Boston Globe: Books

Francis Galton, the Englishman who coined the phrase “nature versus nurture,’’ believed smart people were born smart and dumb people were born dumb.

Regardless of the loaded subjects Hanif Kureishi has addressed in his work — from the interracial, homosexual love story in “My Beautiful Laundrette’’ to the emotional brutality of a man’s extramarital affair in “Intimacy’’ — his tone always remains cool and measured.

Hugh Raffles, who teaches anthropology at the New School, finds a world of wonder in the smallest creatures. He is as fascinated by high-stakes cricket fighting in China as he is by the complex interrelationship between locusts, feast, and famine in Africa.

TODAY: Lawrence Rosenwald discusses “Emerson’s Journals,” at 3 p.m., Concord Bookshop . . . Vera Pavlova reads from “If There is Something to Desire: Poems,’’ at 3 p.m., Pierre Menard Art Gallery, Cambridge .

Excerpted from the book "Three Wishes: A True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak, and Astonishing Luck on Our Way to Love and Motherhood," by Carey Goldberg, Beth Jones, and Pamela Ferdinand.

NEW YORK — Barnes & Noble changed chief executives yesterday, elevating the president of its website to lead the company, a surprise move that highlights the importance of digital books to the bookseller’s future.

On March 18, 1990, two men dressed as police officers showed up at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum just after midnight. They were buzzed inside after telling the night guard they were investigating a disturbance.

The 20th anniversary of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft — in which two still-unknown thieves walked away with $500 million in masterpieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer — conjures up images straight out of a Hollywood heist scene:

Brace yourselves, folks, it’s Mailer time. An affectionate look at the Great Man, “Mornings With Mailer,’’ written by Dwayne Raymond, his final personal assistant, came out in January.

Helen Simonson’s marvelous first novel is a quiet but far from uneventful social comedy. Frank Delaney has written a big, entertaining, and very Irish coming-of-age story.