grew up on the “history,” lore and mythology of the United States. My father grew up in the 1940s and 1950s and so got a very specific, and I’d argue somewhat inaccurate, story of his country from his pre-university education. He passed that on to me in what he told me but also in his …
Tag: Non Fiction
I’m Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen – 33 1/3 (2020) by Ray Padgett
I had actually never listened to I’m Your Fan before. And I’m not a huge fun So why did I read this? I enjoyed Ray’s first book a lot, and was interested in the next one. And, full disclosure: I write for his website, Cover Me. In order to read the book, I did manage to listen to the …
Merchants of Doubt (2010) by Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
This is a thorough and damning account of the so-called “Tobacco Strategy” and the “improvements” upon it, in which larger corporations fund think tanks and pay real scientists to discredit the work of other scientists which threatens their products.
Give People Money (2018) by Annie Lowrey
Full disclosure: I’ve already drunk the UBI Kool-Aid so this book is preaching to the choir. I think I must have added this book to my list before I had been completely converted to the position. You’ve been warned.
Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch, and How Craft Beer Became Big Business (2018) by Josh Noel
This is a readable, engaging, informative and, I think, pretty fair book about the AB InBev purchase of Goose Island and the broader beer landscape in North America. I love beer, and I thoroughly enjoyed some of these Goose Island beers, and I definitely prefer independent breweries to macros. So I am clearly Noel’s target …
The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt (2018) by Ken Krimstein
This is a compelling, somewhat amusing, educational, and occasionally moving brief graphic novel about the life Hannah Arendt. When I was in my 20s, Hannah Arendt was my favourite philosopher. I’ve read The Human Condition three times, many of her other books, and the first of the major biographies written about her. She’s influenced the way I …
The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy (2018) by Paul Myers
Full disclosure: The Kids in the Hall are among the most formative cultural influences of my life. I was too young when their show premiered, as I was 7 when the pilot aired and 8 when it premiered. However, I was old enough to watch it before it went off the air. (My guess is …
Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality (2017) by James Kwak
I agree with a lot of the author says but I’m not sure I like the way he says it. In fact, this feels a little bit like a book I would write, albeit with better sources – a rant about the spread of an idea from someone who is does not have a background …
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (2010) by Siddhartha Mukherjee
This is a far-reaching, thorough but page-turning history of cancer. It is a remarkably readable book and I have trouble imagining that I will read another history of cancer, at least for some time, simply because this one was so readable it’s hard to imagine another book about the same subject would be this “easy” …
The White Pass: Gateway to the Klondike
This is a readable and well-researched history of the building of the White Pass & Yukon Railway. As far as I know, this is Minter’s only book and it’s clearly a passion project. But it’s also the work of a non-professional. As such, it’s better than it should be but it’s also not necessarily a …
Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills (2006) by David Milch, David Samuels
For me, Deadwood is probably the second greatest English-language dramatic, fictional television show in the history of the medium. But it is also horribly under-watched (if not completely under-known). I have watched the show through at least 3 times and I still believe it’s kind of a marvel of combining big ideas with a compelling …
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction (2015) by Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardner
This is a fascinating book about how human beings can potentially get better at predicting the future and the types of people who are probably better at predicting the future. (Not pundits, I’m sure you’re shocked to hear.) I suspect I would have liked it more had I not already been familiar with Tetlock’s work.
You Are Not So Smart (2011) by David McRaney
I got this book years ago, when I still listened to this podcast. And the problem is that, due to this very podcast, I started reading a lot more pop psychology and psychology than I already was. And so, in the interim between this book coming into my possession and reading it, I learned a …
The Memory Illusion (2016) by Julia Shaw
This is an extremely accessible and thought-provoking tour through all the ways in which the human memory is not as reliable as we all believe. Though, like many of these books, it does contain a bit of a Greatest Hits of psychological studies and cognitive biases, the focus on memory is usually clear enough to …
The “Down Goes Brown” History of the NHL (2018) by Sean McIndoe
If you follow McIndoe on Twitter or you’ve read him at his professional stops since the original blog, you pretty much know what you’re getting here: quality hockey writing with jokes. However, if you’ve followed him since the blog you’ve likely heard some of this before. And if you’ve ready books about hockey (or read …
The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World (2020) by Virginia Postrel
I have read way too many history books in my life. (Or not enough, if this book is any indication.) Few of them mentioned clothing (or any form of textiles) for any reason other than to paint a scene. The ones that did dwell on textiles at all, did so as part of bigger economic …
Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air (2010) by David J.C. MacKay
This is an excellent, detailed analysis of what we need to do to got sustainable. It is currently available online for free and I strongly recommend reading it.
