From The Threepenny Review, P. N. Furban on altruism, selfishness, and genes; Clifford Thompson on Mingus, Marcus, and us; and an appreciation of Susan Sontag's Under the Sign of Saturn. More and more on Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 by Susan Sontag (and more from Bookforum). From Women's Review of Books, a review of Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns by Erika Falk; a review of Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families Under The Law by Nancy Polikoff; a review of The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics by Riane Eisler; a review of Playing with the Boys: Why Separate Is Not Equal by Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappano; and a review of books on the awesome body. From Archeology, Olduvai, evolution, and Darwin: An interview with philanthropist David H. Koch. From TAS, a review of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War by H. W. Crocker III; a review of Funding Fathers: The Unsung Heroes of the Conservative Movement by Nicole Hoplin and Ron Robinson; and you may think scanning the Acknowledgments page first is like reading the weddings in the New York Times' "Sunday Styles" section before hitting the news. The future has begun: Vertical farms will take eating local to the next level — but are they safe?  A review of Epistemology and Emotions.

A new issue of NBER Digest is out. From Unbound, Slavoj Zizek (Ljubljana): Legal Luck; Mladen Dolar (Ljubljana): Freud and the Political; Maria Rosaria Marella (Perugia): Radicalism, Resistance, and the Structures of Family Law; Kambiz Behi (Columbia): The “Real” in Resistance: Transgression of Law as Ethical Act; Irene Gendzier (BU): Does Knowing Matter? U.S. Congressional Records and the Arming of Iraq; and Hamid Dabashi (Columbia): The American Empire: Triumph of Triumphalism. From Touchstone, a review of Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America by Matthew Avery Sutton; a review of What’s So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D’Souza; and a review of God's Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe's Religious Crisis by Philip Jenkins. A review of books on Pope Benedict XVI. An interview with Andrew Nikiforuk, author of Pandemonium: Bird Flu, Mad Cow Disease, and Other Biological Plagues of the 21st Century. A review of Ryan Seacrest Is Famous by Dave Housley. A review of Bernard-Henri Levy's Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism. A review of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben and Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger (and a response).  

Ilan Pappe (Haifa): Histories and Historians in Israel & Palestine. From Guernica, the daughter of a Jewish-American peace negotiator narrates the drama of her father’s surprisingly — and perhaps inappropriately — close relationship with Yasir Arafat; and a conversation with Irshad Manji and Edgar M. Bronfman on challenging their respective religions to embrace doubt, democracy, and openness. From Tricycle, a review of China's Tibet? Autonomy or Assimilation by Warren W Smith, Jr; here's an introduction to Zen; an interview with Mark and Taitetsu Unno on the subtle wisdom at the heart of Pure Land Buddhist practice; Adam Frank ponders the relationship between Buddhism and the nature of time; to Zen nun and animal-welfare journalist Mira Tweti, Buddhism is indeed for the birds; and which Buddhist Personality Type are you? Is the Special Olympics discriminating against the kids it's supposed to help? From PopMatters, free-for-all shows are like a "cool" parent trying to be your friend, instead of your authority figure; and are CNN journalists writing news headlines these days, or t-shirt slogans? From Tikkun, an essay on the irresponsibility of Thomas Friedman. Literary witness in a world of terror: Nadine Gordimer on the inward testimony (and a review of Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black at Bookforum). A review of Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin by Nicholas Ostler. 

From Folio, from Internet nickels to digital dollars: Conde Nast and others are on a push to finally make digital work. Netizens and the news business are locked in a mutually destructive death spiral — can anything arrest the decline? The Kindle Revolution: Digital readers will save writers and publishing, even if they destroy the book business. A look at why books aren't dying and why the end of newspapers is not the end of news. What comes after a golden age? Reports of the impending death of print are greatly exaggerated. The economy of reading is rapidly collapsing — if we can bail out banks, why not the book industry? From Fortune, someday you may be reading your newspaper on an e-paper device, a thin piece of plastic the size of a legal pad that can be taken to the beach or on the train — that day may be a lot closer than you think; and here's a defense of Obama's budget. A look at five hidden (and possibly real) agendas in Obama's new budget. Know your right-wing speakers: Though more conservative than Republican, the Washington Post columnist George Will is no stranger to getting it wrong.   A review of How We Decide: How the Brain Makes Up its Mind by Jonah Lehrer (and more and more and more and more; and from Bookforum, a review of Lehrer's Proust Was a Neuroscientist). More on The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman.