Books
70 posts · all topics
Tapatio Tastes Food Tour
A tasting tour of Guadalajara
[book] How Emotions Are Made
An intriguing scientific case for why emotions are not real
[book] 2030: Today's Biggest Trends by Mauro Guillén
Review of 2030 by Mauro Guillen on demographic megatrends, aging populations, emerging markets, and technology disruption ahead.
Mask-Wearing: How to Lie With Statistics
How the same COVID-19 data can prove opposite conclusions about mask mandates, demonstrating chart manipulation and statistical bias.
My Favorite Resources for COVID-19
Curated collection of COVID-19 resources: tracking dashboards, scientific research, data sources, projections, and local info.
[book] Conscious by Annaka Harris
Review and notes on Conscious by Annaka Harris, exploring the hard problem of consciousness, panpsychism, and free will.
[book] Ball Lightning by Liu Cixin
Review of Ball Lightning by Liu Cixin, a Chinese sci-fi novel about a boy obsessed with understanding static lightning after tragedy.
[book] The Longevity Diet
Book summary
[book] Bearing False Witness
Book review of Rodney Stark's Bearing False Witness, challenging common myths about the Inquisition, Crusades, Dark Ages, and more.
[book] From Priest's Whore to Pastor's Wife
Book review of Marjorie Plummer's history of clerical marriage during the early German Reformation and the end of priestly celibacy.
My Philosophy of Food
Personal food philosophy covering sugar avoidance, carb reduction, exercise balance, and practical tips for healthy eating.
[book] Win Bigly by Scott Adams
Book review of Scott Adams' Win Bigly on Trump's persuasion techniques, cognitive dissonance, and the Master Persuader theory.
Best references about 23andme
Curated guide to the best resources, tools, and utilities for analyzing your raw 23andMe genetic data and SNP results.
Recommended books about nutrition and health
Annotated list of the best books on nutrition, diet, and health including paleo, fermentation, and germ theory of disease.
[book] The Gluten Lie
View on Amazon Most people will think Alan Levinovitz , a Professor of Religion, an unlikely author of a diet book, particularly one like this that refutes many…
[book] The Gluten Lie
Don't read other health books until you read this one
[book] Epidemic of Absence
View on Amazon Ecosystems go all the way up and all the way down. Just as humans affect -- and are affected -- by the bigger world of…
[book] How We Learn
View on Amazon Who doesn’t want to be better at learning? Learn faster, more efficiently, with better recall…that’s this book, by Benedict Carey, a journalist who has long…
[book] The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Book review of Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things with notes on management debt, CEO types, and startup culture.
[book] The Rise of Superman
The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance by Steven Kotler is mostly about extreme sports — the people behind really crazy activities like kayaking…
[book] Missing Microbes
Another fantastic book, by Martin Blaser , professor of microbiology at NYU: Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues . Microbes, a word…
What's in my microbiome?
Although I was an early customer of 23andme, I found the results unsatisfying because there is so little that is actionable . I mean, you don't need a…
[book] All Natural
The subtitle of this book by Nathanael Johnson explains why I read it: "a skeptic's quest to discover if the natural approach to diet, childbirth, healing, and the…
What's the appendix for?
My appendix was removed when I was five years old, at the hands of a well-meaning country doctor who thought it would cure my chronic childhood tummy aches.…
[book] War! What Is It Good For? by Ian Morris
As with his seminal “ Why the West Rules ”, Stanford Professor Ian Morris’ new book makes you repeat “Aha!” as he explains the big picture of history…
Who has the most accurate health news?
The independent site Health News Review evaluated nearly 2000 health-related news articles since 2006, ranking their accuracy and usefulness according to these criteria: cost, benefits, harm, veracity, exaggeration,…
My favorite books about diet and health
Making a list of favorite books is hard because your favorites change over time, often due to reading something that becomes a new favorite. Perhaps it’s easier to…
[book] Proust and the Squid
View on Amazon I can’t remember who recommended this book to me, but as you’ll see by the end of this post, I feel compelled to write down…
I'm a Stimulator? or a Mover?
Top Brain, Bottom Brain by Kosslyn and Miller I didn't like this book, but having taken the trouble to read it, I'll at least try to summarize what…
[book] Manage Your Day-to-Day
View on Amazon This is a short, easy-to-read, summary of tips for how to be more productive and more creative. The bottom line: focus. Here are some of…
[book] How Asia Works by Joe Studwell
View on Amazon Long-time journalist Joe Studwell ( The Economist , Far East Economic Review , etc.) and now "mid-career PhD at Cambridge University” (what I’d love to…
[book] Last Days of the Inca
Having just attended the excellent Peru exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, I was inspired to finally read this highly-recommended book detailing the Spanish conquest. If you've read…
Is there such a thing as a "generic" apple?