The Fifth Risk (2018) by Michael Lewis
This is the first Michael Lewis book I’ve read. Admittedly, that’s pretty weird. I’ve listened to his podcast but somehow never read one of his books until now. And the reason I read this one first is because someone gave it to me, and I haven’t got his more famous ones from the library yet. …
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (2021) by Patrick Radden Keefe
This is a well-written but maddening and saddening biography of the Sackler family, who are best known as the owners of Purdue Pharma and Purdue Frederick, i.e. the OxyContin people. It’s not really the story of OxyContin or the opioid epidemic, but rather just the history of the family. It’s a revealing story about how …
Up, Up, and Away: The Kid, the Hawk, Rock, Vladi, Pedro, le Grand Orange, Youppi!, the Crazy Business of Baseball, and the Ill-fated but Unforgettable Montreal Expos (2014) by Jonah Keri
This is an entertaining and page-turning overview of the existence of the Montreal Expos. It’s clearly written from the perspective of a fan, which is both a good and a bad thing. But it’s also relatively measured in its assessment of why the franchise failed. There’s just one rather big problem hanging over all of …
Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World (2018) by Adam Tooze
This is an exceptionally detailed and sourced book, that is also highly readable. It occasionally walks a fine line between history and a rant, however. (It never does, which is to Tooze’s eternal credit. And even if it it did, it would be a very well-informed one.) I worried about reading a history written literally …
The Great Mortality (2005) by John Kelly
This is a frustrating book, which I learned a lot from but also had me rolling my eyes way, way more than it ever should have. It purports to be a history of the Black Death but it’s a really a European history – maybe that’s a tacit assumption given the title – and there …
The Buyout of America (2009) by Josh Kosman
The problem with making big predictions in your book is that, when they either do not come true or only partially come true, you kind of look like an idiot. (I should say you “should” look like an idiot because we humans love to listen to people who’ve failed in their predictions time and again. …
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (2019) by Patrick Radden Keefe
This is an excellent account of the disappearance of a mother of 10 during The Troubles and the surrounding context. My knowledge of The Troubles comes almost exclusively from films (mostly fictionalized) but Radden Keefe’s book gives a lot of context and history for someone like me who is pretty new to the subject.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) by David Hume
I have always encountered Hume in quotes and summaries. At some point, it to the point where I felt weird that I hadn’t ever actually read any David Hume, one of the most referenced/cited philosophers of his age and arguably one of the most important ever. (The same could be said of Spinoza, whom I …
Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) by Daniel Kahneman
S0, I made the mistake of reading The Enigma or Reason before I read this much more famous book. That’s a mistake because the central argument of The Enigma of Reason is that the dichotomy (or tichotomy) of the brain is an illusion, that it doesn’t fit evolution. Whether it was philosophers or current psychologists, …
Vitamania (2015) by Catherine Price
This is a fascinating and entertaining overview of the American obsession with vitamins and supplements as a proxy for healthy eating. It’s a quick and fun read with lots of information, but it did lead something to be desired.
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (1987) by Susan Jeffers
This self-help book is only 34 years old, yet it feels like it was written some time earlier, perhaps in the ’60s even. Reading this book, especially after you’ve read more recent self-help books, is like going back in time. It’s incredible how sophisticated self-help and “wellness” has gotten in the interim. (That is both …
The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values (2020) by Brian Christian
The Alignment Problem is just an excellent book about the state of AI philosophy and ethics at the beginning of the 2020s. Because it’s more about ethical and philosophical problems, than technological ones, it’s much more in my wheelhouse. But I think that these questions are extremely important. And Christian just does an excellent job …
Rubicon (2003) by Tom Holland
This is a real page-turner and if you’re looking for that kind of history of the end of the Roman Republic, I guess I can recommend it. But I had enough problems that I think there are probably much better books to read about this subject.