Category Archives: Book Notes

Lukianoff & Haidt, THE CODDLING OF THE AMERICAN MIND

Here’s a book that was published six years ago this month, and which I read one year ago last month. Subtitle: “How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure” (Penguin Press, Sept. 2018, 338pp, including … Continue reading

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Robert Reich, THE COMMON GOOD

Here’s another shortish book I read recently, not a memoir but a book at the intersection of politics, morality, and human nature, which is itself another theme of my reading the past two or three years. It’s by Robert Reich, … Continue reading

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Deutsch Infinity, Ch 1

The next big science tome I’ve begun reading is THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY, by David Deutsch, his only other book following THE FABRIC OF REALITY in 1997, which I reviewed here. This second book was published in 2011. (There’s no … Continue reading

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Sebastian Junger: FREEDOM

Then I looked over my shelves to see if there was some other memoir type book, preferably short, that I could read before returning to another big science tome. I found this, by the same author as TRIBE, which I … Continue reading

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Tara Westover: EDUCATED: A MEMOIR

And here’s a third memoir I read recently, inspired by that NYT list — though in this case, the book didn’t place on the final list, though it was nominated by a couple of the 500 contributors who revealed their … Continue reading

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Ta-Nehisi Coates: BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME

Here is the next memoir I read, after Joan Didion’s, as inspired by that NYT list. This is a statement by a black intellectual to his 15-year-old son, about life as a black person and the struggles and dangers he … Continue reading

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Joan Didion, THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING

Inspired by that NY Times list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, I read three short memoirs that I already had copies of in my library. Here’s the first. (These will be briefer ‘short takes’ compared to … Continue reading

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Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 5

Final post summarizing this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4. The final three chapters return to the cosmic scope of the book’s overall theme, exploring what we’ve concluded about the far future and the … Continue reading

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Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 4

More summary of this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1, post 2, post 3. In these chapters Greene summarizes how imagination, extrapolating from dreams and the perception of patterns, led to the formalization of myths into religions, which may have … Continue reading

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Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 3

More summary of this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1, post 2. Today’s chapters concern how life gave rise to consciousness, and how mind gave rise to the imagination, and to stories. Ch5, Particles and Consciousness: From Life to Mind, … Continue reading

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