Josh's book reviews
218 reviews · average score 79/100
The three musketeers
Alexandre Dumas60/100
Did not finish. The book isn't bad, but I live in 2026 and have the attention span of a goldfish and I just can't work up much interest in swashbuckling. Here are some notes I wrote while reading, mostly about dueling: The first thing that bothered me in this book was that the…
Read the full reviewThe Pimping of Prostitution
Julie Bindel40/100
Note: Couldn’t finish this one, review based on the first few chapters. Politics makes strange bedfellows and nowhere is that more true in the convergence of views among between ‘radical feminists,’ and far right conservatives on sex work. The Pimping of Prostitution attempts to…
Read the full reviewThe Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain60/100
I’m setting aside The Innocents Abroad about halfway through. Maybe I’ll come back to it; maybe not. It’s not holding my attention. Every time I pick it up, I read about a page and then think of something else I’d rather be doing. The book is based on a series of 50 newspaper…
Read the full reviewThe Angel's Game
Carlos Ruiz Zafón80/100Read Oct 2026
This book reminded me why I read fiction - and why I read so much less of it than I used to. Start with the positives: Zafón is a masterful storyteller. He grabs you from the first page and doesn't let go until his tale has wound its way to a conclusion that is both formulaic…
Read the full reviewTheir Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston80/100Read Sep 2026
Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of Janie Crawford, a light-skinned Black woman born around the turn of the 20th century. As a teenager, Janie is briefly trapped in a dismal arranged marriage to an older farmer. But she meets and marries a charismatic younger man named…
Read the full reviewMy sister, the serial killer
Oyinkan Braithwaite80/100Read Sep 2026
This was a fun, fast-paced read—I finished it in a single evening. The story is told in the first person by Korede, a nurse who lives in Lagos with her sister, the serial killer Ayoola. These are boom times for stories about women burning with murderous rage. But unlike *The…
Read the full reviewBilly Budd, Sailor
Mary Gladwin60/100Read Sep 2026
Meh, not for me. Billy Budd is a handsome sailor who is falsely accused, for reasons that are never entirely clear, of fomenting mutiny. When these charges are brought he stutters but can't get out a reply and finally punches his accuser, killing him. There's a trial and he is…
Read the full reviewMuskism
Quinn Slobodian80/100Read Sep 2026
I listened to Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff’s Muskism a few weeks ago and have been trying to figure out what I think about it ever since. I may have an unusually personal reason for being interested in the book. I worked in tech for the better part of 15 years, and about five…
Read the full reviewThe Memory Police
Yōko Ogawa80/100Read Jul 2026
The Memory Police takes place on an unnamed island where whole categories of things disappear and are quickly forgotten. Perfume disappeared and people not only forgot the word for it, but lost their ability to smell it even if they encountered it. Later boats disappear. Then…
Read the full review1873
Liaquat Ahamed100/100Read Jul 2026
This is an excellent history of the crash of 1873, its origins and repercussions. It's also surprisingly entertaining - Ahamed has a keen ear for a quotable line and manages to make what might otherwise be a rather dull topic fascinating. A few of the lines that stuck with me: *…
Read the full reviewMadame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert80/100Read Jun 2026
Madame Bovary is about a doctor's wife in a small French town who tries to alleviate her ennui by shopping and cheating on her husband. Her husband - Charles - is kind, but rather dull and unambitious. She cheats on him with fuckboys - then known as dandys. The Bovarys aren't…
Read the full reviewIvanhoe
Sir Walter Scott60/100Read Jun 2026
This was a full-cast audio performance of Ivanhoe, so I can't completely disentangle my thoughts on Scott's novel from my impressions of the production itself. Before downloading Ivanhoe, all I knew about Sir Walter Scott was that his novels were enormously popular in the…
Read the full reviewIsrael Potter His Fifty Years of Exile
Herman Melville80/100Read Jun 2026
Just a few days ago I noted in my review Omoo that I didn't quite see that the book lived up to its subtitle which proclaimed it an 'adventure.' Israel Potter, by contrast, seems like an exemplary adventure story, but for some reason Melville declined to tout it as one. Potter…
Read the full reviewEthan Frome
Edith Wharton60/100Read May 2026
Ethan Frome is the story of an unhappy middle aged man, who used to be an unhappy young man - back in the 1890s. One reason young Ethan was unhappy was because he lived on a dumpy farm that didn't make any money and was cold and dark for half the year. Another was that his wife…
Read the full reviewTokyo Junkie
Robert Whiting80/100Read May 2026
Robert Whiting grew up in a small town in California and came to Tokyo in the early 1960s as a GI. After his military service ended, he stayed on, working as an English tutor, encyclopedia editor, and eventually a freelance writer. Tokyo Junkie is part memoir and part ode to the…
Read the full reviewTypee : a Peep at Polynesian Life
Herman Melville100/100Read May 2026
THE SEA — NUKUHEVA — RUNNING AWAY — LOST IN THE MOUNTAINS — THE TYPEE, NOBLE SAVAGES — TATTOOS AND TABOOS — CANNIBALS? — HAPPY POVERTY — CAPTIVITY AND ESCAPE — RANDOM NOTES The decline of whaling and piracy over the past few centuries is probably for the best. Still, it’s hard…
Read the full review1971
Anam Zakaria100/100Read May 2026
For over a century, the British ruled over a vast swath of South Asia that today includes three of the world’s ten most populous countries: India (#1), Pakistan (#5), and Bangladesh (#8). In 1947, the British departed, and the subcontinent was partitioned into two states: India…
Read the full reviewHow Africa Works
JOE STUDWELL100/100Read May 2026
Several years ago I read and enjoyed How Asia Works, Joe Studwell’s previous book. It’s deeply informed but easy to read, and offers a plausible account of how Asia got rich. Apparently Bill Gates enjoyed Studwell’s book too, and asked him whether he might take a similar…
Read the full reviewIndonesia etc
Elizabeth Pisani100/100Read May 2026
In rural Indonesia a woman had recently been eaten by a crocodile. "But it's okay, they're hiring a shaman to catch it" a policeman said. "He explained how it works: the crocodile whisperer goes to the shore near where the person was eaten and drives a sacred spear into the…
Read the full reviewDaughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back
Janice P. Nimura100/100Read May 2026
Daughters of the Samurai tells the fascinating story of five girls who, in 1871, were sent to the United States by the Japanese government. The youngest, Tsuda Ume, was just six years old when she left. She was accompanied by Masuda Shige (10), Yamakawa Sakiko (10), Ueda Tei…
Read the full reviewCapitalism
Sven Beckert100/100Read May 2026
Beckert’s Capitalism: A Global History adopts such a broad definition of capitalism that it comes to encompass nearly the entirety of the last five hundred years of economic history. It recalls the old joke about the compulsive gambler who loses his shirt every night at poker…
