Dan Saffer

Dan Saffer

Designer. Author. Assistant Professor of The Practice at @cmuhcii. Neutral Good Gen Xer.

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70+ Book Recommendations by Dan Saffer

  • "Life, just like a design problem, is full of constraints--time, money, age, location, and circumstances. You cannot have everything, and if you want more out of it, you have to be creative about how to make what you need and what you want co-exist. This requires design thinking. Design the Life You Love uses a simple but proven creative thinking and design process to give ordinary people new tools to think about life differently, and also includes fascinating examples from the world of art and design that relate to each step of the process, plus guided creative exercises."--

    @jarango I did the other one: Design the Life You Love https://t.co/bZnY0RcGF2

  • The Luminous Ground

    Christopher Alexander

    And if you ever want your mind blown, read his The Nature of Order books. Every page is like a whoa.

  • The Works

    Kate Ascher

    A fascinating guided tour of the ways things work in a modern city “It's a rare person who won't find something of interest in The Works, whether it's an explanation of how a street-sweeper works or the view of what's down a manhole.” —New York Post Have you ever wondered how the water in your faucet gets there? Where your garbage goes? What the pipes under city streets do? How bananas from Ecuador get to your local market? Why radiators in apartment buildings clang? Using New York City as its point of reference, The Works takes readers down manholes and behind the scenes to explain exactly how an urban infrastructure operates. Deftly weaving text and graphics, author Kate Ascher explores the systems that manage water, traffic, sewage and garbage, subways, electricity, mail, and much more. Full of fascinating facts and anecdotes, The Works gives readers a unique glimpse at what lies behind and beneath urban life in the twenty-first century.

    @iotwatch The Works: Anatomy of a City. A little more urban planning than strictly architecture, but fun https://t.co/40yXqWVGgs

  • “More than anything else technology creates our world. It creates our wealth, our economy, our very way of being,” says W. Brian Arthur. Yet despite technology’s irrefutable importance in our daily lives, until now its major questions have gone unanswered. Where do new technologies come from? What constitutes innovation, and how is it achieved? Does technology, like biological life, evolve? In this groundbreaking work, pioneering technology thinker and economist W. Brian Arthur answers these questions and more, setting forth a boldly original way of thinking about technology. The Nature of Technology is an elegant and powerful theory of technology’s origins and evolution. Achieving for the development of technology what Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions did for scientific progress, Arthur explains how transformative new technologies arise and how innovation really works. Drawing on a wealth of examples, from historical inventions to the high-tech wonders of today, Arthur takes us on a mind-opening journey that will change the way we think about technology and how it structures our lives. The Nature of Technology is a classic for our times.

    @DougCollinsUX The Nature of Technology, W. Brian Arthur Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson The Reflective Practitioner, Donald Schön What Things Do, Peter-Paul Verbeek Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

  • From a coral reef teeming with life to the instant success of YouTube, the author explores what kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas, identifying the seven key principles for generating great notions. By the author of Everything Bad Is Good for You. Reprint. A best-selling book.

    @DougCollinsUX The Nature of Technology, W. Brian Arthur Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson The Reflective Practitioner, Donald Schön What Things Do, Peter-Paul Verbeek Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

  • A leading M.I.T. social scientist and consultant examines five professions—engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, and town planning—to show how professionals really go about solving problems.

    @DougCollinsUX The Nature of Technology, W. Brian Arthur Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson The Reflective Practitioner, Donald Schön What Things Do, Peter-Paul Verbeek Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

  • Explorations in Typography

    Carolina de Bartolo

    Paperback edition

    @Wattsenhauser https://t.co/53NTdLBIlV

  • Lyra Belacqua tries to prevent kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments, helps Will Parry search for his father, and finds that she and Will are caught in a battle between the forces of the Authority and those gathered by her uncle, Lord Asriel.

    @gasca @melliemell The Unitarian Universalist answer to the Narnia books

  • Day Zero

    C. Robert Cargill

    Very few books I pre-order. @Massawyrm's DAY ZERO is one of them https://t.co/UvcW6iclNA https://t.co/83iOFV8rET

  • Lonesome Dove

    Larry McMurtry

    Chronicles a cattle drive in the nineteenth century from Texas to Montana, and follows the lives of Gus and Call, the cowboys heading the drive, Gus's woman, Lorena, and Blue Duck, a sinister Indian renegade.

