What We're Reading

Preeti Aroon

• "The Most Important Trends of 2007," in BusinessWeek. From toxic toys to $100 oil to social networking, this slide show recaps the trends and fads that have defined 2007.

Mike Boyer

• "How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power," by Robin McKie in The Guardian. Can a $10 billion solar power project in the African desert supply one-sixth of Europe's power?

Christine Chen

• Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter, by Phoebe Damrosch, a former server at Chef Thomas Keller's Per Se restaurant in Manhattan. It's the best behind-the-scenes restaurant book since Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential.

Blake Hounshell

• Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: A Biography. Edward Rice's profile of the Victorian age's most colorful explorer and spy reveals a man with a hands-on interest in foreign sexual practices, obsessed with obscure languages, and surprisingly receptive to early Mormonism. Burton's wife, Isabel, wasn't too impressed by his intellectual defenses of polygamy, however.

Prerna Mankad

• "Taking sport seriously," in Prospect. David Goldbatt argues that it's high time athletics be accorded the same cultural weight as regular performing arts. With half of humanity tuned in, he writes, the World Cup finals are "the greatest collective experience in history" and the Olympic Games are "the most significant global celebration of internationalism."