Read the full reviewKorean Messiah
Jonathan Cheng100/100Read Apr 2026
Korean Messiah is a fascinating account of Christianity in Korea and its influence on Kim Il Sung and the cult of personality built around him. That cult is well known, but a few examples help illustrate its intensity: * Every North Korean household is required to display framed…
Read the full reviewJesus in Beijing
David Aikman60/100Read Apr 2026
I picked up Jesus in Beijing because I was looking for a history of Christianity in China, and it was the only option available on Audible. There appear to be better alternatives in print - so unless you're illiterate, I’d recommend exploring those instead. Many of the book’s…
Read the full reviewThe Palestine Laboratory
Antony Loewenstein100/100Read Apr 2026
I've generally avoided reading too much about Israel because I find it depressing. Israel was founded in 1948, the same year the apartheid regime was established in South Africa. Both countries saw themselves as outposts of European civilization surrounded by barbaric…
Read the full reviewI Am a Strange Loop
Douglas R. Hofstadter80/100Read Apr 2026
I Am a Strange Loop is Hofstadter's account of how consciousness and personal identity work. He is a physicalist - meaning that whatever consciousness is he thinks it arises from from the substrate of meat (brains). At the same time, he rejects the view that consciousness can be…
Read the full reviewKingdom of Characters
Jing Tsu100/100Read Apr 2026
Starting in the mid-19th century the Chinese script faced a number of challenges. Some of these arose from the development of new technologies, notably the telegraph and typewriter. Both of these devices had been invented in the west and were designed to work with western…
Read the full reviewHouse of Huawei
Eva Dou80/100Read Mar 2026
This is a pretty solid history of Huawei, covering its rise and the U.S. government's campaign against the company. The campaign has had two prongs: on the demand side the government has largely banned Huawei from competing in the U.S. market and has tried to pressure other…
Read the full reviewA crack in the edge of the world
Simon Winchester100/100Read Mar 2026
I quite like Simon Winchester's audiobooks. He narrates them himself, and they have the feel of a genial professor telling stories about whatever obscure matter he is fascinated with at this moment. Many of Winchester's subjects are the type of thing that could be painfully…
Read the full reviewRestless giant
James T. Patterson60/100Read Mar 2026
The latest disappointing volume in the Oxford History of the U.S. Like the preceding two volumes of the series Restless Giant is largely focused on federal political actors and reads like a textbook - not inaccurate but with a moderate conservative bias and a tendency to focus…
Read the full reviewGrand Expectations
James T. Patterson60/100Read Mar 2026
Meh, reads like a textbook. It's a conventional account of the era with a focus on major political actors, but it doesn't contain any great insights and didn't really change my view of the era in any meaningful way. Random notes: * Patterson repeats the book's title many times…
Read the full reviewFreedom from fear
David M. Kennedy60/100Read Mar 2026
Like every volume in the Oxford History of the United States, Freedom from Fear is arguably the definitive single volume work on its era. Sadly, being definitive is not the same thing as being good, and I don't think this is an especially good work of history. Kennedy is an…
Read the full reviewOn the make
Brian P. Luskey80/100Read Mar 2026
This is an interesting little book on the lives of clerks, in 1840s and 1850s New York. Clerks were junior salespeople working in retailers and wholesale establishments. They showed off items to customers, described their selling points, wrote up bills of purchase and collected…
Read the full reviewThe Ministry of Time
Kaliane Bradley80/100Read Mar 2026
The first half of The Ministry of Time I give five stars, the second half three stars. So, from a mathematical perspective it is a four star book. You can check the math for yourself if you don't believe me. The basic plot goes like this: the British government has stumbled upon…
Read the full reviewA short history of tractors in Ukrainian
Marina Lewycka60/100Read Feb 2026
I bought A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian because it was supposed to be funny. I didn't laugh even once though, so I'm giving it 3 stars. It reminded me a bit of French Exit or a Gentleman in Moscow in that it felt like the author aspired to be clever but couldn't think…
Read the full reviewThe Eighteenth Century
John O. Voll60/100Read Feb 2026
Meh, fine short survey, but you could get the same content from Wikipedia.
Read the full reviewThe Secret Life of Groceries
Benjamin Lorr100/100Read Feb 2026
The Secret Life of Groceries is not standard business journalism of the extended WSJ piece variety. It's anthropological reporting - Lorr goes native with the grocery people: traveling cross country with a trucker, visiting trade shows with a food-entrepreneur trying to bring…
Read the full reviewBreakneck
Dan Wang100/100Read Feb 2026
Breakneck is an an excellent introduction to and survey of Chinese and American efforts to shape the future in the early 21st century. In the first chapter, Wang contrasts China - a nation of Engineers - with America - a nation of lawyers. He points out that engineers like…
Read the full reviewSkin in the Game
Nassim Nicholas Taleb80/100Read Feb 2026
Fuck, this guy Taleb irritates me. He reminds me a bit of Slavoj Žižek. Both men seem like they crave nothing more than the adoration of the intellectual establishment, which they also argue is filled will craven idiots who can go to hell. Both have held various academic…
Read the full reviewDrinking in America
Susan Cheever100/100Read Feb 2026
Drinking in America is a survey of the ways in which alcohol and drunkenness have impacted national history. Cheever, a former alcoholic and daughter of the novelist John Cheever, intertwines her own family's history of alcoholism with the national story. Cheever is pretty…
Read the full reviewGhostland
Colin Dickey100/100Read Jan 2026
Ghostland is more than a history of haunted places, it presents of a sort of theory of ghosts. According to our best scientific theories of how the world works ghosts do not exist. Despite this, 39% of Americans believe in ghosts, and literally millions of people throughout…
Read the full reviewWild milk
Sabrina Orah Mark80/100Read Jan 2026
WTF did I just read? I honestly have no idea. I'm giving it four stars, but it could just as well deserve eight, or negative three (if only Goodreads allowed such things). It consists of a few dozen micro-stories - just a few pages long. They all display a kind dream logic: In…
Read the full reviewThe Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafón100/100Read Dec 2025
The Shadow of the Wind is a Gothic mystery set in Barcelona between roughly 1919 and 1955. The story opens in 1945, when Daniel Sempere—then ten years old—is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a secret library of banned and neglected works. Daniel chooses a…
Read the full reviewThe map that changed the world
Simon Winchester100/100Read Dec 2025
In Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, The Judge, that ominous representation of 19th century hubris, says, "Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent... He nodded toward the specimens he'd collected. These anonymous creatures, he said, may seem…
