ANNE: It’s Women’s History Month, and I’ve been meditating on historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s famous quip, “well-behaved women seldom make history.” With that in mind, I picked up Kelly Barnhill’s “Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories.” Impossible to resist these fantastical stories of rebellious girls and women -- like Mrs. Sorenson, a Midwestern widow who rejects her human suitors and runs away with a giant furry Sasquatch. I’m also slowly working my way through Rachel Ignotofsky’s “Women in Science” postcards. They come in a boxed set of 100 and I read a new one every day. Today’s was Wang Zhenyi, astronomer, poet and mathematician.
Here’s one of her poems:
It’s made to believe
Women are the same as men; are you not convinced
Daughters can also be heroic?
STEVE: I’m reading Achille Mbembe’s book “Critique of Black Reason." He’s an African philosopher who examines how concepts of race have shaped modern thinking in ways we barely realize. It’s a fascinating counterpoint to Steven Pinker’s new book “Enlightenment Now,” which I’m also reading. Both books deal with the legacy of the Enlightenment, but they tell dramatically different histories.
CHARLES: Elon Musk is headed to Mars. His Tesla car, he claims, will save us all from global warming. Both ideas are powered with his lithium-ion battery. Musk got me thinking about old number three on the periodic table. Then I started thinking about lithium as a med and not a battery and ran into this little op-ed in the New York Times. It argues, like with fluoride, small amounts of lithium should be added to our water supply. The op-ed is serious. The argument is intriguing. It inspired me to do a one-hour TTBOOK (later in March) called “Can Lithium Save the World?”
HALEEMA: I’ll soon be traveling to Pakistan, and I’m trying to read as many modern Pakistani authors as possible. Right now, I’m reading Rafia Zakaria’s book "The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan," which weaves Pakistan’s political history with the story of Zakaria’s aunt, who is faced with her husband’s decision to take a second wife.
SHANNON: I'm reading “Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship” by Kayleen Schaefer. It makes me grateful for the all-women book groups, cooking clubs and real friendships I've had in Washington DC, Denver and Madison.
MARK: Aside from thinking it would make a great band name, the "Russian bot panic" has been the subject of some excellent reporting on Buzzfeed News this week. Like the fear over Russian influence campaigns on Facebook, fixating entirely on foreign actors attempting to influence our politics from afar makes for a better story, but the reality is that these social networks are rife with brands, political figures and "influencers" trying to nudge us toward buying, thinking, or feeling more in line with what they want. None of them has immediate, hypnotic sway — enough to change your vote completely — but all are shaping what's floating through our minds day-to-day. It has me thinking about what might need to change if that notion makes us uneasy. The first step? Understanding more about how social media platforms can be used to influence us.