johnfial_qr8lrr The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need Daniel H. Pink, Art by Rob Ten Pas (amazon.com link) Read in 2014 and reviewed/reread 2018. Fun cartoon-animated career and life-lesson guidebook. In the grand scheme of things, a more general life book would be Zen in the Art of Archery or … Read more
Pachinko, Min Jin Lee, 2017 (read 2018, amazon.com link) Book club. I do not care for historical fiction. Fun, but between a half and three-fourths way through, my patience started to wane, and I started to look forward to finishing the book. I respect Lee trying to describe the lives and changes over many … Read more
Anthem Ayn Rand, 1938 (amazon.com link) The book opens with each “individual” referring to him/herself as “we,” and the direction of Rand’s use of language becomes clear rather quickly. It makes for a pointed conclusion, highlighted in the third and fourth quotes below: “We love you.” But then they frowned and shook their head and … Read more
While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement, Carolyn Maull McKinstry and Denise George (2011)($9, amazon.com link) Young Emmett Till might as well have been a dog struck by a car on the highway, its carcass left on the roadside to rot and decay, then picked up … Read more
In 2013, in my first semester of graduate school, I had an idea: “What if we could trace the effects of a single nutrient from physics/chemistry/geology up through biology, past neuroscience and behavior, through all other areas of the university, from economics and art history to geopolitics and beyond?” Not until 2017 did I realize … Read more
Modern Romance, Aziz Ansari (2015) ($15, amazon.com link) “The brain is the best algorithm,” Fisher argues. Having read a number of relationship books before it, Modern Romance wasn’t groundbreaking, and I wasn’t surprised all that much by data or original thoughts. Nonetheless, it was worth my time – especially if I return to the dating world [2015]. The … Read more
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, Eric Schlosser ($10, amazon.com link) …”the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) later fined National Beef for its negligence. The fine was $480 for each man’s death.” This book was released in 2001, I read it in 2013, and I’m writing this report in 2015. I … Read more
The Five Love Languages Gift Edition: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, Gary D. Chapman, 1995 (Read 2012, reviewed 2015/2017)(amazon.com link) “In the context of marriage, if we do not feel loved, our differences are magnified. We come to view each other as a threat to our happiness. We fight for self-worth and … Read more
Be Here Now (1971/2012, read 2012) ($6, amazon.com link) Ram Dass After writing reports on Sam Harris’ Waking Up and Ekhart Toller’s The Power of Now, I see that this book is the same message mystics and philosophers have said for millennia. But I read it before my own “waking up” experience in 2013, … Read more
A few months ago, a member of my gym asked, “You recommend lithium for everyone, but do you think lithium specifically affects athletic performance?” Yes, yes I do. Like much about biology — and everything about lithium — we don’t understand the exact mechanisms very well. But here’s why lithium affects athletic performance. Table of … Read more