Read the full reviewGirl on Girl
Sophie Gilbert100/100Read Dec 2025
*** This review contains some NSFW content - it also cuts off at the end due to GR character limit.*** Feminism has always been a moving target. It has meant different things to different people, and no group can claim full ownership of the term. The issues of central concern to…
Read the full reviewTravels with Charley
John Steinbeck80/100Read Dec 2025
A pleasant, but unmemorable, travelogue
Read the full reviewMark Twain
Ron Chernow100/100Read Dec 2025
At roughly 1,200 pages, Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain covers nearly every aspect of the humorist’s life in exhaustive detail. In this review, I’ll focus on a few of the central themes that run through Twain’s life and work: race, women, and business. On Race Sam Clemens…
Read the full reviewLittle Bosses Everywhere
Bridget Read100/100Read Dec 2025
This is an interesting and well researched survey of pyramid schemes/MLM. For Read's purposes, a pyramid scheme is a system where the salespeople focus more on attracting new salespeople than on selling to end users. She discusses famous examples such as Nutralife, Mary Kay…
Read the full reviewBlood and Oil
Bradley Hope80/100Read Nov 2025
I doubt Mohammed is going to be buying copies of the book to hand out to his friends, but it seems like a pretty fair biography to me. MBS comes off as a paranoid machiavellian schemer, but so do all autocrats. Hope also acknowledges Mohammed's positive contributions. He's…
Read the full reviewThe great cat massacre
Robert Darnton80/100Read Nov 2025
Fine but not for me. I bought this book because I thought it would be a collection of weird stories about weird French people doing weird stuff. The title suggests this. Instead it turned out to be a serious academic book. A lot of the book is dedicated to questions of…
Read the full reviewThe Rational Male
Rollo Tomassi20/100Read Oct 2025
I don’t usually review books without finishing them, but I feel like I got the gist of The Rational Male—and I don’t have the attention span to endure the rest. I bought it on a whim—a 2-for-1 Audible sale, and I couldn’t find anything else. The target audience seems to be men…
Read the full reviewCursed Objects
J.W. Ocker80/100Read Oct 2025
This book delivers on the promise of its title. It is a series of anecdotes or folk tales about cursed objects. Examples: * Busby's Chair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busby%27s_stoop_chair * The Curse of the Pharaohs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_pharaohs * The…
Read the full reviewNormal Women
Philippa Gregory80/100Read Oct 2025
Pretty good history of British women.
Read the full reviewPax
Tom Holland80/100Read Oct 2025
There's a meme on TikTok that men think about the Roman Empire five times a day or some such thing. I can't speak for other men, but in my case that seems a bit high. I probably only think the about the Roman Empire a few times a week. Roman history feels to me like a soap opera…
Read the full reviewThe Icepick Surgeon
Sam Kean60/100Read Oct 2025
Maybe 3.5 stars? This Icepick Surgeon is a collection of stories - I wasn't surprised to learn Kean is a podcaster as each chapter feels like an episode in a series connected only by the very general theme of people doing bad things in some way connected to science or medicine…
Read the full reviewThe Library
Andrew Pettegree80/100Read Oct 2025
This one of those books that will be enjoyed by people who enjoy this type of thing. If a history of libraries sounds mind-numbingly dull to you, don't read it. A few unstructured notes: * The book is relatively Eurocentric (shifting to U.S.centric in the final chapters). I'm…
Read the full reviewMedieval Horizons
Ian Mortimer80/100Read Oct 2025
Medieval Horizons is history with an axe to grind. The history is largely that of England from 1100 - 1600. The axe is that Mortimer is fascinated with the middle ages and like all people with strange obsessions he thinks everyone else should be equally fascinated with it. The…
Read the full reviewReappraisals
Tony Judt100/100Read Oct 2025
Reappraisals collects several of Tony Judt’s essays, many first appearing in the New York Review of Books. Until his death in 2010, Judt likely knew as much about 19th–20th century Europe as any living historian, and it shows. He can be an intimidating reviewer - fair but, when…
Read the full reviewA people's tragedy
Orlando Figes80/100Read Sep 2025
A People's Tragedy is an exhaustively researched and well written overview of the Russian Revolution. I give it 4 stars instead of 5 only because I feel like the author's biases occasionally cloud his historical judgement. Figes clearly has strong anti-Bolshevik views. There's…
Read the full reviewAn Immense World
Ed Yong100/100Read Sep 2025
Fascinating. I still don't know what it's like to be a bat, but I have a better sense of it now.
Read the full reviewThe Sleepwalkers
Christopher Clark100/100Read Jul 2025
Interesting overview of long lead up to WW1. A random thought I had while listening: it's no wonder that game theory was primarily developed by Europeans born in the pre-war period. Oskar Morganstern was born in the German Empire in 1902 and John von Neumann was born in…
Read the full reviewFur, Fortune, and Empire
Eric Jay Dolin80/100Read Jun 2025
I listened to the audiobook, and it was fairly interesting. Much of the book is a narrative history of the various troubles fur traders got into. Dolin seems to generally accept these narratives unquestioningly, which gives the book an inevitable European-centric gloss, since…
Read the full reviewOf Walking in Ice
Werner Herzog80/100Read Jun 2025
Werner Herzog's writing moves effortlessly between fact and fiction and it's often hard to tell which is which. Sometimes it's not even clear if he knows. This book is, as the title suggests, his journal of a hike he took in 1974 from Munich to Paris (~800 km). He broke into…
Read the full reviewThe Making of Modern Economics
Mark Skousen60/100Read Jun 2025
As Skousen acknowledges in the introduction this book is not intended as an impartial overview. Skousen is a supporter of the Austrian school whose representatives play a disproportionate role in the story. That said, Skousen does his best to present even economists whose work…
Read the full reviewThe Great Leveler
Walter Scheidel80/100Read Jun 2025
The Great Leveler invites comparison with two other books: Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty, and Rising Up and Rising Down by William Vollmann. All three books make the point that violent shocks to the established order can result in large scale redistribution of…
Read the full reviewThe Culture of Defeat
Wolfgang Schivelbusch100/100Read May 2025
Culture of Defeat is made up of three interconnected essays, on historical losers: - Confederate States (loser of U.S. civil war - 1865) - France (loser of Franco-Prussian War - 1871) And - Germany (loser of World War I - 1918) In each case, defeat led to a national reckoning…
Read the full reviewJames
Percival L. Everett60/100Read Mar 2025
Fine, if you like experimental fiction. I don't get the hoopla. I was under the impression that James was going to be a retelling of The Adventures of Huck Finn, told from the perspective of Jim, the escaped slave who runs away with Huck in Twain's novel. It's not. Rather, the…
