Tag: recommended for the enthusiast
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Koeppel’s To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession
To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession Dan Koeppel A wonderful little memoir of a father and son relationship where the son is a professional journalist and the dad has seen more birds than almost anyone else on earth. This is partly about coming to adulthood and trying…
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Fleming’s Surviving the Future
Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market EconomyDavid Fleming Man what an odd little book. In the Spring of 2020 when the NoVo foundation, led by Peter Buffet (yes, that Buffet) drastically changed much of its programing focus a flurry of articles came out about why. A number of…
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Mischel’s The Marshmallow Test
The Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control Is the Engine of SuccessWalter Mischel You probably know the Marshmallow test. Young children are offered a marshmallow. They can eat it right now. But if they wait, they can get two marshmallows. The children were then tracked through to adulthood and by and large, the children who could wait…
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Review: Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s BerlinErik Larson Dad book all the way dealing with that most dad book of dad book times, World War II, specifically Hitler’s rise to power as seen through the eyes of the American diplomat William Dodd and his family. This is an…
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Review: Tanner’s Babbling Corpse
Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave And The Commodification Of Ghosts Grafton Tanner An odd little book on the rise of vaporwave and what it means for our current culture that some of the most subversive music being made in the 2010s was, basically, the hold music for 1980s corporate America. I knew basically nothing about Vaporwave until…
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Review: Ord’s The Precipice
The Precipice: Existential Risks and the Future of HumanityTony Ord An odd and fascinating little book written by one of the leading forces in effective altruism, the Precipice is an attempt to catalogue and rate true existential crises facing humanity. We’re not taking about inconveniences, here, we’re talking ending human life kind of stuff. We’re…
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Larson’s Splendid and the Vile
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the BlitzErik Larson Dad lit. Read right when the pandemic was at its worst in NYC – the park completely empty on my late night runs, the sirens, constant. It was interesting to read a book on the Blitz and Churchill at…
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Review: Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons
Fathers and Sons Ivan Tugenev The novel that really introduced the concept of nihilism to the world. In many ways, this is a classic story. Father sends son away to school, son comes back, changed, with new ideas that feel dangerous to the father. They grow apart. But with time, and love, there is a…
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Review: Tavenner’s Prepared
Prepared: What Kids Need for a Fulfilled Life Diane Tavenner A guidebook for a new model of education by one of the founders of Summit Public schools. I picked this up because I have young kids whose education I fuss over and it was on Gates end of the year list of best books. Lots…
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Review: Ratliff’s The Mastermind
The Mastermind: Drugs, Empire, Murder, Betrayal Evan Ratliff From crypto computer programmer to mastermind of an international drug and arms smuggling ring, the story of Paul Calder Le Roux is a hell of a ride. We got assassins in the Philippines, online pill mills run out Israel, private armies in Somalia, and more. It’s all…
Milo and the Calf 