    I’ve read thousands of books in my lifetime. Only a handful of them have ever moved me to tears. LONESOME DOVE is one of them. If you’ve never read it, do yourself a favor. RIP Larry McMurtry

  • New York Times Editors' Choice 2017 Forbes Top 10 Best Environment, Climate, and Conservation Book of 2017 As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record—which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish—and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits. Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.

    @docbaty One of the best books I read last decade. Seriously.

  • Blindness

    José Saramago

    If you haven't read it, there is no better novel for this pandemic (and, really, fascism) than BLINDNESS and it's on sale today for $2.99 on Kindle https://t.co/6GhPiGjp4U

  • Fleishman Is in Trouble

    Taffy Brodesser-Akner

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST * "A feminist jeremiad nested inside a brilliant comic novel--a book that makes you laugh so hard you don't notice till later that your eyebrows have been singed off."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY AND THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * Time * The Washington Post * Vanity Fair * Vogue * NPR * Chicago Tribune * GQ * Vox * Refinery29 * Elle * The Guardian * Real Simple * Parade * Good Housekeeping * Marie Claire * Town & Country * Evening Standard * Kirkus Reviews * BookPage * BookRiot * Shelf Awareness A finely observed, timely exploration of marriage, divorce, and the bewildering dynamics of ambition from one of the most exciting writers working today Toby Fleishman thought he knew what to expect when he and his wife of almost fifteen years separated: weekends and every other holiday with the kids, some residual bitterness, the occasional moment of tension in their co-parenting negotiations. He could not have predicted that one day, in the middle of his summer of sexual emancipation, Rachel would just drop their two children off at his place and simply not return. He had been working so hard to find equilibrium in his single life. The winds of his optimism, long dormant, had finally begun to pick up. Now this. As Toby tries to figure out where Rachel went, all while juggling his patients at the hospital, his never-ending parental duties, and his new app-assisted sexual popularity, his tidy narrative of the spurned husband with the too-ambitious wife is his sole consolation. But if Toby ever wants to truly understand what happened to Rachel and what happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen things all that clearly in the first place. A searing, utterly unvarnished debut, Fleishman Is in Trouble is an insightful, unsettling, often hilarious exploration of a culture trying to navigate the fault lines of an institution that has proven to be worthy of our great wariness and our great hope. Alma's Best Jewish Novel of the Year "Blisteringly funny, feverishly smart, heartbreaking, and true, Fleishman Is in Trouble is an essential read for anyone who's wondered how to navigate loving (and hating) the people we choose."--Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest "From its opening pages, Fleishman Is in Trouble is shrewdly observed, brimming with wisdom, and utterly of this moment. Not until its explosive final pages are you fully aware of its cunning ferocity. Taffy Brodesser-Akner's debut is that rare and delicious treat: a page-turner with heft."--Maria Semple

    I think about this book ALL THE TIME. Highly recommended. https://t.co/sWI3t5UTL8

  • This book looks pretty awesome https://t.co/e6DCeRa3Qf

  • By Neal Stephenson

    Neal Stephenson

    @genmon It's the best Stephenson book, I'm pretty sure.

  • @tapatinah Her book is funny too 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings: How to Get By Without Even Trying https://t.co/brasmjok3c

  • Provides information on user interface design of small details that exist inside applications, covering such topics as triggers, rules, feedback, and loops and modes.

    It's clearly time to bring this back. For the rest of 2020 I'll be donating all my royalties from Microinteractions to #BlackLivesMatter organizations. If you haven't bought it, now's a good time! Please RT! https://t.co/Yhu7Y2tnnt https://t.co/2gUIqAr4eY

  • Everything is getting more complex. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of information we encounter each day. Whether at work, at school, or in our personal endeavors, there's a deepening (and inescapable) need for people to work with and understand information.Information architecture is the way that we arrange the parts of something to make it understandable as a whole. When we make things for others to use, the architecture of information that we choose greatly affects our ability to deliver our intended message to our users.We all face messes made of information and people. I define the word “mess” the same way that most dictionaries do: “A situation where the interactions between people and information are confusing or full of difficulties.” — Who doesn't bump up against messes made of information and people every day?This book provides a seven step process for making sense of any mess. Each chapter contains a set of lessons as well as workbook exercises architected to help you to work through your own mess.