Read the full reviewNegro with a Hat
Colin Grant100/100Read Feb 2025
Huh, just realized I never posted my notes on this from like a year ago. Here they are: This book might been entitled "The Negro's Greatest Enemy". That's the name of an essay Garvey wrote in 1923. To some, the title might have suggested the KKK, whose ~3-4m members Garvey saw…
Read the full reviewIf Beale Street Could Talk
James Baldwin100/100Read Jan 2025
If Beale St Could Talk is told from the perspective of an 18 year old, Tish, who finds out that she’s pregnant a few days after her fiancé is arrested and charged (falsely) with rape. The book is about her family’s efforts to free him, and the barriers they run into at every…
Read the full reviewThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain100/100Read Jan 2025
I read Huck Finn because I'm fixin' to read [b:James|173754979|James|Percival Everett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1704107491l/173754979._SX50_.jpg|181379063] and I reckoned I should have some familiarity with the source material. Huck…
Read the full reviewThe Book of Eels
Patrik Svensson80/100Read Oct 2024
I’m really not sure how to rate this book, or even whether or not I liked it. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn’t. It’s not really a book about Eels. Or rather, it’s as much about Eels as Moby Dick is about whales. There is a great deal of serious Eel content. The author has…
Read the full reviewSupermarket USA
Shane Hamilton60/100Read Oct 2024
I think Fresno Bob’s review is basically right: the author seems to have come up with “farms race” as an analogue to “arms race” and been so struck by it that they took a notion to write a book. They use the phrase 76 times, by my count. It got a bit tiresome. The book does have…
Read the full reviewMy Brilliant Friend
Chiara Lagani100/100Read Oct 2024
Elena Ferrante is a skilled prose writer. She has good ear for dialogue and for the subtle nuance of social interactions. She effectively portrays what it felt like to be a girl from a poor family growing up in Naples in the 1950s. The book reminded me a bit of Cat's Eye, by…
Read the full reviewWeavers, Scribes, and Kings
Amanda H. Podany100/100Read Oct 2024
I really liked Weavers, Scribes, and Kings. I was surprised at how much we know about the ancient near east based on archeological evidence. It seems like far more written records survive from the Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian empires than from later civilizations. This is…
Read the full reviewThe Oxford history of Mexico
Michael C. Meyer80/100Read Oct 2024
The Oxford history of Mexico is a mixed bag, in terms of quality and style. Each chapter is written by a different author and is a more or less self contained essay on a particular aspect of a particular period. Overall I found it to be a decent introduction or overview of a…
Read the full reviewPower Failure
William D. Cohan80/100Read Sep 2024
This is an excellent history of GE, albeit a clearly biased one. I'm giving it four stars instead of five because Cohan's focus on scandals and stupidity makes it seem like he has an ax to grind which, which makes him less than perfectly reliable narrator. The book's depiction…
Read the full reviewChristendom
Peter Heather100/100Read Sep 2024
Christendom is a well written and insightful account of Christianity's growth from a minor cult into the dominant religion of Western world. As Heather points out in the introduction, historically, most church histories have been written by Christians. For those authors, the…
Read the full reviewThe Anxious Generation
Jonathan Haidt100/100Read Aug 2024
My five star rating doesn’t mean I think Haidt is right about everything. As he points out, the advent of what he calls “phone based childhood” is essentially an unplanned experiment that kids have been enticed to opt in to. Given the scale and diversity of the experiment (and…
Read the full reviewHow to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England
Ruth Goodman100/100Read Aug 2024
I found this book delightful. On the one hand, it is a guide to the things that people in Elizabethan England found offensive, disgusting, outrageous, or otherwise distasteful. It includes a guide to verbal insults, which come to us both via literary works and via court cases…
Read the full reviewHeaven
Mieko Kawakami100/100Read Jul 2024
Very good, but tough to read at times. There’s an interesting contrast with the last novel I read, Whale. Whale contains far more brutal and intense violence, but is far less emotionally intense because the characters are more two-dimensional. By contrast, I couldn’t help but…
Read the full reviewThe Wages of Destruction
J. Adam Tooze100/100Read Jul 2024
This book gave me a new understanding of the World War Two (and the lead up to it). The histories of the period I'd read before tended to focus on political events, as Tooze argues, many of the political events only come into focus if you understand the economic factors and…
Read the full reviewRise and Fall of the EAST
Yasheng Huang100/100Read May 2024
tl;dr is that the book is excellent, and intentionally ambitious. Even if Huang isn't right about everything (an inevitable hazard of writing something of such great scope), I think he is right about a lot of things.
Read the full reviewThe emissary
Yōko Tawada100/100Read Feb 2024
The Emissary is high among the best novels I've read in many years. It takes place in a future Japan that has cut itself off from the rest of the world. The story centers on Yoshiro (107 years old) and his great-grandson Mumei (7 years old). The government of Japan has passed a…
Read the full reviewStolen Focus
Johann Hari60/100Read Dec 2023
Stolen Focus suffers, ironically, from a lack of focus. When the author mentioned at the end that he was friends with Naomi Klein I was not surprised. Fans of her work will likely enjoy this book. I’m not a fan of her work. Three stars because there are glimmers of very…
Read the full reviewSeaguy
Grant Morrison80/100Read Dec 2023
I’m not sure what I just read, but it held my attention.
Read the full reviewGrit
Angela Duckworth80/100Read Jul 2023
Maybe I'll write a longer review eventually. For now, I'll just note that while I enjoyed Grit I was somewhat surprised that Duckworth dedicated a section (p. 74-78) to Catherine Cox's 1926 "Genetic Studies of Genius" a work I took to be thoroughly discredited. In fairness, the…
Read the full reviewGay New York
George Chauncey80/100Read Jul 2023
Would have been significantly better with more historical research and less theory and jargon.
Read the full reviewThe slave trade
Hugh Thomas80/100Read Jun 2023
I'm glad I read it - I'm also glad to be done with it.
Read the full reviewTelephone
John Brooks60/100Read May 2023
Generally interesting (if you’re interested in business history), but a little heavy on anecdotes for my tastes. Not nearly as good as Brooks’ shorter journalism.
Read the full reviewMarco Polo
Laurence Bergreen100/100Read May 2023
This is a super interesting book, at least if you're you're the sorta person who's interested in this sorta thing. Bergreen uses Polo's book as a jumping-off point but cross-references it with local sources and the work of modern historians. The story itself reads like a novel…
Read the full reviewScraping by
Seth Rockman100/100Read Oct 2022
Scraping By is much more interesting and important than its apparently narrow focus would suggest.
