What We Are Reading Today: City of Light: The Making of Modern Paris

Updated 08 December 2018
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What We Are Reading Today: City of Light: The Making of Modern Paris

Author: Rupert Christiansen

Author Rupert Christiansen provides a sparkling account of the 19th-century reinvention of Paris as the most beautiful, exciting city in the world, in his book — “City of Light: The Making of Modern Paris.”
“City of Light” charts a 15-year project of urban renewal which — despite the interruptions of war, revolution, corruption, and bankruptcy — set a template for 19th- and early 20th-century urban planning and created the enduring landscape of modern Paris now so famous around the globe.
“Lively and engaging, ‘City of Light’ is a book for anyone who wants to know how Paris became Paris,” according to a review in goodreads.com.
Christiansen is an English writer, journalist and critic.
Born in London, he was educated at Millfield and King’s College, Cambridge, where he took a double first in English.
As a Fulbright scholar, he also attended Columbia University from 1977 to 1978.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Planetary Climates’

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Updated 26 December 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Planetary Climates’

  • As this book makes clear, the better we can understand how various planetary climates formed and evolved, the better we can understand Earth’s climate history and future

Author: ANDREW INGERSOLL 

This concise, sophisticated introduction to planetary climates explains the global physical and chemical processes that determine climate on any planet or major planetary satellite—from Mercury to Neptune and even large moons such as Saturn’s Titan.

Although the climates of other worlds are extremely diverse, the chemical and physical processes that shape their dynamics are the same.

As this book makes clear, the better we can understand how various planetary climates formed and evolved, the better we can understand Earth’s climate history and future.