Stories of people, past, present and future: Books in short
Sleep Works
Sebastian P. Klinger Johns Hopkins Univ. Press (2025)
Before the publication of the first study of electroencephalography in 1929, sleep science did not exist. Sleep was a mystery; Sigmund Freud excluded it from his study of dreams of 1899. However, doctors, drug manufacturers and writers struggling with insomnia, such as Franz Kafka and Marcel Proust, were very interested in sleep during these 30 years. These three groups concern the cultural historian and literary scholar Sebastian Klinger, who reflects in a committing book “What kind of activity is sleep?” Sleeping? How can we represent sleep?
Toxic tropics
Jessica forgotten and al. Street noise books (2025)
CHLINDECONE is an obsolete insecticide produced for the first time in the United States in 1966. Although it was prohibited in 1976, some countries used it for more decades. Until 1993, France allowed its use for the cultivation of bananas in Guadeloupe and Martinique, where it was found in water, soils and crops – and 92 to 95% of people. The journalist Jessica forgotten captures, through the eyes of her family and other islanders, as well as scientists and politicians, this complex and cancer story in her graphic novel of investigation, illustrated by three artists.
The problem with old DNA
Anna Källen Univ. Chicago Press (2025)
The appearance of ancient DNA is obvious, writes the archaeologist Anna Källen – less than her traps. Thanks to archive files, it has traced its ancestry to Christian mysticism of the 14th century Saint Bridget. But it is impossible to confirm their relationship, because the remains of Bridget, if they are indeed his own, contain only a few hundred of the three billion bases in the human genome. And prehistoric samples are even more delicate. “When we write history with ancient DNA, we are actors and stories leaders,” concludes his intriguing book.
Live forever?
John S. Tregoning A world (2025)