Read the full reviewUpgrade
Blake Crouch60/100Read Sep 2022
Meh. Crouch’s impression of a super-intelligent person reads a lot like a really high freshman liberal arts major.
Read the full reviewProject Hail Mary
Andy Weir40/100Read Jul 2022
Wait for the movie, then don’t waste your time on that either. If this was just a mediocre sci-fi adventure book I’d have given three stars (four if it was funny). It gets two starts because of the thread of authoritarian politics underlying the bad writing. Wooden dialogue, two…
Read the full reviewWish Lanterns
alec ash60/100Read Jul 2022
I like the concept but couldn't get that interested in the individual characters.
Read the full reviewBeer Blast
Philip Van Munching80/100Read Jun 2022
The first 2/3s of Beer Blast is a general history of the U.S. beer industry. That history goes like this: in the later 19th century beer sales soared. Beer had been around for much longer, of course, but Americans primarily drank whiskey. The rise of beer was driven by the wave…
Read the full reviewHow the World Really Works
Vaclav Smil80/100Read Mar 2022
Smil comes off a bit grumpy, but that doesn't mean he's wrong.
Read the full reviewYou Don't Know Me but You Don't Like Me
Nathan Rabin80/100Read Feb 2022
This book is about two bands I have never personally listened to, Phish and Insane Clown Posse (henceforth ICP). Both groups have exceptionally devoted fan bases and are regarded with contempt/disgust by society. As Rabin put it, "[ICP] didn't seem to have casual fans: Either…
Read the full reviewKidnap
Anja Shortland100/100Read Feb 2022
I'm not totally sure how to rate a book like this. It's five stars in the sense that IF you want to read a book on the microeconomics of the kidnapping/ransom business, this is the one to read.
Read the full reviewLabor of love
Moira Weigel80/100Read Jan 2022
This is a fun book with many amusing anecdotes, but Weigel has an unfortunate tendency to gloss over facts to create a smooth narrative, so I only gave it four stars. Stuff I liked: * The book contains several fun sections on various fads over the years, such as the popularity…
Read the full reviewCharlatan
Pope Brock100/100Read Jan 2022
If it were a novel I'd consider this absurdly implausible.
Read the full reviewThe Glass Hotel
Emily St. John Mandel60/100Read Jan 2022
Quit 43% of the way through. I just couldn’t bring myself to care what was going to happen next. The writing was fine. Felt kinda like a spoken friend telling a meandering story with no discernible purpose. Except I’m not friends with the characters (because they are made up).
Read the full reviewThe Traitor Baru Cormorant (Baru Cormorant #1)
Seth Dickinson80/100Read Dec 2021
Maybe 5 stars if you can keep track of all the character names.
Read the full reviewConquest of the Useless
Werner Herzog80/100Read Oct 2021
There's a lot going on in this little book. The ostensible subject is Herzog's experience travelling to the Peruvian Amazon to film a movie called Fitzcarcaldo. It is not, however, about the technical aspects making a movie. Rather, I got the sense that Fitzcaraldo was conceived…
Read the full reviewDish
Jeannette Walls80/100Read Sep 2021
I enjoyed Dish but thought that it had the potential to be more than it was if Walls had taken things in a slightly different direction. At the center of this story are supermarket tabloids, most famously the National Enquirer. These publications were hugely popular from the…
Read the full reviewParable of the Sower
Octavia E. Butler60/100Read Sep 2021
So here's the quick summary of the book: In the mid-2020s the U.S. government has effectively collapsed. Roving bands travel the highways robbing and pillaging, there's not enough water or food, debt slavery is widespread, the only remaining function of the police is to shake…
Read the full reviewTuring's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe (Penguin Press Science)
George Dyson80/100Read Aug 2021
The points made in the 1 and 2-star reviews of this book are largely accurate: 1) Dyson includes a history of the Princeton, NJ area going back to pre-Columbian times, which has no clear direct relevance to the main topic of the book. 2) The book is highly digressive…
Read the full reviewMerchants of Culture
John B. Thompson100/100Read Jul 2021
I'm giving this book 5 stars because it delivers what it promises: Namely providing a detailed analysis of the trade publishing industry in the U.S. from roughly post-WW2 to the present. That said, it's a 5-star book that I probably wouldn't necessarily recommend to anyone I…
Read the full reviewLove in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel García Márquez80/100Read Jun 2021
Four stars on the first go, but I think I will want to reread it in a few years and may reappraise it then. The world will wait with bated breath, I’m sure.
Read the full reviewThe fire next time
James Baldwin100/100Read Jun 2021
Maybe 4.5 stars, but I'll round up. Quite good anyways. Baldwin knows a good phrase when he finds one and I would often find myself thinking "that's brilliant" and only later asking "is that actually true?" (much of the time it was, sometimes not).
Read the full reviewThe Feral Detective
Jonathan Lethem60/100Read Jun 2021
Meh. I guess I just don't dig Jonathan Letham's writing that much. The characters seemed wooden and forgettable. I guess the protagonist was supposed to be witty/clever, but she just came off as kinda generic. It wasn't painful to read.
