Tag: Books

2016, Books, Non-Fiction

American Revolutions (2016) by Alan Taylor

 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 …

1965, Books, Fiction

The Joke (1965) by Milan Kundera

I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being (and watched the movie) in university and loved it. But I’ve never read Kundera since. I saw this book in a local lawn library and picked it up, knowing nothing about it. I see why it’s interpreted as a political novel but I tend to agree with the blurb on …

1991, 2020, Books, Music, 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 …

1996, Books, Fiction

The Lions of Al-Rassan (1996) by Guy Gavriel Kay

I read this book because Kay is my girlfriend’s favourite fantasy writer (and she really doesn’t like fantasy). I had really never heard of him before and didn’t fully realize he was Canadian. (Also, I knew nothing of his association with Tolkien.) I liked this book more than I thought I might, and more than …

2010, Books, Non-Fiction

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.

2018, Books, Non-Fiction

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 …

2018, Books, Fiction, Non-Fiction

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 …

2018, Books, Non-Fiction

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 …

2017, Books, Non-Fiction

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 …

2010, Books, Non-Fiction

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” …

Books, Fiction

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (1987)

So, first off, this is not the “complete stories” so that is a mark against this collection. There are both early stories and some later (I believe unpublished) stories that are in this. Still, it collects its most famous stories and a bunch of others.

1987, Books, Non-Fiction

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 …

2006, Books, Fiction, Non-Fiction, TV

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 …

1931, Books, Fiction

The Glass Key (1931) by Dahiel Hammett

This is my second Hammett novel but I really don’t remember the first one. (I had to re-read review of it to remind myself what I felt and, even then, I really didn’t remember it.) Hammett is known as the king of American detective fiction but he’s arguably more of an influence with the aesthetics …

2018

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018) by Hank Green

I’m not really sure how I ended up reading this. I am a huge fan of Crash Course but I’ve never followed anything else they’ve done and I’ve always had zero intention of reading John’s novels. But somehow, this book showed up on my fiction pile. I must have added it to my list one day due …

2013, Books, Non-Fiction

You Are Now Less Dumb (2013) by David McRaney

In many ways, this is You Are Not So Smart II with all that implies: it’s a similar catalogue of cognitive biases and heuristics that affect our ability to be rational, most or all of which you’ll here on the podcast.One major difference is the chapters are longer; rather than focusing on one bias every few pages …

2015, Books, Non-Fiction

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.

2011, Books, Non-Fiction

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 …

2016, Movies

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 …

2018, Books, Hockey, Non-Fiction, Sports

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 …

1934, Books, Fiction

Tender is the Night (1934) by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Apparently I read this years ago and forgot. I wrote the following: “The same great qualities as with his other classics but lacking the completeness of The Great Gatsby. There are still moments of profound insight and lots of great description, but it lacks the earlier novel’s wholeness. I don’t mean to nitpick. It’s a great …

2020, Books

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 …

2010, 2015, Books, Non-Fiction

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.

2018, Books, Non-Fiction

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. …

1995, Books, Fiction

The Island of the Day Before (1995) by Umberto Eco

This is a weird one, full of all of Eco’s typical obsessions but lacking many of the things that make some of his novels classics or, at the very, least enjoyable. I have read just over half his novels now, and this is my least favourite by a considerable margin.

2021, Books, Non-Fiction

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 …