From Smithsonian, an article on the surprising satisfactions of a home funeral. A review of SUM: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman. Why bad jokes are easier to remember than the good ones. Gertrude Himmelfarb reviews The Philosophers' Quarrel: Rousseau, Hume, and the Limits of Human Understanding by Robert Zaretsky and John T. Scott. An interview with Mahmood Mamdani, author of Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror (and more and more and more and a review by Alex de Waal). Can a simple idea help make the world a better place? Gregory Berns believes everyone should learn to play music. I'm not looking, honest: The good news is reality exists; the bad is it’s even stranger than people thought. A review of Rebuilding War-Torn States: The Challenge of Post-Conflict Economic

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