Read the full reviewProust and the squid : the story and science of the reading brain
Maryanne Wolf60/100Read Mar 2021
Proust and the Squid is a rather meandering book. It includes stuff about how kids learn to read that was largely already familiar from a combination of pop psychology and linguistics (e.g., The Language Instinct) and various half-remembered college classes. This was…
Read the full reviewFactfulness
Hans Rosling100/100Read Mar 2021
Factfullness is a good book. It builds on a lot of the work in heuristics and biases done by psychologists, economists, and philosophers over the past several decades to argue that people misunderstand the world in significant ways. More specifically, we generally have negative…
Read the full reviewThe Sympathizer
Viet Thanh Nguyen80/100Read Mar 2021
I think I probably need to reread the Sympathizer to fully appreciate it. I'm pretty sure there were some metaphors I missed. Some social commentary I failed to appreciate. Some stuff about race and alienation that I didn't fully get my head around. Even on the rather…
Read the full reviewPeak
K. Anders Ericsson100/100Read Feb 2021
My one complaint is that the marketing people at the publisher clearly dickered with the (sub)title. Nothing in this book is a secret. It's a summary of academic research from the last ~30+ yrs on skill acquisitions (much of which was done by Ericsson), written for a popular…
Read the full reviewThe Liar's Dictionary
Eley Williams60/100Read Jan 2021
The Liar's Dictionary is a book about logophiles (lovers of words). Folks with this particular fetish are rightly considered by the general public to be harmless weirdos. They are sometimes mistaken for being exceptionally intelligent. Underlying logophilia there are some mildly…
Read the full reviewFrench Exit
Patrick deWitt60/100Read Jan 2021
I’ve been thinking about how to write something about this book that represents what I thought but isn’t unduly mean. I guess maybe I can start with the positives: it’s a quick and easy read and generally not unpleasant. The prose is fine (certainly better than I can write). I…
Read the full reviewThe European Guilds
Sheilagh Ogilvie100/100Read Jan 2021
I ain't gonna lie; this was not a fun book to read. The book is meticulously researched, and Ogilvie thoroughly convinced me of pretty much all of her claims about the guilds. She also makes a lot of points with potential implications for modern economics. Hence 5-stars. But it…
Read the full reviewNotorious RBG
Irin Carmon40/100Read Nov 2020
If I’d bought this book in physical form (vs e-book) and been able to flip through it in advance I might have been saved a great deal of irritation. It is a sort of hastily pulled together collage of pictures (sooo many pictures...), fragments of opinions, and fun trivia facts…
Read the full reviewThe Fortune Cookie Chronicles
Jennifer 8. Lee80/100Read Oct 2020
3.37 stars. If you want to read a book about the globalization of Chinese cuisine explained in a breezy and anecdotal way this is the book for you. If that doesn’t sound interesting maybe this isn’t the book for you. I enjoyed it but it’s not something I’m going to go around…
Read the full reviewPop. 1280
Jim Thompson100/100Read Aug 2020
Wow. Pop. 1280 knocked me plum on my ass, as the narrator might put it. Pop. 1280 is literature dressed up to look like pulp fiction (specifically crime fiction). I went into it expecting something in the general vein of Chandler, Christie, or Hammett with perhaps a bit more…
Read the full reviewLovecraft Country
Matt Ruff100/100Read Jul 2020
Maybe 4.5 stars? A lot of the negative reviews focus on how the book is disjointed or doesn't cohere in the way they wanted. In the afterword, Ruff explains that he initially started working on the story as a serial TV show, which I think explains the style. It is, essentially…
Read the full reviewAshes to ashes
Richard Kluger80/100Read Jun 2020
Exhaustively researched, which makes it occasionally exhausting to read. Kluger doesn't help matters with his love of extremely long sentences containing sub-clauses within sub-clauses. Overall, it's a solid history but a good editor could have cut about 400 pages without losing…
Read the full reviewRecursion
Blake Crouch80/100Read May 2020
Trippy and fun - read it in a weekend. Similar premise to the Lathe of Heaven, but with a semi-scientific gloss.
Read the full reviewThe Cabin at the End of the World
Paul Tremblay60/100Read Jan 2020
Airport impulse buy. Endorsement from Steven King on the cover gives a sense of what you're in for. Engaging enough - it is what it is.
Read the full reviewA Tale for the Time Being
Ruth L. Ozeki100/100Read Jan 2020
A Tale For the Time Being is a story that could very easily have gone off the rails in the hands of a less skilled writer, but Ozeki pulled it off well IMO. Here are just a few of the ingredients: Metafiction, analogies between Buddhism and quantum mechanics, multiple suicidal…
Read the full reviewMy Favorite Thing Is Monsters, vol 1
Emil Ferris80/100Read Feb 2019
Really more like 4.5 stars.
Read the full reviewThe Twenty-Seventh City (Bestselling Backlist)
Jonathan Franzen60/100Read Mar 2018
Twenty-seventh City is the least enjoyable of Franzen's books that I've read (I've read all his other novels, except for Strong Motion). It was written when he was young and, I think, trying too hard to please the professors he'd taken literature classes with. Part of the issue…
Read the full reviewThe paranoid style in American politics
Richard Hofstadter100/100Read Jan 2018
A classic. Explains so much about Trump, despite being written decades ago.
Read the full reviewLegacy of Ashes
Tim Weiner100/100Read Mar 2017
Legacy of Ashes is an excellent, if fundamentally conservative, history of the CIA. As you could guess from the title, the book is scathing. The CIA’s history consists of a long and unmitigated string of screw-ups and idiocy. There’s not really any more charitable way to put it…
Read the full reviewGood to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
Jim Collins40/100Read Oct 2016
Collins explains how your organization can make the leap to greatness like Circuit City, Fannie Mae and Wells Fargo.
Read the full reviewDr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Pauline Francis80/100Read Jan 2016
Kinda ridiculous but fun. My favorite part was when Mr. Hyde ran over a child “like a juggernaut.” He was on foot, so it must have taken some doing. That’s what happens when ya do drugs though. You turn into a weird child-trodding juggernaut. At least that’s the lesson I took…
Read the full reviewJapan Inc
Shōtarō Ishinomori40/100Read Nov 2012
Who'd have thought a book about the Japanese economy in the 80s could be so boring? Japan Inc. tries to be both an economics textbook and a narrative and doesn't do particularly well at either. The economics is light and often incompletely explained, and the characters in the…
Read the full reviewThe Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
Neil Gaiman80/100Read Sep 2012
Enjoyable enough, but I still don't really get Gaiman's cult following.
Read the full reviewThe Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins80/100Read Sep 2012
If you like romance novels but wish they had more violence directed towards children, this might be the book for you. It's a beautiful story about love, with a great deal of brutal violence.
Read the full reviewMoby Dick; or, the Whale
Herman Melville80/100Read Jul 2012
Moby Dick is so much better than its reputation led me to believe it would be. I expected four-hundred pages of meandering prose about the misery of the human condition. What I got was six-hundred pages (I was even wrong about the length!) of jaunty, conversational, and good…
Read the full reviewBartleby, the Scrivener
Herman Melville100/100Read Jul 2012
I'd rather not say why I like this story.
Read the full reviewOh the glory of it all
Sean Wilsey80/100Read Mar 2012
This book really deserves perhaps 3.5 stars. It gets off to a 4 star start, and has some 5 star moments, but lackluster editing leaves a lot of dead weight. I think this could have made an even better 200 page book (it's almost 500). Perhaps the publisher thought the imposing…
Read the full reviewOmensetter's Luck
William H. Gass60/100Read Mar 2012
Reverend Furber's sermon near the end of the book sent a chill down my spine, but otherwise I just felt like I was missing the point.
