A fixture in England and on the Western world’s literary landscape, the TLS is a weekly book review journal with a reputation for being a bit dowdy — less progressive than The London Review of Books, a biweekly, and less agile than the books section of The Guardian, to name two of its competitors.
Yet the TLS, founded in 1902, occupies a stalwart position in the book world. It puts serious reviewers on scholarly books other publications rarely touch. It has published important criticism by everyone from Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot to Mary Beard and Clive James, as well as major poetry from figures like Philip Larkin and Seamus Heaney.
I’m not alone in thinking that kisses are unromantic and overrated: Over half of the world’s cultures don’t kiss romantically. It simply doesn’t have to be like this. Kiss scientists—a job title only a notch less creepy than "pick-up artist"— have suggested two theories about kissing. Either it’s something biologically inherent, like smiling, that comes from moms “kiss feeding” their babies (a.k.a. regurgitating food into their child’s mouth—the absolute zenith of romance). Kissing may also have been a way for early hominids to smell each others’ saliva to see if their pheromones were compatible, which seems like a risk in a time before oral hygiene, when everyone in your tribe fought over a long-dead rabbit carcass for lunch.
Humans have long trapped animals in cages, nets and snares, but the tangled webs of vanity, curiosity, cruelty and fear we cast over other creatures may be even more perilous. We see our virtues and vices reflected in animals — hardworking beavers, indolent sloths, innocent lambs, greedy vultures — through a glass darkly. But these well-worn clichés blind us to a world far more dazzling and varied, according to Lucy Cooke, the acclaimed zoology-trained author and documentary filmmaker, in her new book, “The Truth About Animals.” As she writes, “Painting the animal kingdom with our artificial ethical brush denies us the astonishing diversity of life, in all of its blood-drinking, sibling-eating, corpse-shagging glory.” (Yes, corpse shagging. The penguin portion is not for the faint of heart.)
The M.I.T. professor Alan Lightman has produced a highly personal polemic targeting the subversive impact on civilization of the increasingly frenetic pace of life. His book, “In Praise of Wasting Time,” proposes “that half our waking minds be designated and saved for quiet reflection.” Failure to heed his recommendation, Professor Lightman warns, will result in the collective destruction of “our inner selves and our creative capacities.”
Straight away, I think it is in the common interests of transparency and full disclosure to tell you that over the last few weeks since I — and I fear this is no coincidence! — began reading the book that is the subject of this review, there has been a gradual, yet very distinct, change in my outlook, demeanor and even my worldview. My life has assumed an overreaching hue that can be described only, and I do mean be described only as, well, Sedarian.
Still, despite and perhaps a little because of its lackadaisical approach to its subject, “Live Work Work Work Die” manages to capture something essential about Silicon Valley that has eluded other authors. This is because Pein starts from the grimy underbelly of tech and never makes it out, which accurately reflects the experience of many tech workers. We only learn of those who make it big — Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. We rarely hear of the people who fail, or work uselessly and endlessly hard, without much in the way of reward.