Category Archives: Books
The Code Breaker
If you think the digital revolution is having profound effects on human society, buckle up because the biotech revolution is just getting underway and it will redefine, even redesign, our species. Ever since the early 1950’s when James Watson and … Continue reading
Whereabouts
Whereabouts is Jhunpa Lahiri’s first novel in ten years. I don’t know what to make of it. I’ve read a couple of Lahiri’s earlier books: Interpreter of Maladies, her debut collection of short stories for which she won a Pulitzer … Continue reading
Think Again
I’m a big fan of Adam Grant’s WorkLife podcast. I even blogged about one of his episodes last year. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know is his latest book and the first one I’ve read. It’s … Continue reading
Sapiens
Last year, I read 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari, which I reviewed here. Several friends recommended I read Harari’s earlier book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Now I know why. It’s an excellent book. As the … Continue reading
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
You’ve probably had the experience of being completely absorbed in an activity, totally focused, losing track of time, your body moving effortlessly, your mind clear of all distractions and worries. You were “in the zone.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this state … Continue reading
The Sum of Us
In the 1920’s and 30’s, towns and cities across the United States built large, beautiful public swimming pools for their communities. Montgomery, Alabama was one such town. Its Oak Park pool was one of the largest in the region. It … Continue reading
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Around the world we humans are adding an average of fifty-one billion (51,000,000,000) tons of greenhouse gasses to Earth’s atmosphere every year. To avoid a climate disaster, we need to get to zero. 51 billion to zero. That’s how Microsoft … Continue reading
The Good Ancestor
We were warned. Lots of people warned us about the possibility of a global pandemic years before the outbreak of COVID-19. But we didn’t listen and we didn’t prepare. We’ve known for decades about the catastrophic effects of greenhouse gas … Continue reading
Always Day One
Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever by Alex Kantrowitz takes its title from an Amazon corporate motto. “It’s always Day 1” is designed to inspire Amazon employees with a startup mentality; lean, fast, … Continue reading
A History of Future Cities
People make cities, but cities also make people. That’s one of the key messages from Daniel Brook’s 2013 book A History of Future Cities. The book tells the stories of four cities, St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai. All four … Continue reading
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