Read the full reviewCotton
Stephen Yafa80/100Read Jan 2012
Cotton is a series of closely connected essays on the plant. A few of them are of questionable relevance. For instance he dedicates a fair amount of space to a short of the history of the Blues on the grounds that there are some blues songs about Boll Weevils, and some blues…
Read the full reviewDiary of a very bad year : confessions of an anonymous hedge fund manager
Keith Gessen80/100Read Jan 2012
These interviews with an anonymous hedge fund manager give a nice summary of the '08 financial crisis, along with its causes and consequences. The writing is approachable for folks without much background in finance.
Read the full reviewThe White Tiger
Aravind Adiga80/100Read Jan 2012
The White Tiger starts out funny and gets progressively darker. The storyline bears a strong resemblance to Native Son, while the prose reminded me of Absurdistan or perhaps a Confederacy of Dunces. I enjoyed all of those books, so I can hardly be too critical of a writer whose…
Read the full reviewBetter
Atul Gawande80/100Read Dec 2011
Much of the book is a defense of what might be called "boring virtues." These are things like diligence, and persistence. Improving care outcomes doesn’t require genius or cutting edge technology, but competence, and systems that help reduce errors.
Read the full reviewCrime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky40/100Read Dec 2011
I found Crime and Punishment generally boring, and at times barely coherent. Perhaps I’m no longer at a proper point in my life to appreciate Dostoevsky. Like all of his books Crime & Punishment is a polemic, and like most of what he wrote post 1864 it's a conservative polemic…
Read the full reviewWittgenstein's mistress
David Markson60/100Read Dec 2011
I am a bit ashamed to give only three stars to Wittgenstein's Mistress. In an interview in the afterword Markinson refers to the "C students," and "semiliterates" who rejected the novel 54 times before it was finally accepted. Maybe I’m one of them, or maybe he’s an ass.
Read the full reviewThe Prize
Daniel Yergin80/100Read Nov 2011
In its 800 pages The Prize begins to get a bit repetitive. This isn't strictly Yergin's fault - the history of the oil industry is itself repetitive. Still, from a reader's perspective it's not particularly edifying to spend ten pages on yet another story of gritty oil men who…
Read the full reviewEverything Is Illuminated
Jonathan Safran Foer40/100Read Aug 2011
Nothing was Illuminated and I was bored.
Read the full reviewGroundwork of the metaphysics of morals
Immanuel Kant60/100Read Aug 2011
Ugh, just imagine what the world would be like if everyone read Kant (shudders).
Read the full reviewOpen Veins Of Latin America
Eduardo Galeano80/100Read Sep 2010
I'm a little bit surprised at how controversial this book apparently is. I mean, it's true that Galeano makes some controversial claims, but the most scandalous stuff he talks about is generally well documented. For instance, it's a matter of historical record that the U.S…
Read the full reviewThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díaz80/100Read Sep 2009
This book reminded me of what a dork I am for not knowing Spanish.
Read the full reviewUnderstanding China
John Bryan Starr40/100Read Jan 2009
After finishing the book I still didn’t understand China. I had to go read some other books.
Read the full reviewMarx
Peter Singer80/100Read Jan 2009
A good very short introduction to Marx... Precisely as the title and author would lead you to expect.
Read the full reviewA Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole80/100Read Sep 2008
Very enjoyable, a bit sloppy in places, but the quality of the protagonist easily overcomes the occasionally weak prose.
Read the full reviewMaus
Art Spiegelman80/100Read Feb 2008
Not as good as it's reputation, but still damn good.
Read the full reviewThe American Way of War
Russell F. Weigley80/100Read Feb 2008
The 2/3s of this book I read were a good survey of American military policy and strategy.
Read the full reviewThe poems of Georg Trakl
Georg Trakl80/100Read Feb 2008
I share Wittgenstein’s assessment: I do not understand [Trakl's poems]; but their tone pleases me.
Read the full reviewCivilization and Its Discontents
Sigmund Freud60/100Read Jan 2008
Some of Freud’s analogies meander on for a long time without really leading anywhere, but it’s still an interesting read.
Read the full reviewBlood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy100/100Read Jan 2008
Blood Meridian is enjoyable; for the kind of people who enjoy deeply disturbing things that they can’t unread. For first time readers, I would suggest purchasing a bottle of whiskey to accompany the book.
Read the full reviewNaming and necessity
Saul A. Kripke60/100Read Jan 2008
Naming and Necessity is Saul Kripke’s famous proof that you can be a genius and still not have anything useful or interesting to say.
Read the full reviewPostwar
Tony Judt100/100Read Jul 2007
It's huge, it's filled with data, it's incredibly written, if you only ever read one book on European history this should be it.
Read the full reviewTruth and Truthfulness
Bernard Williams80/100Read Jun 2007
I recall enjoying this in grad school, but when I went back to it years later it reminded me why I quit grad school.
Read the full reviewA heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Dave Eggers80/100Read May 2007
Very enjoyably. Witty. Doesn't require you to think too much. Everything one could want in a book.
Read the full reviewAnarchy, State, and Utopia
Robert Nozick80/100Read Apr 2007
Nozick is wrong about almost everything, but he’s wrong in interesting and sometimes illuminating ways.
Read the full reviewLibertarianism without inequality
Michael Otsuka40/100Read Mar 2007
The one interesting part is his argument that the constitution should expire every generation.
Read the full reviewTaking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right
Harry G. Frankfurt100/100Read Feb 2007
Taking Ourselves Seriously is a very good essay.
Read the full reviewLiving high and letting die
Peter K. Unger100/100Read Feb 2007
Argues that non-consequentialist moral theories collapse into intuitionism, which gives self contradictory and unhelpful guidance on what to do.
Read the full reviewTheory and Reality
Peter Godfrey-Smith80/100Read Jan 2007
Decent introduction to philosophy of science.
Read the full reviewMeditations
Marcus Aurelius Aurelius80/100Read Jan 2007
Not quite as good as Epictetus, but still enjoyable.
Read the full reviewPresent past
Richard Terdiman20/100Read Jan 2007
I couldn’t understand anything in this book. maybe it was good. I really wouldn't know. I read it cover-to-cover though.
Read the full reviewTractatus logico-philosophicus
Ludwig Wittgenstein80/100Read Dec 2006
I like what little I understand of the Tractatus.
Read the full reviewNabokov's Pale fire
Brian Boyd80/100Read Oct 2006
Great, if you want to know what the fuck is going on in Pale Fire. Some nice general information on how to read and specifically how to read Nabokov.
Read the full reviewSwann's Way
Marcel Proust80/100Read Sep 2006
The first half is significantly more enjoyable than the second, but an all around pleasant read. I don't know that there's much to his stuff on memory once you actually try to pin down what it is but the prose is nice.
