Books and Arts; Book Review;Political philosophy; Mightier than the sword;
文艺；书评；政治哲学；雄文胜武；

The collected thoughts on this, that and the other of two clever men;
两位智者对于世间百态的思想汇聚；

When writers are grand enough, they can produce books by recycling their journalism, lectures, academic papers and other jottings. Sometimes that can seem dated and lazy. Sometimes it is a treat: the assorted pieces come together to create a great mosaic. Neither “Facts are Subversive” by Timothy Garton Ash, an Oxford-based writer and academic, nor “Gray's Anatomy” by John Gray, a political philosopher, fall into the first trap (or at least very rarely). They are both good reads. But neither quite reaches the goal of the whole being more interesting than the parts.

当作者之声名足够显赫时，他们只需将其新闻稿件、讲演录、学术论文以及其他只言片语回炉再加工一番，新书便告完成。有时，这种做法似乎是在偷工减料地翻炒冷饭；有时，它却为读者奉上一场新的盛宴：混杂的碎片化零为整，一幅伟大的镶嵌作品从中诞生。无论是由身处牛津的作家与学者——提摩西·加顿·阿什所著之《事实方具颠覆性》，还是政治哲学家约翰·格雷的作品——《格雷剖析录》，都未陷入前一种窘境（至少基本上如此），两者皆为优秀的读物；不过，它们也未完全实现令整体胜于部分的目标。

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