    @erinlynnyoung How to Make Sense of Any Mess by @Abby_the_IA

  • A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" whose victims are confined to a vacant mental hospital, while a single eyewitness to the nightmare guides seven oddly assorted strangers through the barren urban landscape

    If you’ve never read it, BLINDNESS is *the* epidemic novel. https://t.co/f1ksuX88H9

  • Dealers of Lightning

    Michael A. Hiltzik

    In addition to cut and paste, Larry also invented popup menus. If you've never read it, I highly recommend Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age which talks a lot about Larry and his PARC colleagues and their contributions https://t.co/5trWrNASh8

  • How to See

    George Nelson

    A new edition of George Nelson's classic guide to visual appreciation, released on the fortieth anniversary of its original publication Originally published in 1977 by iconic American furniture manufacturer Herman Miller, George Nelson's critically acclaimed manifesto on how to recognize, evaluate, and understand the objects and landscape of the man-made world has influenced generations of design professionals, students, and aficionados. Forty years later, this cult book has been brought back to life with a fresh, new look and feel. At a time when our collective fascination with design has gone global, by one of the 20th century's most important design thinkers and will continue to educate and inspire readers everywhere.

    @berkun How To See by George Nelson https://t.co/dkmoEJOTGA How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laugh, Make People Cry, and (Every Once in a While) Change the World by @michaelbierut https://t.co/xUr7ZJJQxr

  • How to

    Michael Bierut

    @berkun How To See by George Nelson https://t.co/dkmoEJOTGA How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laugh, Make People Cry, and (Every Once in a While) Change the World by @michaelbierut https://t.co/xUr7ZJJQxr

  • America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: it’s working exactly as designed. In this book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us—and how we are polarizing it—with disastrous results. “The American political system—which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president—is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together. Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the twentieth century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis. This is a revelatory book that will change how you look at politics, and perhaps at yourself.

    I’ve been reading WHY WE’RE POLARIZED by @ezraklein and holy moly is it eye-opening https://t.co/B9Y8v4MCT8

  • Web Form Design

    Luke Wroblewski

    @NegatedVoid Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design is a good place for some basics https://t.co/pbk1NxnkU8

  • UNWINDING

    George Packer

    Paints a picture of the last thirty years of life in America by following several citizens, including the son of tobacco farmers in the rural south, a Washington insider who denies his idealism for riches, and a Silicon Valley billionaire.

    @believermag The Unwinding

  • Lincoln in the Bardo

    George Saunders

    #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The long-awaited first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy's body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state--called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo--a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul. Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end? Praise for Lincoln in the Bardo "A luminous feat of generosity and humanism."--Colson Whitehead, The New York Times Book Review "A masterpiece."--Zadie Smith "Ingenious . . . Saunders--well on his way toward becoming a twenty-first-century Twain--crafts an American patchwork of love and loss, giving shape to our foundational sorrows."--Vogue "Saunders is the most humane American writer working today."--Harper's Magazine "The novel beats with a present-day urgency--a nation at war with itself, the unbearable grief of a father who has lost a child, and a howling congregation of ghosts, as divided in death as in life, unwilling to move on."--Vanity Fair "A brilliant, Buddhist reimagining of an American story of great loss and great love."--Elle "Wildly imaginative"--Marie Claire "Mesmerizing . . . Dantesque . . . A haunting American ballad."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Exhilarating . . . Ruthless and relentless in its evocation not only of Lincoln and his quandary, but also of the tenuous existential state shared by all of us." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "It's unlike anything you've ever read, except that the grotesque humor, pathos, and, ultimately, human kindness at its core mark it as a work that could come only from Saunders."--The National

    @steveportigal Lincoln in the Bardo?

  • Central Station

    Lavie Tidhar

    "When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris's ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik--a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return. Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena; and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war"--Amazon.com.

    Central Station, Lavie Tidhar (2016) https://t.co/gXVDueKOqq

  • "First published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus, 2016."

    At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir,Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others, Sarah Bakewell (2016) https://t.co/eVsX6ctFl7

  • A Dance with Dragons

    George R. R. Martin

    A latest installment of the popular series follows a showdown set in the north of the Seven Kingdoms and reveals the circumstances that shaped southern-region events. By the best-selling author of A Feast for Crows. Reprint. 400,000 first printing.

