What We Are Reading Today: God Save Benedict Arnold by Jack Kelly

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Updated 10 January 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: God Save Benedict Arnold by Jack Kelly

Benedict Arnold committed treason — for more than two centuries, that’s all that most Americans have known about him.

Yet Arnold was much more than a turncoat—his achievements during the early years of the Revolutionary War defined him as the most successful soldier of the era. 

Jack Kelly’s “God Save Benedict Arnold” does not exonerate him for his treason but his insightful exploration of Arnold’s career as a warrior shines a new light on this gutsy, fearless, and enigmatic figure. 

In the process, the book offers a fresh perspective on the reasons for Arnold’s momentous change of heart.


Book Review: ‘The Hidden Vegetables Cookbook’

Updated 31 July 2025
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Book Review: ‘The Hidden Vegetables Cookbook’

  • The goal is not to push green smoothies onto reluctant palates. Instead, Herman leans into comfort food — soups, bakes, pastas, and even desserts — where vegetables are quietly worked in

“I hate vegetables,” Heidi Herman writes in the opening to “The Hidden Vegetables Cookbook: 90 Tasty Recipes for Veggie-Averse Adults.”

That bold admission hooked me from the first page and set the tone for Herman’s book which will be released in September. Arab News received an advance copy of the publication for review.

The cookbook offers nearly 100 clever recipes crafted and curated specifically for adults who want the nutritional benefits of vegetables, but perhaps without the taste or texture.

Herman is not writing this book for exhausted parents sneaking in healthier ingredients for their finicky toddlers. These recipes are meant for grown-ups who want to mindfully devour nutritious and delicious dishes with complex flavors and creative combinations.

Think banana muffins with riced cauliflower and ginger, Salisbury steak with spinach-laced brown gravy, enchiladas with stealthy carrots and onions, and a delectable chocolate cake made with undetectable zucchini.

The goal is not to push green smoothies onto reluctant palates. Instead, Herman leans into comfort food — soups, bakes, pastas, and even desserts — where vegetables are quietly worked in.

Growing up, Herman rarely thought about food or nutrition. Her breakfasts were usually rushed — grabbing whatever was readily available, lunch was usually from the school cafeteria, and dinner often from a boxed meal like Hamburger Helper.

Her Icelandic mother called vegetables “rabbit food” and they rarely served them at home, relying instead on seafood and dairy.

In addition, “Greens” were such a foreign concept that when her mother’s doctor once told her to add more to her diet, she jokingly bought a bag of M&M’s chocolate bits and picked out all the green ones to fulfill that serving.

That vegetable avoidance was passed down to Herman.

Also contributing to the book is Rhonda Thornton, a US National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach.

Thornton, who works with adults struggling to eat healthier, believes the secret lies in incorporating vegetables gradually and without pressure, like when stirred into sauces, baked into muffins or folded into familiar dishes.

This book is for anyone who grew up coating broccoli in a blanket of cheese or avoiding the vegetable section altogether.

It is also for anyone who wants to try to make smarter choices in the kitchen for the sake of their health, and to maybe devise some fun culinary experiments in the meantime.
 


What We Are Reading Today: The Colony and the Company by Malick W. Ghachem

Updated 30 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: The Colony and the Company by Malick W. Ghachem

In the early 18th century, France turned to its New World colonies to help rescue the monarchy from the wartime debts of Louis XIV. This short-lived scheme ended in the first global stock market crash, known as the Mississippi Bubble. Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) was indelibly marked by the crisis, given its centrality in the slave-trading monopoly controlled by the French East Indies Company. 
Rising prices for enslaved people and devaluation of the Spanish silver supply triggered a diffuse rebellion that broke the company’s monopoly and paved the way for what planters conceived as “free trade.” 

In “The Colony and the Company”, Malick Ghachem describes how the crisis that began in financial centers abroad reverberated throughout Haiti. Beginning on the margins of white society before spreading to wealthy planters, the revolt also created political openings for Jesuit missionaries and people of color. 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Regime Question’

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Updated 29 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Regime Question’

Author: Amel Ahmed

The regime question—often boiled down to “democracy or autocracy?”—has been central to democratic politics from the start.

This has entailed not only fights over the extent of the franchise but also, crucially, ongoing struggles over core principles of democracy, the “rules of the game.”

In this timely study, Amel Ahmed examines the origins and development of the regime question in Western democracies and considers the implications for regime contention today.

She argues that battles over the regime question were so foundational and so enduring that they constitute a dimension of politics that polarized political opponents across the regime divide.

Ahmed investigates four historical cases in the study of democratic development: the United Kingdom between the Reform Act of 1832 and World War II (1832–1939), Imperial and Weimar–era Germany (1876–1933), the French Third Republic (1870–1939), and the US before World War II (1789–1939). 

 


What We Are Reading Today: Himalaya: A Human History

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Updated 28 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: Himalaya: A Human History

  • The book offers a panoramic, character-driven history on the grandest yet most human scale, encompassing geology and genetics, botany and art

Author: Ed Douglas

This is the first major history of the Himalaya: an epic story of peoples, cultures and adventures among the world’s highest mountains.

Spanning millennia, from its earliest inhabitants to the present conflicts over Tibet and Everest, Himalaya is a soaring account of resilience and conquest, discovery and plunder, oppression and enlightenment at the “roof of the world.”

The Himalaya has throughout the ages been home to an astonishing diversity of indigenous and local cultures, and a meeting point and conflict zone for the world’s superpowers, according to a review on goodreads.com.

The book offers a panoramic, character-driven history on the grandest yet most human scale, encompassing geology and genetics, botany and art.

 


Review: ‘Citizen Sleeper 2’ is narrative gaming at its best

Updated 28 July 2025
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Review: ‘Citizen Sleeper 2’ is narrative gaming at its best

DUBAI: The sequel to one of indie gaming’s most beloved narrative gems, Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, proves that lightning can strike twice. Again featuring an imaginative space setting, the dice-driven roleplaying game thrives on subtle storytelling that feels both intimate and epic.

In Citizen Sleeper 2, you step once more into the worn metal frame of a Sleeper — a synthetic body powered by a digitized human consciousness, stripped of its original memories. While the first game saw you fleeing the corporate entity that created you, the sequel shifts gears. This time, you are a Sleeper who has broken free from the chemical leash of Stabilizer only to find yourself bound by another kind of chain — indentured to ruthless gang boss Laine, trading one form of control for another.

What sets Citizen Sleeper 2 apart is its ability to make every choice matter without bombarding the player with flashy moral prompts. Conversations feel organic, decisions ripple outwards with quiet but devastating impact and the characters are drawn with nuance and compassion.

The gameplay remains as relaxing as it is engrossing. The dice mechanic returns, offering a meditative rhythm of planning and risk, but there is added depth in how resources, relationships and time must be balanced.

As the hours pass, the stakes rise. What begins as a personal quest for survival grows into a meditation on community, identity and the cost of freedom. By the time the credits roll, Citizen Sleeper 2 feels less like a game you played and more like a story you lived.

It is narrative-driven gaming at its best.