Liz Selbst
some interesting factoids, but honestly, this book's claims are vastly exaggerated. Beer did not cause us to cultivate eat grains, nor was tea the reason for the American revolution, nor did coffee cause the Enlightenment. This tendency to hyperbole was a disappointment.
Distributed generation is a fine idea. Almost entirely misses the concept of how big data servers work with his analogy to the internet, uses a lot of poorly-informed math to make his point, and name drops his meetings with EU officials ad nauseaum. The material would have been better suited for pamphlet, but probably was not worthy of a book.
This episode of “Cooking the Books” pretty much sums it up. http://www.theawl.com/2010/10/cooking-the-books-emily-gould-and-tao-lin-make-raw-salad
Great read. Mixes personal memoir with social commentary about modern China very deftly. The language is almost overwhelmingly simple, but the stories are delicate and complex.
a little uneven at times, but most of the stories are highly entertaining and very tightly wound. I'm kind of surprised this book didn't seem to get much attention.
Parts of this book read like very good science writing and I learned a lot about cancer that I probably never would have chanced to research otherwise.
I was annoyed by Johnson's constant “Look at me, I'm a cancer research outsider!” reminders. Nobody would show up at any scientific research conference in any field and expect it to be accessible to a lay audience.
The epilogue was abrupt and Johnson's subsequent divorce made me mistrust a lot of the narrative that was used to shape the book. I don't know, using your ex-wife's experience of cancer to shape your nonfiction investigation (memoir?) just seems kind of scuzzy.
I love everything Ian Frazier. Unfortunately, I think this book did not age well and it feels quite outdated by 2014.
highly important, powerful prose....but it's a collection of previously written essays, so it gets really repetitive towards the end.
Pretty basic nutritional science — and a lot less rigorously cited/documented than some of Taubes' other books.
Eh—pretty standard Bittman message. Not much new in here if you read his column with any regularity or any of his books.
Once the central plot device (hint: the landline) was revealed, I have no honest answer why I kept reading this book.
Overhyped. The construct of the river journey is both gimmicky and over-exploited, and his extended rant against Shellenberger and Nordhouse borders on the obsessive. I'm not sure if Gessner thinks of himself as a modern day Twain, but this book feels styled after 19th century American comedies. Enough osprey talk to bore even a dedicated birder. Still probably remains an important book in contemporary environmental philosophy, though.
good but really self indulgent. I got tired of the same trail story told in so many ways. I probably have just read too many trail books.... this is one of the better-written ones, but still.
Beautiful, haunting, mostly beautiful. A very quick/short read but one I would definitely recommend.
Six word summary: Google fanboy writes fast-paced “bookstore mystery.”
Over the top in its descriptions of Google's “Big Box” and awe for the power of computing. It's somewhat ironic that this book draws attention to the cult-like secrecy of bibliophile societies but fails to demonstrate any similar awareness of the cult of Google. The scenes at Google read almost like a satire, but they're way too fawning for that.
Trying painfully too hard to make a statement about the future of digital books and libraries. The effort to tie in the protagonist's favorite fantasy series just made me cringe.
The characters seemed promising at first, but I grew tired of them quickly after they failed to develop with any depth. Two stars because the plot did keep me turning pages quickly.
SPOILER: The ultimate reveal of the codex seemed facile - it's just a little too convenient that the Gerritszoon punches end up unlocking the centuries-old message.
This is the most delicious book I've read in a long time. The essay about Michael Jackson was nothing short of beautiful. Props to my good friend Sethelson for the recommendation.
Would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in stats and forecasting, especially as it relates to how we make policy. Silver's voice tracks his writing in 538 closely: thoughtful, smart, engaging, funny, etc...
I think it's an exceptionally clear and well-written book, especially given the dense topics involved. But this will probably still feel like it's too deep in the weeds for many readers who just aren't interested. On the other hand, in some chapters, I felt like Silver had room to come down with more math and less “here's a vague approximation of what the stats are doing.”
In general, the book's earlier topics (baseball, meteorology, financial crisis) felt a little tighter than the later wandering into climate change. In any case, I think this book is good evidence of why Silver is good at what he does - he thinks about complexity, draws from his background as a well-trained statistician, tries to analyze why his models fail, is reasonably skeptical of overly confident predictions, etc. Portions of the book are lengthy asides into seemingly minute trivia that end up playing a large role in a given prediction's variation – and that kind of attention to bad predictions is exactly why Silver does a better job than most.
Good but not amazing. Could have been about 300 pages shorter (at least). I was disappointed Murakami only tied up one of many loose plot ends by the end of the book. The idea that post-modern novels don't have to follow old fashioned conventions is a recurring discussion point in the book (for example, M. deliberately mentions and then violates Chekhov's principle that once a gun is introduced, it must be fired), so I guess it's not that surprising. In the beginning, the tightly packaged plot lines drew me in, but Murakami seemed comfortable with mere suggestions by the book's end. Even though I liked it, I'd be hard pressed to recommend it to others just because the page-length investment doesn't entirely seem worth the payoff.
Interesting read. Falls a little bit into the territory of an apology for video game lovers, but is definitely thought-provoking overall.