Joe C

Compelling argument and fascinating, if often speculative and generalizing, history. Made me want to do more dancing!

A surprisingly beautiful collection of personal essays. Not every one is a winner, but I'll be coming back to many of these again. Above all, Green has inspired me to find and collect the sparks of radiant light that can help me to keep loving the world in dark times.

Fascinating history. A strong call for a more compassionate and realistic approach to addiction. I particularly enjoyed Fisher's interpolations of his own experience with addiction, treatment, and recovery.

Generally interesting, if often irritating, introduction to geographic explanations for divergences in human cultures, technology, etc.

Fascinating story, well worth reading for insight into the experience of North Korean defectors.

Weird and very cool. Possibly my favorite Butler read (having only read Kindred and Parable of the Sower). Reminded me of Asimov's The Gods Themselves.

Deeply thought-provoking - useful for radical questioning of modern economic life and all it presupposes. Granted there's plenty here that extrapolates away from the empirical basis of the text (a modern anthropological account of the history of money that is fascinating in its own right), but the paradigm he presents is well-worth grappling with. I look forward to engaging with criticisms of the text and thinking through how some of his arguments might be sharpened or improved.

One of the best books I have ever read. A masterpiece.

A useful book for all Latter-day Saints, both those who find themselves questioning or drifting from the faith and those who love them. I found Mason's chapter on participating in church even when questioning (or after arriving at views some wouldn't consider orthodox) most helpful. Otherwise I was a little disappointed, but only because I so loved Restoration, a book by the same author that moves past the basic framework for faith reconstruction he gives here and imagines what a more expansive and transformative faith (and church) might look like.

Compelling story and writing, so long as I read it as its own thing - I hated Miller's interpretation of Patroclus. I enjoyed it significantly more than Circe.

I wish I had a similar book to digest and convey recent decades of research for all the fields that interest me.

A meandering and sometimes self-indulgent memoir, but full of fascinating stories, musings, and commentary from one of the most important thinkers of the last century. The breadth and depth of the intellectual life Sen cultivated for himself as a young scholar is inspiring and impressive.

I can understand why this book gets both a lot of love and a lot of hate. As a new dad, I found the relationship at the core of the novel deeply moving (a nameless father and son, travelling the ash-covered road together at something like the end of the world). The emptiness of the characters and of the plot, where so many details are completely left unsaid, worked well for me. It meant I found myself filling in the blanks myself, reflecting on my own life and relationships, lost in thought and often having to go back and listen again to what I had missed. (I listened to the audiobook, which also means the narrator helpfully filled in who was speaking, since I understand McCarthy's prose doesn't specify.)

A slow-moving exploration of the stories we tell ourselves about the world and the people around us. I found moments deeply moving and insightful about my own life and relationships, even if I occasionally lost interest in the characters and their story.

Funny, but a bit too on the nose. The social commentary is timely but isn't anything that hasn't been said before (and usually better).

Absolutely captivating from beginning to end. A well-crafted and well-researched story of a murder that simultaneously introduces readers to the history of the troubles and some of its most infamous characters.

A great guide to some of the basic science of habits, at least as far as I could tell as an absolute layperson in any of the relevant fields. An entertaining read with particularly good story-telling for the type of popular non-fiction book this is. If you want excellent and careful interpretation of the current state of science, I suspect this book isn't your best bet, but my impression was that this book was carefully researched and articulated enough for my purposes. I'm optimistic that the ideas in this book will help me with the constant challenge of crafting better habits!

Fantastic biography that can't help being much more than a biography of England's life. In Givens's able hands, the story of England's life becomes a deep meditation on the trials and travails of the Mormon intellectual, depicted almost as a dramatic (Shakespearean?) tragedy. I suspect I'll be returning to this book again and again as I grapple with some of the same questions England did.

I came to this book after thoroughly enjoying Newport's Digital Minimalism (and loving the impact it has had on my own productivity and satisfaction). Deep Work was, by comparison, disappointing.

I'm convinced by the broad argument and found some of the advice helpful. Much of the practical tips in this book, though, are done better and with broader applicability in Digital Minimalism.

Where this book really lost me was its casual acceptance of an individualistic, outgrind-the-competition, aren't-successful-people-amazing capitalism. Like, maybe its primary audience is meant to be venture capitalists, executives, and fellow self-help writers?

Tl;dr - don't bother with this book, read Digital Minimalism instead.

Well-written, with interesting characters. An American western epic. But (and I shouldn't have been surprised by a Western, I suppose) ultimately a paean to westward expansion and the rangers whose genocide of indigenous populations made it possible. The novel isn't entirely uncritical or unreflective about some of that ugly history, but I was disappointed by the way that indigenous, Black, and Hispanic characters played only side roles with little depth that primarily served to advance the plot for the white characters at the heart of the novel.

Fantastic book, highly recommend! More than most histories, this book is explicit about its historiographical lens. Dunbar-Ortiz forces readers to see US history from the perspective of those whose expulsion, destruction, and assimilation was the goal of the American settler colonial project from the beginning. Although roughly chronologically ordered, the primary organization of the narrative is thematic, allowing Dunbar-Ortiz to weave the present into her recounting of the past. For that reason, I especially recommend the book for those who have a relatively strong background in US history. Profitable for all readers, however. You'll leave the book (I hope) convinced of the moral necessity of land restoration and the recognition of indigenous sovereignty.

Lucid, compelling, careful, thorough examination of the Mormon position on a broad range of metaphysical questions. Not a complete working out of Mormon theology by any means, but a plausible sketch of its foundations and a great jumping off point. (I'm hoping to find others who've picked up where he left off. Any suggested reading?)

I hated this book. Well, I hated it for as long as I could, but it was so insistently funny and tender and moving that I eventually gave in and loved it.

Excellent, careful (and often heart-breaking) history. Theoretical analysis was sometimes thin but consistent and illuminating nevertheless.

I don't think I've read a book about dinosaurs since I was 11 or 12. So glad I made an exception for this one! Brusatte recounts not only the rise and fall of the dinosaurs but also the exciting world of the paleontologists, geologists, statisticians, and fossil hunters whose work is dramatically expanding our knowledge of these kings of beasts. Brilliantly written, each story and anecdote is filled with the excitement Brusatte so clearly finds in his work. Highly recommend!