Tag: recommended for the enthusiast
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Review Eyal’s Indistractible
Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life Nir Eyal I’ve lost count of how many books on attention I’ve read over the years, yet still I struggle with putting my phone away. This one is pretty middle of the road. It still feels a bit padded. There’s lessons here on running good…
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Review: Joy’s Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows Melanie Joy I picked up this book because it was billed to me as a book that examined why we in America love certain animals (dogs) and eat others (chickens). As someone who has recently been moving back towards an ethically vegan diet after some years…
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Review: Friedman’s Who Wrote The Bible
Who Wrote the Bible Richard Elliott Friedman In the last couple of years, I’ve been making a real effort to engage more deeply with Torah study, and particularly with the weekly parshas.* This year, after coming across what seemed like a contradiction in Genesis, I asked a rabbi friend what to make of it. “Do…
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Review: Smith’s Be Recorder
Be Recorder Carmen Gimenez Smith Contemporary poetry can be very hit or miss for me. If the writers voice connects with me, it can resonate in ways literature doesn’t (see Danez Smith, Morgan Parker, Ilya Kaminsky) but if it doesn’t connect in the first few poems, generally I’m lost. Smith is clearly a talented writer…
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Review: Sontag’s Reborn
Reborn:Journals and Notebooks 1947-1963 Susan Sontag The first in the collected journals of Susan Sontag edited by her son. I’ve long been fascinated by Sontag, the person, even if much of her work hasn’t resonated with me. Her endless curiosity, her almost obsessive need to read more, see more, hear more, is an inspiration to…
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Review: Keita’s Brief Evidence of Heaven
Brief Evidence of Heaven: Poems from the Life of Anna Douglas M. Nazadi Keita This is a book of poetry written in the voice of Anna Douglass, the wife of Frederick Douglas. Its an interesting idea, Anna was Douglas’s life from the time he was a fugitive slave until her death when Douglass was the…
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Review: Olsson’s The Weil Conjectures
The Weil Conjectures: On Math and the Pursuit of the Unknown Karen Olsson An odd but enjoyable little book about math and the deeply odd and brilliant Weil siblings (Simone, the writer mystic and activist and Andre Weil the mathematician). Simone Weil was a troubled, brilliant, writer deeply affected by the suffering of others who…
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Review: Futterman’s To The Edge
Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed Matthew Futterman A history of modern American distance running told from the perspective of Bob Larsen, one of the most influential coaches in the sport and (most famously) the coach and mentor of the most decorated American marathoner…
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Review: Moore’s Gironimo
Gironimo! Riding the Very Terrible 1914 Tour of Italy Tim Moore This is the story of a guy who restores an early 1900s bike and then rides it all the way around Italy covering the course of what is widely considered the hardest bicycle race in history. What can I say, I have disparate tastes.…
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Review: Stephenson’s Fall, Or Dodge In Hell
Fall or Dodge in Hell Neal Stephenson I read every Neal Stephenson book as soon as they come out. Some are amazing, some are just ok, but never do I regret the experience. As is standard with a Neal Stephenson novel, this one is a joyous hodgepodge of adventure, science, and philosophy held together by…
Milo and the Calf 