What We Are Reading Today: Shakespeare Was a Woman

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Updated 21 June 2023
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What We Are Reading Today: Shakespeare Was a Woman

Author: Elizabeth Winkler

In “Shakespeare Was a Woman,” journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo. 

Whisking readers from London to Stratford-upon-Avon to Washington, DC, she pulls back the curtain to show how the forces of nationalism and empire, religion and mythmaking, gender and class have shaped our admiration for Shakespeare across the centuries as she explores who may perhaps have been hiding behind his name. 

Hovering over the mystery are Shakespeare’s plays themselves, with their love for mistaken identities, disguises, and things never quite being what they seem.


Book Review: ‘The Hidden Life of Trees’ by Peter Wohlleben

Updated 03 July 2025
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Book Review: ‘The Hidden Life of Trees’ by Peter Wohlleben

“The Hidden Life of Trees” is a controversial 2015 book by German author Peter Wohlleben, who argues that trees communicate with each other as well as feel.

Wohlleben presents the idea that forests are a living social network — claiming that trees have ties akin to families, which they care for and help grow in their own way.

According to the author, trees use underground fungal networks to share nutrients with other trees to help them recover from disease and thrive.

It is a contentious claim, supported in part by academics including from the University of Portsmouth, which has published research showing that mature plants help smaller plants thrive in harsh environmental conditions.

Another article from BBC Earth supports some of Wohlleben’s claims, describing how some trees can use their senses to “hear” predators through vibrations in the ground or “smell” other plants by detecting chemical indicators.

An additionally curious aspect of the book is its ideas about complex tree communication methods. It also talks about different factors that play a role in their growth, like fungi, insects and birds.

The author goes to great lengths, moreover, to push the idea that securing healthy forests through sustainable practices helps the wider environment flourish.

However, the book has come in for significant criticism, with Sharon Kingsland, writing in the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, suggesting it is aimed at “lay” readers rather than forestry scientists, many of whom Wohlleben has “infuriated” by “eliciting an emotional response from readers through (the book’s) powers of suggestion.”

Kingsland says the author tends to anthropomorphize trees, whilst noting a 2017 petition launched by two German scientists calling on colleagues to criticize the book received over 4,500 signatures, calling it a “conglomeration of half-truths, biased judgements, and wishful thinking.”

Despite this, “The Hidden Life of Trees” is a great read for people who want to see nature in a new light, as it sets out a path to view trees not as inanimate commodities, but as ecosystems with needs which, if met, will have wider benefits for the planet.


What We Are Reading Today: Bad Company by Megan Greenwell

Updated 03 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: Bad Company by Megan Greenwell

Megan Greenwell’s “Bad Company” tells the hidden story of private equity through the experiences of four American workers who watched as private equity upended their employers.
Greenwell pulls back the curtain on shadowy multibillion dollar companies like Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital, and KKR, telling a larger story about how private equity is reshaping the economy, disrupting communities, and hollowing out the very idea of the American dream itself.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘What Do You Want Out of Life?’ by Valerie Tiberius

Updated 02 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘What Do You Want Out of Life?’ by Valerie Tiberius

What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money—or work for justice? To have children—or travel the world? The things we care about in life—family, friendship, leisure activities, work, our moral ideals—often conflict, preventing us from doing what matters most to us.

Even worse, we don’t always know what we really want, or how to define success. Blending personal stories, philosophy, and psychology, this insightful and entertaining book offers invaluable advice about living well by understanding your values and resolving the conflicts that frustrate their fulfillment.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Wildlife of the Eastern Caribbean’

Updated 01 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Wildlife of the Eastern Caribbean’

Authors: Steve Holliday and Gill Holliday

This is the first photographic field identification guide to Eastern Caribbean birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, land crabs, dragonflies, and butterflies.

Beautiful and easy-to-use, the guide covers 17 island groups stretching from the Virgin Islands south through the Lesser Antilles, from Anguilla to Grenada, where a unique range of flora and fauna evolved in relative isolation.

Around 30 percent of all the species included are endemic to the region. 

For each island group there is a list of endemic and “don’t miss” species.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘African Modernism’

Updated 30 June 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘African Modernism’

Edited by: Manuel Herz

The late 1950s and early 1960s saw a large number of central and sub-Saharan African countries gaining independence, and one of the key ways in which they expressed their newly established national identity was through distinctive architecture.

Parliament buildings, stadiums, universities, central banks, convention halls, and other major public buildings and housing projects were built in daring, even heroic designs.

“African Modernism” takes a close look at the relationship between these cutting-edge architectural projects, according to a review on goodreads.com. The book will be of interest to historians of architecture and students alike.