The survivorship bias in book ratings
Just finished The Fortunes of Africa: A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor by Martin Meredith, and gave it 4 out of 5 stars on GoodReads. At nearly 700 pages of narrative text The Fortunes of Africa is not a small book, but it’s pretty dense with fact and a “quick read”. The author […]
The Warlord Chronicles
The Winter is Coming website has a post up, What books should you read as you wait for The Winds of Winter? (The Winds of Winter is the next Song of Ice and Fire book). I don’t have much time for fiction at this point, but the first entry that they suggested was Bernard Cornwell’s […]
The year shall belong to those who finish
Seeing as how I have three children, I don’t think I’m admitting my virginity when I admit that I am mildly excited that Brandon Sanderson’s third volume of his ten volume The Way of Kings, Oathbringer, is coming out in the fall. Sanderson writes at a fast clip and finishes lots of books. Yes, his […]
Top Books Purchased Through This Site
So I have an Amazon referrer account. I’ve had one since 2003. Pretty much I use it to get money when people buy books (or other items) through links here. It’s a non-trivial, though not princely, sum of money. Especially since it’s passive. These are …
Top books purchased through this site
So I have an Amazon referrer account. I’ve had one since 2003. Pretty much I use it to get money when people buy books (or other items) through links here. It’s a non-trivial, though not princely, sum of money. Especially since it’s passive. These are books I’ve read and want to talk about anyhow (usually […]
Top books purchased through this site
So I have an Amazon referrer account. I’ve had one since 2003. Pretty much I use it to get money when people buy books (or other items) through links here. It’s a non-trivial, though not princely, sum of money. Especially since it’s passive. These are books I’ve read and want to talk about anyhow (usually […]
Top books purchased through this site
So I have an Amazon referrer account. I’ve had one since 2003. Pretty much I use it to get money when people buy books (or other items) through links here. It’s a non-trivial, though not princely, sum of money. Especially since it’s passive. These are books I’ve read and want to talk about anyhow (usually […]
Top books purchased through this site
So I have an Amazon referrer account. I’ve had one since 2003. Pretty much I use it to get money when people buy books (or other items) through links here. It’s a non-trivial, though not princely, sum of money. Especially since it’s passive. These are books I’ve read and want to talk about anyhow (usually […]
The future is e-books!
Nicholas G. Carr, purveyor of high-brow neo-ludditism and archeo-utopianism, has a piece out in The Wall Street Journal, Don’t Burn Your Books—Print Is Here to Stay. The subtitle is “The e-book had its moment, but sales are slowing. Readers still want to turn those crisp, bound pages.” Here are some of his rancid chestnuts of […]
Holiday reading
Christmas is a time when I accelerate my reading, and catch-up for lost time. Here’s my three books I plan to get through: The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization. I’ve read this twice already. This short book has been one of the most influential works in my own personal thinking. Even if […]
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal has died. As a younger man I found his heterodox views bracing, but I would commend to readers two books Vidal wrote which I feel often get forgotten in the shadow of his American historical novels, Creation and Julian. As a polemicist one …
Brown books
Since I have some time to read again, I thought I’d ask for brown related books which might be of interest. Here are some I’ve enjoyed in the past…. India: A History In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of … Continue reading →
Christmas reading
With some leisure, I plan to read a bit. Here is my tentative “stack”: – The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined – Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750-1850 – Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding – Mirroring the Past: The Writing And Use […]
What are you reading?
I haven’t had time to read a book front to back in 2 months. Probably the longest period I’ve gone like this since I was 13. I plan to “binge” as much as I can over the Holidays. Is there anything interesting you’re reading? And yes, I already have The Better Angels of Our Nature: […]
The history of the world!
My post from last week, Relative angels and absolute demons, got a lot of circulation. Interestingly I received several emails from self-described lurkers who asked me for recommendations on world history, with a particular thought to rectify deficiencies in non-European history. These were people who were not looking for exceedingly abstruse monographs. Below are some […]
No bookstores in Nashville?
That’s what Ann Patchett is claiming. More specifically, there are no bricks & mortar institutions which specialize in selling new books. There are places you can get used books in the city of Nashville. To remedy the situation Patchett is o…
Harriet Klausner, a one woman content-mill!
On occasion I browse through books on Amazon with an eye for really good negative reviews. The other day I stumbled upon a really strange positive review of the awful fantasist David Bilsborough. It was confusing to me to see 4 out of 5 stars for this…
The revolution swallowing Powell’s Books?
A friend asked me today if I thought that Powell’s would be around a year from now. I had no idea what he was referring to. By that, I don’t mean that I didn’t know he was referring to Powell’s Books of Portland. I mean that I h…
A site about books I have read/like/recommend
It’s called Razib on Books. I posted the rationale over at Discover Blogs. Basically a way for me to organize past content which new readers are not aware of.
Razib on Books
In the New Year’s Open Thread D. Chamberlin suggested:
I think your many book reviews ought to be more accessible. They were for me an excellent guide as to which books I should buy as well as educational in and of themselves. You have a long lis…