1. Two free from this month’s Literary Review:

Sea of Troubles, a review by Owen Matthews of a ‘brilliantly written, convincingly argued and compelling book’, Baltic: The Future of Europe by Oliver Moody https://literaryreview.co.uk/sea-of-troubles

Death from the Clouds, a review by Philip Snow of a ‘short but quietly devastating book’, Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan by Richard Overy https://literaryreview.co.uk/death-from-the-clouds

2. Maybe Bill Gates is one of the good guys after all? Here’s two recent blog posts of his:

What it will really take to feed the world https://www.gatesnotes.com/work/save-lives/reader/how-to-feed-the-world PDF of free chapter from Vaclav Smil’s book below.

I’m heading back to India https://www.gatesnotes.com/work/save-lives/reader/i-am-heading-back-to-india

A good guy compared to his slightly younger ‘tech bros’, that is, as captured (if only) in this marvellous Getty Images photo for The Daily Telegraph

3. A interesting blog post from BOLD, Inflated praise can reinforce stereotypes https://boldscience.org/inflated-praise-can-reinforce-stereotypes/

In our first experiment, involving 106 primary school teachers, we found that teachers tend to attribute the success of children from a low-SES background more to hard work, and to deliver more inflated praise such as “You did incredibly well!” Our second experiment involved 64 primary school children aged 10-13. Children learned that a classmate had received inflated praise while a child who had performed just as well had received modest praise or none at all. We found that children perceived the child who was praised more lavishly to be more hardworking but less smart.

4. An excellent feature from The Booker Prize people, interviews with all the International Booker Prize longlisted authors and their translators https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/interviews-with-the-international-booker-prize-2025-longlistees

5. And, finally, two short stories from The New Yorker to read and/or listen to read by the author

Five Bridges by Colm Tóibín https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/10/five-bridges-fiction-colm-toibin

Keuka Lake by Joseph O’Neill https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/03/keuka-lake-fiction-joseph-oneill