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When Prince Charles eventually becomes king, during ‘the most sacred part of the ceremony’ he will be anointed on his head, heart, shoulders, hands and elbows with ‘ambraegrisiae 3iiij’, a fragrant amber-coloured oil. Charles, a keen ecologist, will know this as ambergris, which comes from whales. That might worry him a bit. What may cause him more concern is that this nearly priceless substance (used by French parfumiers like Chanel, Dior and Givenchy), is actually extracted from, to use Philip Hoare’s exact words, ‘whale shit’.
Amazing? This tremendous book - not long enough in my voracious view - tells us many astonishing things about man’s most tremendous prey, the whale. John F Kennedy’s widow, for example, placed a whale tooth carved with the presidential seal in her assassinated husband’s coffin. Right now, as you read this, whale oil lubricates the Hubble Space Telescope, ‘while the Voyager probe spins into infinity playing the song of the humpback to greet any friendly aliens - who may wonder at our treatment of the species with which we share our planet’.

more from Literary Review here.

From The Washington Post:

If you’re clever enough, or hire the right accountants and financial wizards, you can actually dodge paying taxes. The big boys do it all the time. But death — that’s quite another matter. Pace cryonics, there’s no way of putting off forever what the philosopher Fontenelle — who lived to be 99 — called that ‘last unpleasant quarter hour.’ Sooner or later, all of us are going to close up shop. As Philip Larkin said in his mortality-haunted poem ‘Aubade,’ ‘Most things may never happen: this one will.’

Now in his early 60s, the novelist Julian Barnes tells us that he thinks about death every day, and periodically finds himself bolting upright from sleep screaming, ‘No, no, no.’ (Ah, yes: Been there, done that.) As its brilliant title punningly hints, Nothing to Be Frightened Of offers an extended meditation on human mortality, but one that is neither clinical nor falsely consoling. Instead, the witty and melancholy author of Flaubert’s Parrot and Arthur & George simply converses with us about our most universal fear:

‘For me, death is the one appalling fact which defines life; unless you are constantly aware of it, you cannot begin to understand what life is about; unless you know and feel that the days of wine and roses are limited, that the wine will madeirize and the roses turn brown in their stinking water before all are thrown out for ever — including the jug — there is no context to such pleasures and interests as come your way on the road to the grave. But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?’

More here.

Lori Gottlieb in the NYT Book Review:

Like many single women looking for love in New York, the journalist Anita Jain was fed up with the local dating scene. In 2005, Jain, who was then 32, wrote an article for New York magazine ­— ‘Is Arranged Marriage Really Any Worse Than Craigslist?’ — in which she wondered whether she should let her Indian relatives find her a husband.

It seemed tempting. What marriage-minded woman doesn’t dream of never having to walk into a singles bar again? Yet, while few modern Westerners would be willing to outsource their spousal selection (heck, most won’t even let their mothers set them up on a coffee date), Jain actually hopped on a plane to Delhi. It was the reverse journey her father had taken more than three decades earlier, when he left his homeland for America in search of better job opportunities. Jain, on the other hand, was going to India for what she hoped would be better dating opportunities.

And why not? As her mother would say of her own happy arranged marriage: ‘It’s not that there isn’t love. It’s just that it comes after marriage.’ Besides, while an American man might date a woman for years and still not know if he wants to marry her, Jain was eager to meet Indian men with ‘their clarity of intent.’ She would give herself one year, which she thought would be ample time in a country where ‘it would not be a stretch to say that ‘shaadi,’ the word for ‘marriage’ in many Indian languages, is the first word a child in an Indian family understands after mummy and papa.’

She lands instead in the New India, with its thriving club scene, casual hookups and men who tell you to have ‘no expectations.’ To her dismay, Jain finds herself back in ‘ego deflating’ dating territory: leaving groveling phone messages for an unresponsive boyfriend; having a date cancel at the last minute, only to run into him later on the street with another woman (‘It’s clear that, as they say, he’s just not that into me’); and trolling the Web site shaadi.com for eligible prospects (sadly, Indian men also lie about their age online). But not all tradition is lost. When Jain searches for an apartment, she struggles to find a landlord who will rent to a single woman.

Douglas Martin in the New York Times:

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the historian whose more than 20 books shaped discussions for two generations about America’s past, and who himself was a provocative, unabashedly liberal partisan, most notably while serving in the Kennedy White House, died Wednesday night in Manhattan. He was 89.

His death, at New York Downtown Hospital, was caused by a heart attack he suffered earlier during a family dinner at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse, his son Stephen said.Twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mr. Schlesinger exhaustively examined the administrations of two prominent presidents, Andrew Jackson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, against a vast background of regional and economic rivalries. He argued that strong individuals like Jackson and Roosevelt could bend history.

The notes he took for President John F. Kennedy, for the president’s use in writing his history, became, after Mr. Kennedy’s assassination, grist for Mr. Schlesinger’s own account, “A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House.” It won both the Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 1966.

More here.