Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There

Tali Sharot, Cass R. Sunstein
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This “smart and fun read, and a valuable way to revitalize your life” (Walter Isaacson) deftly explains how disrupting our well-worn routines, both good and bad, can rejuvenate and reset our brains for the better.

Have you ever noticed that what is exciting on Monday tends to become boring on Friday? Even passionate relationships, stimulating jobs, and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while. As easy as it is to stop noticing what is most wonderful in our lives, it’s also possible to stop noticing what is terrible. People get used to dirty air. They become unconcerned by their own misconduct, blind to inequality, and are more liable to believe misinformation than ever before.

Now, neuroscience professor Tali Sharot and Harvard law professor (and presidential advisor) Cass R. Sunstein investigate why we stop noticing both the great and not-so-great things around us and how to “dishabituate” at the office, in the bedroom, at the store, on social media, and in the voting booth.

This groundbreaking and “sensational guide to a more psychological rich life” (Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author), based on decades of research, illuminates how we can reignite the sparks of joy, innovate, and recognize where improvements urgently need to be made. The key to this disruption—to seeing, feeling, and noticing again—is change. By temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people you interact with—or even just stepping back and imagining change—you regain sensitivity, allowing you to identify more clearly the bad and more deeply appreciate the good.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

外出用餐 : 一部橫跨兩千年的外出飲食文化史 (The Restaurant)

威廉．席特維爾 (William Sitwell)
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從兩千年前的龐貝城酒館，到中世紀法國高級餐廳；
從墨西哥塔可餅機的改良，到日本迴轉壽司輸送帶的發明……

當餐廳不只是餐廳，外出用餐不只是填飽肚子這麼簡單──
庶民飲食╳政治角力╳帝國秩序╳移民經濟
飲食偏好╳餐桌禮儀╳待客之道╳文化禁忌

飲食早已成為一個民族或地區文化的象徵，不同菜肴在歷史上的變遷也悄悄記錄了不同文化的交融，小小的餐館也是人類歷史的博物館。

現代人對於外出用餐已習以為常，只因為餐廳本身已不只是最原始的「用餐」功能，它提供了更多的社交應酬、商業談判、生活所需、情感調劑等實際功能。從更深層的一面來探討，外出用餐與餐廳的存在意義，反映了當代社會、及與其對應的歷史、經濟、文化發展等關係。

餐廳的出現不只被視為是飲食場地的變化、不只是被當成空間工具，更重要的是同時標示著一個國家、甚至是帝國的衰敗或成功。例如龐貝城的外出用餐場景，象徵羅馬帝國的願景、幅員遼闊和繁榮富庶。第二次世界大戰後的英國餐廳則充分顯示了戰爭衝突的恐怖和國力瓦解是如何殘害該國的美食文化和味覺。

而現代世界的交通便利和旅行發達，意味著餐廳已足夠成為人們旅行的理由。餐廳就像博物館、藝術、夜店或海灘，成為人們沉浸於各種文化的絕佳選項。英國作家尼古拉斯．蘭德（Nicholas Lander）就曾說：「菜單代表最便宜的旅行方式。」

由此可知，外出用餐已是一種文化現象。人們會被誘惑進餐廳是因為他們肚子餓，而人們尋找餐廳也為了其他理由：碰面、社交、做生意、與愛人發展浪漫關係，甚至將它當成政治角力的場所。這些訪客會餓著肚子去餐廳，但追求經驗的渴望和需要，卻遠比飢餓本身更為複雜。

作者席特維爾以「餐廳」為引，點出了我們忽略的歷史細節、生活細節，講述了一部有關全球社會發展的歷史，深入探討長達二千年的飲食歷史，從最基本到最複雜的飲食形式，追溯外出用餐文化的起源，揭示世界各地不同的社會如何發現外出用餐的樂趣，同時也追溯流行如何形塑我們外出用餐的方式。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

Zoë Schlanger
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“A masterpiece of science writing.” –Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass

“Rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it!” –Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom, “destabilizing not just how we see the green things of the world but also our place in the hierarchy of beings, and maybe the notion of that hierarchy itself.” (The New Yorker)

It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents.