Read the full reviewStrong opinions
Vladimir Nabokov80/100Read Feb 2006
Entertaining interviews in which Nabokov mercilessly attacks everyone he's ever met or read.
Read the full reviewThe Cambridge Companion to Nabokov
Julian W Connolly80/100Read Jan 2006
Some enjoyable essays on Nabokov's life and work.
Read the full reviewA Season in Hell & Illuminations
Arthur Rimbaud60/100Read Jan 2006
I don't like Rimbaud as much as everyone else seems to, but he does have an occasional great line.
Read the full reviewThe roads have come to an end now
Rolf Jacobsen100/100Read Jan 2006
Many of the best poems I have ever read are in this short volume. You have to sit down after reading them.
Read the full reviewSelected Poems
William Carlos Williams40/100Read Jan 2006
Even when Williams’ poems are well crafted (they usually are) he is among the most boring poets I’ve ever read.
Read the full reviewBetter Off
Eric Brende100/100Read Jan 2006
Inspirational, really makes me want to get rid of this stupid computer.
Read the full reviewRobert Nozick (Contemporary Philosophy in Focus)
David Schmidtz80/100Read Jan 2006
Some very good essays explaining why Nozick is wrong about various things (and occasionally sticking up for him). Actually the essays are better than most of Nozick's own writing.
Read the full reviewSurvival In Auschwitz
Levi100/100Read Jan 2006
One of the dozen saddest books I've ever read.
Read the full reviewBeyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche80/100Read Jan 2006
Quite entertaining, even when he's wrong.
Read the full reviewPale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov80/100Read Jan 2006
Reading Nabokov always makes me wish I were smarter because he makes you feel like there's something absolutely incredible under the (admittedly very nice) surface. This can be a pleasant feeling, but it can also be disappointing when you scratch the surface and find that what's…
Read the full reviewDostoevsky
Joseph Frank100/100Read Nov 2005
Frank's biography is, perhaps, as good as anything by its subject. It helps that Doestovsky’s life in these years was more wild than a character in a novel. He was arrested for printing subversive tracts, sentenced to be executed, taken out to be executed (czarist Russia didn’t…
Read the full reviewDark Continent
Mark Mazower80/100Read Jul 2005
Nice explanation of why the "triumph of democracy" wasn’t as inevitable as it now appears, and why fascism was so appealing in the 20s and 30s.
Read the full reviewSpreading the American dream
Emily S. Rosenberg100/100Read Feb 2005
Great book, filled with numbers and facts about how America worked to ensure its cultural hegemony in early and middle twentieth century, and to what ends. Goes well with the Tragedy of American Diplomacy (focused more on economic hegemony).
Read the full reviewPower and protest
Jeremi Suri100/100Read Feb 2005
Détente was the result of tacit agreement between the major powers to focus on controlling their own citizens.
Read the full reviewVintage Hughes
Langston Hughes60/100Read Jan 2005
Hughes has a couple of poems I really like, but his prose isn’t for me.
Read the full reviewSomething Happened
Joseph Heller80/100Read Jan 2005
Takes a long time to get through, depressing as hell, boring in places, yet somehow worth reading.
Read the full reviewFreedom evolves
Daniel C. Dennett80/100Read Jan 2005
Great survey of the implications of scientific developments for the idea of free will.
Read the full reviewThe painted bed
Donald Hall60/100Read Jan 2005
Poems about how Hall’s wife died and his life fell apart. It’s a bit of a downer tbh.
Read the full reviewSavage inequalities : children in America's schools
Jonathan Kozol80/100Read Jan 2005
Incredibly sad.
Read the full reviewThe Nicomachean ethics
Aristotle60/100Read Jan 2005
Aristotle liked to say incorrect things in a very authoritative way.
Read the full reviewBowling Alone
Robert D. Putnam100/100Read Jan 2005
How U.S. communities broke (before the internet).
Read the full reviewCulture jam
Kalle Lasn60/100Read Jan 2005
About on a par with No Logo, but more focused on consumerism.
Read the full reviewSceptical essays
Bertrand Russell80/100Read Jan 2004
Fine arguments for skepticism about various things.
Read the full reviewSailing alone around the room
Billy Collins80/100Read Jan 2004
Amusing, clever, little poems.
Read the full reviewThe Eden express
Mark Vonnegut100/100Read Jan 2004
Great book about going crazy in the 1960s and getting over it.
Read the full reviewThe Man Who Loved Only Numbers
Paul Hoffman80/100Read Jan 2004
Interesting story about obsession and single-mindedness and how great they can be.
Read the full reviewWhen Nietzsche Wept
Irvin D. Yalom60/100Read Jan 2004
As novels about the intersection of continental philosophy and psychoanalysis go this one was pretty good.
Read the full reviewThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon80/100Read Jan 2004
A very enjoyable book with some tips on writing mystery novels and and math.
Read the full reviewIn the belly of the beast
Jack Henry Abbott80/100Read Jan 2004
Reasons to avoid being sent to prison.
Read the full reviewReefer Madness
Eric Schlosser80/100Read Jan 2004
More fine journalism, should probably be three books to really give adequate treatment to each of the topics, but he does well with the limited space.
Read the full reviewThe Dispossessed
Ursula K. Le Guin100/100Read Jan 2004
Who wouldn't want to be an anarchist after reading this?
Read the full reviewNo Logo
Naomi Klein60/100Read Jan 2004
A laundry list of complaints and grievances against globalization and capitalism. Would be significantly improved if Kleinman had a read a book or talked to an economist. That’s not to say all of the complaints and grievances are off base. There are reasons to complain and be…
Read the full reviewLudwig Wittgenstein
Ray Monk80/100Read Jan 2004
Actually read this before I read any Wittgenstein. It’s will written and interesting, though maybe a bit longer than it needed to be.
Read the full reviewBlue Blood
Edward Conlon80/100Read Jan 2004
Really well written memoir on the day to day experience of a NYC cop.
Read the full reviewWhy I am not a Christian, and other essays on religion and related subjects
Bertrand Russell80/100Read Jan 2003
Nice summary of arguments against the existence of God in general and Christianity in particular. I don't know that there's anything too original here, but Russell is a good writer.
Read the full reviewBrave New World Revisited
Aldous Huxley100/100Read Jan 2000
Probably better than Brave New World.
Read the full reviewAtlas Shrugged (Centennial Ed. HC)
Ayn Rand40/100Read Jan 2000
Great for people who liked the Fountainhead but wished it was longer
Read the full reviewThe Fountainhead
Ayn Rand40/100Read Jan 2000
Not as long as Atlas Shrugged - so it's better in that way.
Read the full review
