Masterpieces: Plural Wow, wow, wow. I cannot praise Jared Diamond’s most recent book enough. It is astonishing that, more than two decades after publishing his groundbreaking bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, and after publishing numerous other cutting-edge, hard-hitting books, and while in his 80s, he has published yet another masterpiece. I do not use these words lightly. Trust me—I would...
In the 1700s, the world was opening up to Western explorers. Plants from all over the world were arriving in England, and they all seemed wonderfully exotic. A few Englishmen were enthralled. They dedicated their lives to learning about plants from diverse continents, scientifically classifying them, and growing them in gardens and on estates. As Andrea Wulf explains in her...
Yep, tomorrow is the first day of Black History Month, 2020! And I’d like to kick off the celebration a day early with a preview of one of the most amazing and powerful books I’ve ever read. I know, I know. I say that about (almost!) every book I preview on this blog. But this one’s really special. Extraordinary. Never...
The memoir Educated, by Tara Westover, has been getting a lot of buzz lately. I’m here to tell you that all of the hype is rightfully bestowed. Wow, do I have a book recommendation for you! Honestly, I read the last two-thirds of the book in one day. I had planned to do other things with the day. But I...
Not long ago, as I explained last week, I discovered a perfect novel. Virtually simultaneously, I made another discovery: a perfect nonfiction book. (I’m on a roll!) So what does a perfect nonfiction book look like? Well, the purpose of nonfiction is to illuminate real-world phenomena. It follows that a perfect nonfiction book would illuminate, incredibly clearly, not just one...
Today I’d like to share with you an example of the importance of getting the words right. The language we use is immensely consequential in not just how we think about real-world issues, but also how we handle those issues as a society: how much money is allocated, what kind of care people receive, and other important effects. Bessel van...
In addition to having a delightful plot, The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick deWitt, being a historical novel, has delightful references to the era in question: the gold rush of the mid-nineteenth century. And being a specific kind of historical novel—a Western—it contains all the traditional elements of that genre. If you enjoy reading about gunfights and duels, forlorn towns in...
What do Immanuel Kant’s metaphysics and David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech at Kenyon College (known as the “This Is Water” speech) have in common? Both of these famous philosophies, according to Matthew B. Crawford in his book The World Beyond Your Head, are faulty—and for the same reason. It’s a bold claim. Crawford attempts to topple two towering figures of...
Despite the immense and unprecedented power of Google, there are some things it just can’t do. It can overwhelm one with information on a vast variety of topics, and yet it remains eerily silent on others. The Internet can only tell us what we, collectively, already know. And we know much more about the present than we do about the...
The author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston could not find a publisher for her book Barracoon that did not want her to make extensive changes to the manuscript (as I mentioned in my last blog post), and so her book was not released until 50+ years after her death, 80+ years after it was written. The cause of the disagreement...
When I saw that the great Zora Neale Hurston had a new book out—her being deceased being not at all an impediment to this, and perhaps even, sadly, a furtherance—I rushed to buy it. Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” is very different from the other work I have read by her, the superb literary novel Their Eyes...
In what ways has society changed since the Stone Age, and in what ways is it exactly the same? The protagonist of the novel Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata confronts this question upon meeting a dissatisfied young man. The young man believes that society is—and always has been—deeply flawed: “Nothing’s changed since the Stone Age. It’s just that nobody...
Yep, it’s hard to avoid getting caught up in the cultural biases of one’s own time. However, there is a way out of this trap—as Albert Einstein knew. Adam Becker, in his book What Is Real?, explores how historical events and philosophical ideas affected theories of quantum physics over the decades. He reveals that just because nearly everyone believes in...
Scientists do not work in a vacuum, even—I can’t help punning—physicists who experiment in a vacuum regularly. It’s easy to imagine hard science as being unmarred by the messiness of the humanities, but scientists are only human. In his book about quantum physics in the twentieth century, What Is Real?, Adam Becker tells a historical saga about how politics, war,...
I humbly propose bringing back the word endeavor. I cannot speak knowledgeably about the worldwide use of the word endeavor (or endeavour), but here in the U.S., it carries a stilted, dated vibe that causes it to be avoided. In fact the word is dated, in that famous dates are attached to it: (1) between 1768 and 1771, James Cook...
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Books previewed
Upheaval Jared Diamond
A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe
Creatures Crissy Van Meter
Indelicacy Amina Cain
Say What You Mean Oren Jay Sofer
Habits of a Happy Brain Loretta Graziano Breuning
Bad Behavior, This Is Pleasure Mary Gaitskill
The Brother Gardeners Andrea Wulf
Severance Ling Ma
How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi
The Museum of Modern Love Heather Rose
Why I Write George Orwell
The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir
Educated Tara Westover
The Gift Hafiz
The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang
Your Duck Is My Duck Deborah Eisenberg
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari
Milkman Anna Burns
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer
Waiting for Bojangles Olivier Bourdeaut
A Mind Unraveled Kurt Eichenwald
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
The Bookshop Penelope Fitzgerald
Digital Minimalism Cal Newport
The Sisters Brothers Patrick deWitt
Dare to Lead Brené Brown
My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Almost Everything Anne Lamott
Born to Run Christopher McDougall, Bruce Springsteen
The Ladies’ Paradise Émile Zola
The World Beyond Your Head Matthew B. Crawford
All the Birds, Singing Evie Wyld
Barracoon Zora Neale Hurston
Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
JavaScript & jQuery Jon Duckett
Home Fire Kamila Shamsie
The Weather Detective Peter Wohlleben
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
Perfect Me Heather Widdows
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace Patty Yumi Cottrell
Why Buddhism Is True Robert Wright
What Is Real? Adam Becker
Kudos Rachel Cusk
The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante
F*cked Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Alan Lightman
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe
Creatures Crissy Van Meter
Indelicacy Amina Cain
Say What You Mean Oren Jay Sofer
Habits of a Happy Brain Loretta Graziano Breuning
Bad Behavior, This Is Pleasure Mary Gaitskill
The Brother Gardeners Andrea Wulf
Severance Ling Ma
How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi
The Museum of Modern Love Heather Rose
Why I Write George Orwell
The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir
Educated Tara Westover
The Gift Hafiz
The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang
Your Duck Is My Duck Deborah Eisenberg
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari
Milkman Anna Burns
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer
Waiting for Bojangles Olivier Bourdeaut
A Mind Unraveled Kurt Eichenwald
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
The Bookshop Penelope Fitzgerald
Digital Minimalism Cal Newport
The Sisters Brothers Patrick deWitt
Dare to Lead Brené Brown
My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Almost Everything Anne Lamott
Born to Run Christopher McDougall, Bruce Springsteen
The Ladies’ Paradise Émile Zola
The World Beyond Your Head Matthew B. Crawford
All the Birds, Singing Evie Wyld
Barracoon Zora Neale Hurston
Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
JavaScript & jQuery Jon Duckett
Home Fire Kamila Shamsie
The Weather Detective Peter Wohlleben
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
Perfect Me Heather Widdows
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace Patty Yumi Cottrell
Why Buddhism Is True Robert Wright
What Is Real? Adam Becker
Kudos Rachel Cusk
The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante
F*cked Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Alan Lightman
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
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