Category Archives: Book Notes

Steven Pinker: THE BLANK SLATE, post 5

Posted on 24 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

After being distracted by Texas affairs, politics, Riven, and reading Brian Greene and others, let’s get back to this book and try to finish summarizing it and capturing key points. This and one more post. Earlier posts about this book: … Continue reading →

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More About the NYT List

Posted on 13 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

First of all, I amended yesterday’s post with those books on that NYT list that I’ve read — 9 of them — and those I have copies of but not yet read — 14 of them. And now I’ll off-handedly … Continue reading →

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The Latest Major Book List

Posted on 12 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

First, about this week’s New York Times list of the best books of the 21st century; Second for today: Paul Krugman on how Republicans think that America is a dystopian nightmare. – – – For no particular reason that I … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker: THE BLANK SLATE, post 4

Posted on 26 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Another five chapters, mostly addressing the fears people have with the idea of an innate human nature, as opposed to the idealized blank slate: concerning inequality, imperfectibility, determinism, and nihilism. Earlier posts about this book: post 1, post 2, post … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker: THE BLANK SLATE, post 3

Posted on 24 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Summaries and comments about three more chapters of Steven Pinker’s THE BLANK SLATE; And YouTube tracks from one of my favorite film scores: Richard Robbins’ for The Remains of the Day. I’ll try to get through the rest of book … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker: THE BLANK SLATE, post 2

Posted on 5 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

(Advisory: I’m traveling to Austin TX tomorrow through Sunday, and so will not be posting here until next Monday, likely.) A key point about this book is that Pinker shows how the facts (the science) of human nature undermine both … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker: THE BLANK SLATE, post 1

Posted on 4 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: “The Modern Denial of Human Nature” (Viking, Oct. 2002, 509pp, including 75pp appendix, notes, references, and index) This is an enormous, thorough book on a topic already covered to some extent by several of the other major books I’ve … Continue reading →

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Visiting the Profound

Posted on 2 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Brian Greene on understanding reality as a collection of nested stories; Recalling analogous thoughts by Sean Carroll and others; Big Think’s Ethan Siegel on the success of modern fundamental science. Perhaps today we can step back from the paranoid, delusional … Continue reading →

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Jonathan Gottschall, THE STORY PARADOX

Posted on 27 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a nonfiction book from 2021 that I read just a couple weeks ago. It’s similar in heft to the two books just discussed, in terms of length and conceptual depth, perhaps somewhere in the middle below Wilson and above … Continue reading →

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Woo-Kyoung Ahn, THINKING 101

Posted on 26 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: “How to Reason Better and Live Better” (Flatiron Books, Sept 2022, 276pp, including 21p of acknowledgements, notes, and index) Here’s another short book, read the same month as yesterday’s Robert Charles Wilson book though it was published a year … Continue reading →

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