When you eat any food, shouldn't you care more about the particular piece you are eating, rather than the generic values listed in an app or book about…
[book] The Goal
This book came recommended by none other than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and he’s right: it’s one of the better business books I’ve ever read. Written in a…
[book] Wealth and Power
View on Amazon I read this because, with all the recommendations I'd received, well, I had to. When I first moved to China and was looking to start…
[book] Adam Grant’s Give and Take
View on Amazon Seth Roberts blogged that this book is “the best in psychology in many years” and I think I agree. It’s similar to books by Malcolm…
The future of college
View on Amazon College is such a critical part of modern life that sometimes we forget the difference between “college” and “education”. Now that my children are closing…
[Book] Restless Empire by Odd Arne Westad
View on Amazon This is one of the best books I've read about China in a while. It helped me think about China’s modernization as a long, still…
[book] Makers by Chris Anderson
View on Amazon "Hardware is the new software". I'm not sure if that exact phrase is in Chris Anderson's new book , but it should be. It's a…
[book] Daniel Pink on Selling
Business author Daniel Pink first impressed me on an Econtalk episode a few years ago with his ideas about what motivates people (the subject of his book Drive…
Michael Crichton’s last book: Micro
[I sent this from the iBooks app from my iPad] From the first chapter, in a discussion about how children now are raised without an appreciation for how…
Medicine and Anti-Fragility
Black Swan author Nassim Taleb in his highly-anticipated upcoming book uses the term anti-fragility to describe systems that are the opposite of fragile. He coins the term after…
The Fat Years [Book]
View on Amazon China deserves to be number one. That's an unstated premise of this book, which is all the rage among intellectuals and others interested in what…
Coming apart from my children
Americans during my lifetime are becoming unequal and divided, not by class or income, but by something much more serious: a difference in values and interests. This has…
[Book] 1493
View on Amazon The New World was created, not discovered, says Charles C. Mann . The impact of Columbus’ historic trip was felt worldwide, ushering in the Age…
“The Fat Years”
Chan Koonchung (陈冠中) author of 2013, The Fat Years (盛世：中国2013年) spoke at the Beijing ex-pat bookstore, The Bookworm recently. The book’s premise of a dystopian near-future where China…
You're fired
In 1841, the Chinese negotiator Qishan was ordered dismissed and executed for agreeing to a treaty that ended hostilities with the British in exchange for Hong Kong and…
Re-reading James Fallows and China
I re-read parts of James Fallows’ short book of China essays Postcards from Tomorrow Square because I was trying to remember his conclusions. I respect Fallows because I…
Kindle Singles and the future of publishing
The print publishing industry thinks a lot has changed in the past 20 years, but they haven't seen anything yet. The transformation from print to all-digital publishing will…
Treason by the book
View on Amazon A few thoughts about China in the 1700s while reading this excellent book by Yale Professor Jonathan Spence. First, note that China in those days…
[Book] When China Rules the World
View on Amazon I don't recommend this book. The author, a journalist, read widely about China and I appreciate his excellent summary of sources at the end of…
I’m a builder
I was devastated to read, in the latest Atlantic , that one of my favorite female writers, Sandra Tsing Loh, is divorcing. In an excellent summary of several…
Sharpen your lawnmower blade
You’re supposed to do it once a season, but Consumer Reports says that 25% of owners never sharpen their lawnmower blades. I’m happy to report that I no…
Andy Raskin’s book tour at Queen Anne Bookshop
Andy Raskin and I first met in graduate school, where both of us were interested in Japan, and over the years we somehow keep bumping into each other,…
American Creation [book]
We want to believe that the present is messier and more dangerous than the past. Why can't we live in a time with a Jefferson or an Adams…
The reading habits of George W. Bush
I’m skeptical whenever mainstream consensus settles on an opinion about somebody or something, especially when it’s a subject that lends itself to very little first-hand, direct, up-close experience.…
Fooled by Randomness [book]
View on Amazon In many ways this is better than Taleb’s more popular book, The Black Swan, which I’ve already noted is one of my favorite books of…
Purple toes in Zillah
There are no wine lovers in the San Francisco Bay Area (or in Seattle for that matter) who haven’t been to Napa Valley. But comparatively few people know…
Konga at Trabant Coffee
Mike at Trabant Coffee and Chai saw that I was looking for more Ethiopia Yergcheffe Konga coffee (it’s sooo good!), and let me know that a new batch…
Robert Shiller and the Subprime Solution
With an endorsement from Nassim Taleb on the cover of his new book , and a mention in an excellent Econtalk podcast last week, I just had to…
October 1973: worst month in American history
When I hear people talk about gloom and doom and how the world is coming to an end, I remind them to look back to 1973 and count…
Why you should not vote
Newsweek calls them "Low Info Voters" , the people who don't know or apparently care what issues are at stake in an election. They base their preferences on…
Why Yong Zhao is wrong
While working at Apple Computer long ago, I became good friends with Andy Van Schaack , who later received his PhD in Instructional Technology and knows way more…
In Defense of Food [book]
View on Amazon "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants." That's the summary, and I'm a believer. Since reading Omnivore's Dilemma , I've been quite the fan of…
Seattle Cheese Festival
We love cheese as much as we like good tofu , so of course we also dropped in on the Seattle Cheese Festival , held this weekend at…
Michael Crichton Next [book]
View on Amazon Although I typically like anything related to future biology, especially the "consumer biology" that I expected Crighton to highlight, this book was too meandering and…
Speak up about Softcare Dental Bellevue
A friend, somebody I trust, says she was intimidated by a dentist, Softcare Dental, in Bellevue Washington. It's making her think twice now about posting reviews on the…
[book] The Price of Privilege
Why are rich kids often so screwed up? Can you blame it on the parents, whose dog-eat-dog obsession with work and competition makes them "successful" in business at…
Blue State Blue Streak
When I'm online, whether sending emails or posting content, I know that my kids may be reading, so just as in real life I think it's important to…
[book] The Black Swan
View on Amazon This is one of the best books I've read in a long time and I'm sure I'll be referring to it for many years. It…