    A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (2011) https://t.co/hdfPQ4hUf0

  • What a Plant Knows

    Daniel Chamovitz

    Paralleling the human senses, the author explores the secret lives of various plants, from the colors they see to whether or not they really like classical music to their ability to sense nearby danger.

    What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses, Daniel Chamovitz (2012) https://t.co/KEsO9aKQUm

  • Wild

    Cheryl Strayed

    A powerful, blazingly honest, inspiring memoir: the story of a 1,100 mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe--and built her back up again.

    Wild, Cheryl Strayed (2013) https://t.co/nRyDymkRj9

  • The Windup Girl

    Paolo Bacigalupi

    Winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel, the break-out science fiction debut featuring additional stories and a Q&A with the author. Anderson Lake is AgriGen’s Calorie Man, sent to work undercover as a factory manager in Thailand while combing Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories. Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. Emiko is not human; she is an engineered being, grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in this chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits and forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly-acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century. In this brand-new edition celebrating the book’s reception into the canon of celebrated modern science fiction, accompanying the text are two novelettes exploring the dystopian world of The Windup Girl, the Theodore Sturgeon Award-winning “The Calorie Man” and “Yellow Card Man.” Also included is an exclusive Q&A with the author describing his writing process, the political climate into which his debut novel was published, and the future of science fiction. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

    The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (2014) https://t.co/YS7MfTb5d9

  • My Struggle:

    Karl Ove Knausgaard

    An autobiographical novel focuses on a young man trying to make sense of his place in the disjointed world that surrounds him.

    My Struggle: Book 1, Karl Ove Knausgaard (2012) https://t.co/wmAG4PF00t

  • #1 New York Times Bestseller Over 2 million copies sold In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people. For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up. Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek. There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

    The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, Mark Manson (2016) https://t.co/4b59aESQD8

  • The Quantum Thief

    Hannu Rajaniemi

    Broken free from a nightmarish distant-future prison by a mysterious woman who offers him his life back if he will complete the ultimate heist he left unfinished, con man Jean le Flambeur is pursued by an Oubliette investigator in a multi-planetary cat-and-mouse chase in worlds where people communicate through shared memories. Reprint.

    The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi (2011) https://t.co/aY8s0KEMcj

  • Automate this

    Christopher Steiner

    The author of the best-selling $20 Per Gallon traces the rise of computerized decision making to explore how it has become a pervasive aspect of life, revealing how cleverly designed bots are helping and hindering today's world while considering how algorithm technology will shape the near future.

    Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World, Christopher Steiner (2012) https://t.co/oT1S4Ga55P

  • You don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself. That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side. When Mr. Kleon was asked to address college students in upstate New York, he shaped his speech around the ten things he wished someone had told him when he was starting out. The talk went viral, and its author dug deeper into his own ideas to create Steal Like an Artist, the book. The result is inspiring, hip, original, practical, and entertaining. And filled with new truths about creativity: Nothing is original, so embrace influence, collect ideas, and remix and re-imagine to discover your own path. Follow your interests wherever they take you. Stay smart, stay out of debt, and risk being boring—the creative you will need to make room to be wild and daring in your imagination.

    Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, Austin Kleon (2012) https://t.co/k1ar8RvqC2

  • The Dervish House

    Ian McDonald

    Seven days, six characters, three interconnected story strands, one central common corethe eponymous dervish house, a character in itselfthat pins all these players together in a weave of intrigue, conflict, drama, and a ticking clock of a thriller.

    The Dervish House, Ian McDonald (2010) https://t.co/LmEhIwBFEi

  • Shares the author's travels with the late David Foster Wallace based on interviews from the 1996 "Infinite Jest" book tour, covering such topics as Wallace's literary process, struggles with fame, and battle with mental illness.

    Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace, David Lipsky (2010) https://t.co/gqCctuIMKp

  • Medium Raw

    Anthony Bourdain

    An instant New York Times bestseller and the follow-up to the mega-hit Kitchen Confidential In the ten years since Anthony Bourdain's classic Kitchen Confidential first alerted us to the idiosyncrasies and lurking perils of eating out, much has changed for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business–and for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw tracks Bourdain's unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood, in a series of takes-no-prisoners confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food. Beginning with a secret, highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs that he compares to a mafia summit, Bourdain pulls back the curtain–but never pulls his punches–on the modern gastronomical revolution. Cutting right to the bone, Bourdain sets his sights on some of the biggest names in the foodie world, including David Chang, the young superstar chef; the revered Alice Waters; the Top Chef contestants; and many more. Medium Raw is the deliciously funny, shockingly delectable result, sure to delight philistines and gourmands alike.

    Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, Anthony Bourdain (2010) https://t.co/CYoaem0hNA

  • Dispatched to the influential Japanese port of Dejima in 1799, ambitious clerk Jacob de Zoet resolves to earn enough money to deserve his wealthy fiancâee, an effort that is challenged by his relationship with the midwife daughter of a samurai.

    The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel, David Mitchell (2010) https://t.co/PG2JJkJebv

  • Arguably

    Christopher Hitchens

    "All first-rate criticism first defines what we are confronting," the late, great jazz critic Whitney Balliett once wrote. By that measure, the essays of Christopher Hitchens are in the first tier. For nearly four decades, Hitchens has been telling us, in pitch-perfect prose, what we confront when we grapple with first principles-the principles of reason and tolerance and skepticism that define and inform the foundations of our civilization-principles that, to endure, must be defended anew by every generation. "A short list of the greatest living conversationalists in English," said The Economist, "would probably have to include Christopher Hitchens, Sir Patrick Leigh-Fermor, and Sir Tom Stoppard. Great brilliance, fantastic powers of recall, and quick wit are clearly valuable in sustaining conversation at these cosmic levels. Charm may be helpful, too." Hitchens-who staunchly declines all offers of knighthood-hereby invites you to take a seat at a democratic conversation, to be engaged, and to be reasoned with. His knowledge is formidable, an encyclopedic treasure, and yet one has the feeling, reading him, of hearing a person thinking out loud, following the inexorable logic of his thought, wherever it might lead, unafraid to expose fraudulence, denounce injustice, and excoriate hypocrisy. Legions of readers, admirers and detractors alike, have learned to read Hitchens with something approaching awe at his felicity of language, the oxygen in every sentence, the enviable wit and his readiness, even eagerness, to fight a foe or mount the ramparts. Here, he supplies fresh perceptions of such figures as varied as Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, Rebecca West, George Orwell, J.G. Ballard, and Philip Larkin are matched in brilliance by his pungent discussions and intrepid observations, gathered from a lifetime of traveling and reporting from such destinations as Iran, China, and Pakistan. Hitchens's directness, elegance, lightly carried erudition, critical and psychological insight, humor, and sympathy-applied as they are here to a dazzling variety of subjects-all set a standard for the essayist that has rarely been matched in our time. What emerges from this indispensable volume is an intellectual self-portrait of a writer with an exemplary steadiness of purpose and a love affair with the delights and seductions of the English language, a man anchored in a profound and humane vision of the human longing for reason and justice.

    Arguably: Essays, Christopher Hitchens (2012) https://t.co/75ogA8ROj3

  • Present Shock

    Douglas Rushkoff

    Back in the 1970s, futurism was all the rage. But looking forward is becoming a thing of the past. According to Douglas Rushkoff, presentism is the new ethos of a society that's always on, in real time, updating live. Guided by neither history nor long term goals, we navigate a sea of media that blend the past and future into a mash-up of instantaneous experience. Rushkoff shows how this trend is both disorienting and exhilarating. But we are in danger of squandering this cognitive surplus on trivia. Rushkoff shows how we can instead ground ourselves in the present tense.

    Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, Douglas Rushkoff (2013) https://t.co/8TgL3oFeio

  • The son of an influential father who runs an orphan work camp, Pak Jun Do rises to prominence using instinctive talents and eventually becomes a professional kidnapper and romantic rival to Kim Jong Il.

    The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson (2012) https://t.co/mN45yGTBB8

  • H is for Hawk

    Helen Macdonald

    An award-winning best-seller from the UK recounts how the author, an experienced falconer grieving the sudden death of her father, endeavored to train for the first time a dangerous goshawk predator as part of her personal recovery.

    H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald (2015) https://t.co/AhGpgUqBM1

  • Sea of Rust, C. Robert Cargill (2017) https://t.co/xaQ8JFdfBM

  • The Son

    Philipp Meyer

    The Son, Philipp Meyer (2013) https://t.co/2WCzFwxoOX

  • New York Times Editors' Choice 2017 Forbes Top 10 Best Environment, Climate, and Conservation Book of 2017 As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record—which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish—and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits. Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.