The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.

What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is.

We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for—if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants—and our own place—in the natural world.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

這個動盪的世界

龍應台
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和平的希望像個肥皂泡泡，一吹就破？
走過東柏林、莫斯科、加薩走廊、耶路撒冷、哈瓦那
龍應台親歷「現場」的活生生的文字
讓你看見，原來殘酷和暴力，都有脈絡來源……

三十年前我在現場見證冷戰的結束。
今天卻目睹冷戰死灰復燃，甚且漫天烽火。
難道三十年前的抉擇和期待，都太天真了嗎？

◆從動盪走向動盪
今天的世界何其動盪：俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭，哈馬斯突擊以色列，以色列摧毀加薩走廊……
可是三十年前，柏林圍牆崩塌使百萬人欣喜淚流。蘇聯帝國解體而二十萬人在莫斯科沸騰。以色列的母親們，聚集街頭，為和平祈禱。
強烈的吶喊和期待，對證今天的殘酷，差距為什麼如此巨大？
龍應台當年親歷現場的文字，今日讀來如同預言，讓此刻許多難以理解的事情，頓時分明起來。
然而同時，龍應台的文字，總能讓人在最大的殘酷之中看見人最謙卑、最樸素的情感。

將二十一世紀前夕走過歷史「現場」的文章重新整理出來，作者提出一個深沉的問題：
「會不會是因為，在我們為某一種價值的肯定施放煙火、滿城歡騰的時候，我們忘記了一件事：在一個特定結構中，一部分人的獲得，往往是另一部分人的失去，某一種價值的肯定，往往是另一種價值的否定；三十年後，那些被我們忘記了、忽略了、甚至踩在腳下的人，緊抱著他慘痛失去了的價值，衝上前來，造成新的暴力？」

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

What Went Wrong with Capitalism

Ruchir Sharma
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A century of expanding government has distorted financial markets, stoked massive inequality, and soaked America in debt.

Capitalism didn’t fail, it was ruined...

What went wrong with capitalism? Ruchir Sharma’s account is not like any you will have heard before. He says progressives are right, in part, when they mock modern capitalism as “socialism for the rich.” For a century, governments have expanded in just about every measurable dimension, from spending to regulation and the scale of financial rescues when the economy wobbles. The result is expensive state guarantees for everyone—bailouts for the rich, entitlements for the middle class, welfare for the poor.

Taking you back to the 19th century, Sharma shows how completely the reflexes of government have changed: from hands-off to hands-on, from doing too little to help anyone in hard times to today trying to prevent anyone suffering any economic pain, ever. Trading sins of omission and indifference for excesses of spending and meddling, governments from the United States to Europe and Japan have pumped so much money into their economies that financial markets can no longer invest all that capital efficiently.

Inadvertently, they have fueled the rise of monopolies, “zombie” firms, and billionaires. They have made capitalism less fair and less efficient, which is slowing economic growth and fueling popular anger. The first step to a cure is a correct diagnose of the problem. Capitalism has been badly distorted by constant government intervention and the relentless spread of a bailout culture. Building an even bigger state will only double down on what ruined capitalism in the first place.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

彌敦道上 : 金光舊夢換新顏

編者： 鄭宏泰 , 周文港
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用港督名字命名的彌敦道（Nathan Road）乃九龍半島的大動脈，自修築至落成使用起，九龍半島日漸繁盛起來，成為車水馬龍的金光大道。

本書是關於彌敦道的故事，匯聚多位學者和歷史專家的文章，配以多幅歷史照片，從城市節奏、文化遺產、街角故事、衣食住行四個部份，呈現九龍半島特別是彌敦道的發展面貌、人情逸事及文化沉澱等方面一個多世紀以來的轉變。由尖沙咀地標東英大廈背後有關何東胞弟的謎團、新世界中心以至天星小輪的發跡故事，到彌敦道休憩公園東側防空隧道說起的懸案等等。走在彌敦道上，一步一故事。本書帶你重溫一遍金光舊夢，並藉此說明香港一路走來的不凡經歷。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)