Currently I'm studying psychology so I've been into psychology book for most of the time. But this one gives quite basic knowledge about loving stuff, so i think it's legit even for people who don't learn psychology.
I've become fascinated with Paris during the pre WWII years. Alan Furst (born February 20, 1941) is an American author of historical spy novels. Furst really captures the mood of the time in Paris before WWII. I went on a binge read of all his books. Well worth the read.
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford. An interesting book that I'm considering assigning for a college level composition class. Damn good book and will work, but I might go with his next book, which is on deck.
Really fascinating. The author was my mentor in college, a simply amazing scholar who spoke more languages than seemed plausible, and this is his life's passion written for non-academics. There's necessarily a ton of deduction, iffy-history, and speculation but it places Jesus in a rich historical context as an itinerant Jewish rabbi at the turn of the common era.
Hancock talks about this book on Joe Rogan's podcast starting around the 59 minute mark.until the 70 minute mark.
Milosz: a Biography a translation from the Polish of a biography of Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz by Andrzej Franaszek. I have no idea what the English / American edition looks like.
I used to be a fan of Ken Follett when i was in High School during the 1980's. I gave up on him after The Pillars of the Earth, ironically his best selling book. I preferred his old style.... writing spy, historical thriller. I knew of the book: The Man From St Petersburg, but I do not remember if I have ever read it. Anyway, I was travelling to St Petersburg via a stopover in London. The book was set in London about an assassin from St Petersburg. So it decided to read this book. Verdict: I definitely grew out of Ken Follett. Parts of the books reminded me of a Romance Novel. And I found parts of the book unconvincing. "Yeah, right?" i said to myself a few times.
I was a fan of Feaknomics. I was looking forward for this book to come out. I finally got to it this week. While reading it, I told myself: "I should have read this book earlier. This book seriously needs an updated version. Things written do not make sense anymore in 2017." Right before I made this post, I googled the book(for the image).... then, realised that the book was published in 2015 and I thought it was written in 2007. Most of the materials from the book came from a blog maintained by the authors. The authors wanted to cash in from the popularity of Freaknomics.. Some of the materials were not very good. Oh well, I wrote two straight negative reviews here.
I am reading three things: 1) Sex on the Moon, The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History by Ben Mezrich. I knew part of the story of the NASA intern who stole moon rocks with his girlfriend and wanted to dive into it in an interesting way, but Mezrich clearly takes a lot of liberties with the story. It's the first time I've encountered Mezrich but from a quick perusal of the net, it seems this is his MO. I could do with less sensationalism (but then again, I did borrow a book with that rather sensational title). Also: Mezrich seems . . . smitten with his subject. It is an incredibly flattering book given the protagonist is an ass almost all the way through. 2) Where the Water Goes, Life and Death along the Colorado River by David Owen. I read Cadillac Desert years ago, and it is still an amazing account about the pursuit of water in the arid West; I was - am - interested in an update, and this look at the uses of the Colorado appealed to me. And man, is the river system and the myriad claims placed on it a complicated story (one which Owen does a nice job communicating to the lay person). At only 260 pages, it is an impressive balance between thorough and succinct. 3) The Tetherballs of Bougainville by Mark Leyner. Utterly bizarre, utterly hilarious, and utterly unique. I can handle about ten pages at a time - the format and speed at which seemingly random topics come flying at you can be dizzying, and somehow even in brevity it is complex and dense. But the funny keeps me at it.
Evelina – Frances Burney "In the republic of letters, there is no member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his brethren of the quill, as the humble Novelist"
The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction., the follow up to Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford, one of the few people in the world with both a University of Chicago Ph.D. in philosophy and a motorcycle repair business. And a think tank gig in Charlottesville, VA.
I have a Charlottesville, VA theme going here, as that's where this guy taught for a couple decades at the end of the 20th Century, and where these lectures were delivered over three nights. Philosophy as Poetry three lectures delivered by the only American philosopher who gets his picture on the outside of his dust jacket, Richard Rorty, best known on the internet as the guy who predicted the rise of a figure like Donald Trump in an essay he wrote about 20 years before the event.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That better still be on the shelf at the local library when I get there tomorrow! My most recent book was written by an archaeologist at my college who, once this book was accepted by Knopf, promptly took a job in Charlottesville, VA, at UVa. Where, sadly, he died about a decade later in his early forties. Egypt Before the Pharoahs: The Story of the Great Archaeological Discoveries Over the Last 85 Years That Have Given Us Our First Coherent Picture of the Life and Culture of Prehistoric Egypt, which makes me wish I had taken Michael A. Hoffman's class. But he did show up at an honors seminar I was in, and I talked to him in the student union about Frank Zappa once while we were in line for a movie.
The Stranger in the Woods - The extraordinary story of the last true hermit. A 20 year old man walks into the woods of Central Maine in the 1980s and stays there, totally alone for 27 years. Very fascinating book.
The Monk - Matthew Lewis “The Monk is a romance, which if a parent saw in the hands of a son or daughter, he might reasonably turn pale.” - S.T. Coleridge Scandalous in its day (1796), and still an entertaining read.
I Got a Song: A History of the Newport Folk Festival by Rick Massimo We were in Newport for my wife's high school reunion, and the folk festival was going on. I didn't care. In fact, I was a tad annoyed because I find festival crowds annoying (we get four or five a year where I live) but I found this book in a local indy bookstore, and it is a pretty interesting behind the scenes acvount of how this thing happens (or, several years, didn't). The Rashomon approach to Dylan Goes Electric was pretty good. Massimo is a former reporter for the Providence Journal, a damn good paper.
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe "To give the history of a wicked life repented of, necessarily requires that the wicked part should be make as wicked as the real history of it will bear, to illustrate and give a beauty to the penitent part, which is certainly the best and brightest, if related with equal spirit and life."