What We Are Reading Today: ‘Dragonflies and Damselflies of the World’

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Updated 14 November 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Dragonflies and Damselflies of the World’

Author: Klass-Douwe B. Dijkstra 

Airily dancing over rivers and ponds, the thousands of colorful dragonfly and damselfly species that cohabit our planet may seem of little importance. 
Few life-forms, however, convey the condition of the most limiting resource on land and life’s most bountiful environment as well as they can: while the adults are exceptional aerial hunters, their nymphs are all confined to freshwater.
“Dragonflies and Damselflies of the World” showcases their beauty and diversity while shedding light on how they evolved into the vital symbols of planetary health we celebrate today.


What We Are Reading Today: A Defence of Pretence by Indira Ghose

Updated 13 December 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: A Defence of Pretence by Indira Ghose

Is civility merely a matter of reinforcing status and exclud-ing others? Or is it a lubricant in a polarized world, enabling us to overcome tribal loyalties and cooperate for the common good? 
In “A Defence of Pretence,” Indira Ghose argues that it is both. 
Ghose turns to the drama of Shakespeare’s time to explore the notion of civility. The theater, she suggests, was a laboratory where many of the era’s conflicts played out. 
The plays test the precepts found in treatises on civility and show that, in the complexity and confusion of human life, moral purity is an illusion.