Category Archives: Book Notes

Nichols, THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE

Posted on Sunday 17 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Tom Nichols’ THE DEATH OF EXPERTISE: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters (Oxford, 2017) is one of the better in the batch of recent books I’ve read about current events and how they reflect issues of science … Continue reading →

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Levitin: A FIELD GUIDE TO LIES

Posted on Saturday 16 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Daniel J. Levitin’s A FIELD GUIDE TO LIES: Critical Thinking in the Information Age (Dutton, 2016) is a nice complement to the book previously reviewed. Levitin an academic at UC Berkeley and has written three previous books, including This Is … Continue reading →

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Ariely: PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL

Posted on Tuesday 12 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Dan Ariely’s PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (Harper 2008) is one of the earliest popular books that summarizes various findings of experimental psychology in recent decades that reveal the biases of human nature. Key point: traditional … Continue reading →

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Keen: HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE

Posted on Sunday 10 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Andrew Keen’s How to Fix the Future (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018) is a breezy book in the Thomas L. Friedman mode, as the author travels the world speaking to various experts, and describing his trips and circumstances as he goes. … Continue reading →

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Lightman: SEARCHING FOR STARS ON AN ISLAND IN MAINE

Posted on Thursday 7 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Alan Lightman is the best known of the three authors reviewed today; he’s published numerous books before, including the novels EINSTEIN’S DREAMS and THE DIAGNOSIS, as well as numerous volumes of essays, out of all of which I’ve only read … Continue reading →

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Gould: UNIVERSE IN CREATION

Posted on Thursday 7 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Roy R. Gould’s UNIVERSE IN CREATION: A New Understanding of The Big Bang and the Emergence of Life (Harvard, 2018) overlaps on a couple topics with the Adam Frank book reviewed previously. But. Gould would like to claim that the … Continue reading →

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Frank: LIGHT OF THE STARS

Posted on Thursday 7 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Adam Frank’s LIGHT OF THE STARS: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth (Norton, 2018) asks, what can thinking about the prospect of alien civilizations tell us about our own fate? Currently our species’ story (by those of us … Continue reading →

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H.G. Wells: THE TIME MACHINE

Posted on Sunday 3 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

H.G. Wells’ THE TIME MACHINE is one of the foundational science fiction novels. Published in 1895, it was Wells’ first novel, though it’s short enough that later anthologists have reprinted it as a novella (e.g. in the second volume of … Continue reading →

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Eric Frank Russell: SINISTER BARRIER

Posted on Tuesday 22 January 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

This is an early genre science fiction novel, first serialized in Unknown magazine in 1939, later revised and expanded and published in 1948 by Fantasy Press. I have the latter edition, in a used copy I picked up about six … Continue reading →

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Added Lines in Angels in America

Posted on Friday 22 June 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

I posted this on Facebook, June 9th, but need to capture it here: We saw Angels in America part 1, Millennium Approaches, on Friday June 1st, and part 2, Perestroika, on Friday June 8th, at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. In … Continue reading →

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