Category Archives: Book Notes

Science Fiction As a Prism in the Dawn

Posted on Thursday 31 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitle?

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Sean Carroll’s Reading List

Posted on Tuesday 22 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Sean Carroll is one of my favorite physicists who blogs, and whom I’ve linked several times before, most recently about his forthcoming book The Big Picture (due May 2016), and in a blog post a few days ago, he posted … Continue reading →

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Chris Mooney’s THE REPUBLICAN BRAIN

Posted on Friday 18 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

As I alluded in my previous post, I’ve been reading Chris Mooney’s 2012 book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science — and Reality, which explores how psychology can inform the obvious fact that different people react … Continue reading →

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Jonathan Haidt’s THE RIGHTEOUS MIND: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, 3

Posted on Wednesday 9 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

First, an aside that I didn’t mention earlier, in the chapter about how people are more concerned about reputation than actually being virtuous. In the discussion about how you can use ‘reason’ to reach any conclusion (based on whatever you … Continue reading →

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More notes and comments about Haidt’s THE RIGHTEOUS MIND

Posted on Tuesday 8 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I like the way Haidt outlines his thesis in the introduction, provides central metaphors for each of the three main sections, and provides a 1-2 page summary at the end of each of the 12 chapters. (Academic books do this … Continue reading →

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Jonathan Haidt’s THE RIGHTEOUS MIND: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, 1

Posted on Friday 4 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion is a fascinating, insightful book. It uses psychological studies into moral sentiments around the world to develop ideas about the ‘foundations’ of morality, especially to expand … Continue reading →

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Rereading Donald A. Wollheim’s THE UNIVERSE MAKERS

Posted on Friday 18 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Donald A. Wollheim’s The Universe Makers, published way back in 1971, is one of the earliest books that could be described as a history of SF, though Wollheim’s take is distinctly personal and even partisan. Wollheim was an occasional writer … Continue reading →

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The Methodical, Cheerful, Bluntness of Isaac Asimov

Posted on Wednesday 19 August 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I switched gears a couple weeks ago, after reading several recent (2014 and 2015) novels, to spend some time revisiting one of the 20th century’s most acclaimed science fiction authors, Isaac Asimov. It’s hard to tell, at this point about … Continue reading →

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James Morrow, THE MADONNA AND THE STARSHIP

Posted on Monday 10 August 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

James Morrow’s short novel The Madonna and the Starship is one of a handful of short novels or long novellas released by San Francisco-based Tachyon Publications in the past couple years, others including two Nancy Kress titles that both won … Continue reading →

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Stephen King, REVIVAL

Posted on Friday 7 August 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I enjoy Stephen King’s novels, but he writes too many of them (one or two every year) for me to keep up with all of them, and so I tend to get to only every third or fourth book, whenever … Continue reading →

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