Fragility: A History of Plaster by Alain Corbin (Polity, £12.99)
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 I, thinks so with this curious yet curiously compelling little book (a mere 70 pages). Corbin considers this era of history, from the French 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’s increasingly friable establishment. The subject, taking in such details as plaster being used to house the Paris poor and Napoleon’s death mask, may prove too dry and recherché for some. But the author casts his arguments with conviction.
Free Creations of the Human Mind: The Worlds of Albert Einstein by Diana Kormos Buchwald and Michael D Gordin (Oxford University Press, £14.99)
Just over 100 pages long, this small but impressive book packs a lot in for the 70th anniversary of Einstein’s death. Judiciously assembled and written with the general reader in mind, we have a concise biography, addressing subjects such as Einstein’s 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’s enough depth, critical analysis and teaching in addressing Einstein’s work for anyone interested in physics too, tackling fascinating topics such as time dilation. And it’s always worth being reminded of titbits such as, in his most famous paper, Einstein derived that equation in three pages.
Recommended: The influencers who changed how we read by Nicola Wilson (Holland House Books, £14.99)
The index alone is a bibliophile’s 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.
Wilson contends it was a forerunner of influencers and celebrity book clubs, and it’s easy to see why from her impeccable research. She brings characters and ideologies to life – some well known; JB Priestley and Cecil Day-Lewis – as they used the pen to counter the swords of a turbulent era (the Great Depression; the rise of fascism with the Spanish Civil War and second World War). Recommended will be fascinating for anyone interested in how publishing works.
