Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Reason
Reason
Katherine Mangu-Ward

Review: Egg Is a Theory of Everything

As a fan of the "theory of everything through the lens of a single commodity" genre, I knew I would like Lizzie Stark's Egg: A Dozen Ovatures. The timing couldn't be better for a book about the suddenly pricey staple. I do not share Stark's variant of feminism—she celebrates the egging of a statue of Margaret Thatcher and describes industrial egg harvesting for science as "the theft of a female body's labor"—but the book blends the personal and the scholarly in appealing ways.

Perhaps due to the pun in the subtitle, I unfairly assumed this would be one of the field's fluffier entries. Instead, from the "cosmic egg" of humanity's creation myths to "space eggs" struggling in orbit, these 12 thematic chapters are dense and rich—like flan, but good.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.