Milo and the Calf

Tag: recommended

  • ,

    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…

  • ,

    Book Review: Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

    Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI David Grann This is a story of a mass murder. The murdered were members of the Osage tribe of Native Americans, who, for a host of complex reasons tied to U.S.’s horrific treatment of Native Americans, ended up inexplicably wealthy owners…

  • ,

    Review: Goldstein’s Janesville: AN American Story

    The story of what happens to a small town in the industrial Midwest when the primary employer (here, an auto plant) closes down. We all know the broad outline of how this goes down – the fight to keep the plant open eventually fails, and the town spirals down economically. But how the town changes,…

  • ,

    Review: Desmond’s Evicted

    Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City Matthew Desmond An examination into how housing insecurity leads to general insecurity and upends lives. A brilliant book. It follows a number of different people in the Milwaukee area struggling with housing issues and uses their stories, and plenty of social science, to tell explain the way…

  • On Re-Reading Gifford’s Spring Chicken and Thinking About Improving My Health Span

    Spring Chicken: Stay Young Forever (Or Die Trying) Bill Gifford I almost never re-read books. So the fact that I have now read Bill Gifford book on the science of aging twice should show you something about my current obsession with aging. As I said last time I read it, the book hits just the…

  • ,

    Review: Mosley’s Red Death

    Walter Mosley The second Easy Rawlins novel, filled with the detail of place and time that all fans of the series enjoy. (I reviewed the first one here). This one finds our protagonist tied up in a red scare witch hunt involving a Jewish socialist working in a Black church, a back to Africa group…

  • ,

    Review – Newports Deep Work

    Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World Cal Newport A wake up call for a distracted internet user like myself. A call to arms to regain our attention from those who wish to monetize and destroy it. A guidebook for how to begin to rebuild your attention to succeed in the new…

  • ,

    Book Review: Levoy’s Ghettoside

    Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America Jill Levoy A captivating, depressing, challenging, frustrating, must read book about the state of modern policing in poor communities of color.  If you’ve read this one, I’d really like to talk about it. Levoy spent a year covering every murder in Los Angeles for the LA Times.…

  • Review: Woodward and Bernstein’s All The Presidents Men

    All the President’s Men Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein I’m as surprised as you are that I never read this book before. Sure, I’ve seen the movie, and know the story, but reading this play by play of how Woodward and Bernstein uncovered the levels of deceit and criminality in the Nixon White House is…

  • ,

    Review: Alter’s Irresistible

    Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked Adam Alter This book, on the way smart phones and social media are behaviorally addictive, has led me to a mini-reading binge on the ways technology is changing our behavior for the worst. It’s been a personally transformative little journey that I’ll…