Category: Books
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Book Review: Lew’s This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared
This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation Allan Lew A meditation on the Jewish High Holidays by one of the most important reform rabbis of the last fifty years. A deeply honest and moving book. The most spiritually moving piece of literature I have read,…
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Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate
The Obelisk Gate N.K. Jemisin This is the follow up to Jemisin’s incredible, mind blowing, the Fifth Season and its good. Very good, even. Jemisin’s prose is top rate, and the story churns forward revealing more about our characters and the world they inhabit, while still keeping up the mystery and allure that made Fifth…
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Nicolson’s Why Homer Matters
Why Homer Matters: A History Adam Nicolson This one hit all my sweet spots. A book about Homer that is part travelogue / memoir, part meditation on deep engagement with a text, and part ancient history primer. A must read for the ancient history enthusiast. Nicolson’s easy erudition and his deep emotional connection to the…
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Review: Armstrong’s Buddha
Buddha Karen Armstrong A simple, stupid, introduction to Buddhism perfect for someone like me who knows less than nothing about one of the world’s most important philosophical systems / religions. What it has: a concise overview of the life of the Buddha and the central tenets of the system as it was understood at the…
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Review: Lanier’s You Are Not A Gadget
You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto Jaron Lanier Lock-in is apparently a concept well known among engineers, but I was unfamiliar with it until this book. It’s worth thinking about. Basically, the concept is that in large complex systems, simple, often arbitrary, decisions can have long lasting effects, which when compounded, can limit the…
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Review: Flynn and Gerhardt’s The Silent Brotherhood: The Chilling Inside Story of America’s Violent, Anti-Government Militia Movement
The Silent Brotherhood: The Chilling Inside Story of America’s Violent, Anti-Government Militia Movement Kevin Flynn Gary Gerhardt The first on the scene book about the “the Order”, a white supremacist criminal gang that robbed banks to fund the white power movement and was involved in the assassination of liberal radio DJ Alan Berg. Told is…
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Review: LaValle’s The Changeling
A book that starts out as a heartwarming tale of parenthood, turns real dark, real fast, and ends up a surreal exploration of a world of monsters, cults, and heartbroken parents in New York City. Kinda about parenthood, kinda about race and difference, kinda about the role of social media, and kinda about the immigrant…
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Review: Ferris’s Tools for Titans
Tools for Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers Tim Ferris I’ll confess to being a fairly regular listener to the Tim Ferris podcast. While Ferris can be annoying at times and the whole can smell like techbro city, he is a good interviewer and his guests are often interesting…
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Review: Soundtracks to the White Revolution: White Supremacist Assaults on Youth Music Subcultures
Soundtracks to the White Revolution: White Supremacist Assaults on Youth Music Subcultures Devin Burghart, editor Almost more of a pamphlet than a book, this is an overview of the various genres of neo-fascists / white power music. I grew up in punk rock / underground music scene, and am, unfortunately, deeply familiar with many of…
Milo and the Calf 