Books & Ideas
Reading notes, philosophy and reflections on living and thinking well.
A Life Lived From Within: Jung's "Memories, Dreams, Reflections"
Memories, Dreams, Reflections is Carl Jung's autobiography, written near the end of his long life, and it is unlike any conventional life story.
From the Big Bang to Black Holes: Hawking's "A Brief History of Time"
Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time explained: the Big Bang, the nature of space and time, black holes and the search for a theory of everything.
Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Psychology: Haidt's "The Happiness Hypothesis"
Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis tests ancient wisdom about happiness against modern psychology: the elephant and the rider, relationships and meaning.
In Search of Lost Time: The Madeleine Moment in Proust's "Swann's Way"
Proust's Swann's Way and the madeleine moment: involuntary memory, the inner life in long sentences, and how art can recover lost time.
The Survival Machines: Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene"
Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene: the gene's-eye view of evolution, what "selfish" really means, how altruism evolves and the idea of memes.
Sharpening the Saw: A Philosophical Look at Covey's "7 Habits"
A philosophical look at Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: character over technique, proactivity, interdependence and sharpening the saw.
Descent With Modification: Reading Darwin's "On the Origin of Species"
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is one of the few books that genuinely changed how humanity understands itself and the world.
Infinite Libraries and Forking Paths: The Fictions of Borges
The fictions of Jorge Luis Borges: the Library of Babel, forking paths in time, labyrinths and stories where ideas become unforgettable worlds.
The Tyranny of the Unexpected: Taleb's "The Black Swan"
Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan: rare, high-impact events, the illusion of prediction, hindsight bias and building robustness against the unknown.
Science as a Candle in the Dark: Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World"
Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: science as a way of thinking, the baloney detection kit and why skepticism and wonder belong together.
Unveiling the Manipulative Mechanisms: Lessons from "Propaganda: The Public Mind in the Making"
Lessons from Edward Bernays' Propaganda: engineering consent, symbols and imagery, mass media manipulation and why ethics matter today.
The Solitude of Macondo: Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude: magical realism, the Buendía family's inherited solitude, cyclical time and Latin American history.
Navigating Life's Abyss with Nihilism and Pragmatism: A Personal Journey
A personal journey through nihilism and pragmatism: what Nietzsche and William James teach about facing meaninglessness and building meaning.
Two Minds in One Head: Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow"
Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow: System 1 and System 2, common cognitive biases, loss aversion and the humility they bring.
The Hedgehog and the Fox: Isaiah Berlin on Two Ways of Knowing
Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox: one big idea versus many, why Tolstoy was a fox who longed to be a hedgehog and which type you are.
The Aura and the Angel of History: Walter Benjamin's "Illuminations"
Walter Benjamin's Illuminations: the aura of art lost to mechanical reproduction, the Angel of History and his critique of progress.
Timshel, Thou Mayest: Choice and Inheritance in Steinbeck's "East of Eden"
John Steinbeck considered East of Eden his masterpiece, the book toward which all his other work had been building.
Manufacturing Consent: Chomsky on the Machinery of Opinion
Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, is one of the most influential and most challenging analyses of the mass media ever written.
Education as the Practice of Freedom: Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"
Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed is one of the most influential books on education ever written, and it is really a book about freedom.
The Comfortable Unfreedom: Marcuse's "One-Dimensional Man"
Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man: false needs, how affluence pacifies dissent and why comfortable unfreedom can feel like freedom.
When Reason Turns Against Itself: "Dialectic of Enlightenment"
Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment: instrumental reason, from dominating nature to dominating people and the culture industry.
History From Below: Howard Zinn's "A People's History"
Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: American history told by workers, slaves, women and Native Americans, read critically.
The Prison of Modern Life: Foucault's "Discipline and Punish"
Foucault's Discipline and Punish explained: from torture to discipline, the panopticon, docile bodies and modern society as a disciplinary system.
The Colonized Mind: Frantz Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth"
Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth: colonialism's psychological damage, the contested question of violence and the pitfalls of liberation.