael D Gordin (Oxford University Press, \u00a314.99)<\/p>\n Just over 100 pages long, this small but impressive book packs a lot in for the 70th anniversary of Einstein\u2019s death. Judiciously assembled and written with the general reader in mind, we have a concise biography, addressing subjects such as Einstein\u2019s identity as a secular Jew who supported Zionism, to his complicated history with atomic energy and its development of the atomic bomb. (He felt US President Roosevelt, who died just before the first test, would not have dropped the bombs.) There\u2019s enough depth, critical analysis and teaching in addressing Einstein\u2019s work for anyone interested in physics too, tackling fascinating topics such as time dilation. And it\u2019s always worth being reminded of titbits such as, in his most famous paper, Einstein derived that equation in three pages. <\/p>\n Recommended: The influencers who changed how we read by Nicola Wilson (Holland House Books, \u00a314.99)<\/p>\n The index alone is a bibliophile\u2019s dream. Literature professor Wilson has done a remarkable job recreating the story of the Book Society, established by a group of writers for 40 years from 1929 as a subscription service where readers were sent a keenly priced book from around the world once a month.<\/p>\n