    The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions, Peter Brannen (2017) https://t.co/1oh57bqAqc

  • Sapiens

    Yuval Noah Harari

    **THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER** 'Interesting and provocative... It gives you a sense of how briefly we've been on this Earth' Barack Obama What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens? Yuval Noah Harari challenges everything we know about being human in the perfect read for these unprecedented times. Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it: us. In this bold and provocative book, Yuval Noah Harari explores who we are, how we got here and where we're going. 'I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who's interested in the history and future of our species' Bill Gates **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**

    Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari (2015) https://t.co/OpGIRuxZeO

  • Lincoln in the Bardo

    George Saunders

    #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The long-awaited first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy's body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state--called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo--a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul. Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end? Praise for Lincoln in the Bardo "A luminous feat of generosity and humanism."--Colson Whitehead, The New York Times Book Review "A masterpiece."--Zadie Smith "Ingenious . . . Saunders--well on his way toward becoming a twenty-first-century Twain--crafts an American patchwork of love and loss, giving shape to our foundational sorrows."--Vogue "Saunders is the most humane American writer working today."--Harper's Magazine "The novel beats with a present-day urgency--a nation at war with itself, the unbearable grief of a father who has lost a child, and a howling congregation of ghosts, as divided in death as in life, unwilling to move on."--Vanity Fair "A brilliant, Buddhist reimagining of an American story of great loss and great love."--Elle "Wildly imaginative"--Marie Claire "Mesmerizing . . . Dantesque . . . A haunting American ballad."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Exhilarating . . . Ruthless and relentless in its evocation not only of Lincoln and his quandary, but also of the tenuous existential state shared by all of us." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "It's unlike anything you've ever read, except that the grotesque humor, pathos, and, ultimately, human kindness at its core mark it as a work that could come only from Saunders."--The National

    Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders (2017) https://t.co/rUHsE4xPiq

  • Tiny Beautiful Things

    Cheryl Strayed

    Collects top-selected postings on life and relationships from The Rumpus' popular "Dear Sugar" online column, sharing recommendations on everything from infidelity and grief to marital boredom and financial hardships. Original. 40,000 first printing.

    Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, Cheryl Strayed (2012) https://t.co/CKDbU9MMXa

  • Bring Up the Bodies

    Hilary Mantel

    WINNER OF THE 2012 MAN BOOKER PRIZE The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head? Bring Up the Bodies is one of The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2012, one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012 and one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2012

    MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE DECADE 2010-2019 Bring Up The Bodies, Hilary Mantel (2013) https://t.co/L2Tew9sx22

  • Wolf Hall

    Hilary Mantel

    Assuming the power recently lost by the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell counsels a mercurial Henry VIII on the latter's efforts to marry Anne Boleyn against the wishes of Rome and many of his people, a successful endeavor that comes with a dangerous price. By the Hawthornden Prize-winning author of Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. 40,000 first printing.

    MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE DECADE 2010-2019 Bring Up The Bodies, Hilary Mantel (2013) https://t.co/L2Tew9sx22

  • How to

    Michael Bierut

    @ColbySat I love the @michaelbierut book How To as well but it’s not strictly typography.

  • Generations

    Neil Howe

    Hailed by national leaders as politically diverse as former Vice President Al Gore and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Generations has been heralded by reviewers as a brilliant, if somewhat unsettling, reassessment of where America is heading. William Strauss and Neil Howe posit the history of America as a succession of generational biographies, beginning in 1584 and encompassing every-one through the children of today. Their bold theory is that each generation belongs to one of four types, and that these types repeat sequentially in a fixed pattern. The vision of Generations allows us to plot a recurring cycle in American history -- a cycle of spiritual awakenings and secular crises -- from the founding colonists through the present day and well into this millenium. Generations is at once a refreshing historical narrative and a thrilling intuitive leap that reorders not only our history books but also our expectations for the twenty-first century.

    @mcrate_s @PavelASamsonov @peterme I do highly recommend the book GENERATIONS. It's pretty interesting about the cycles (and resulting characteristics) of the repeating four types. https://t.co/qqyZzllKcO

  • “More than anything else technology creates our world. It creates our wealth, our economy, our very way of being,” says W. Brian Arthur. Yet despite technology’s irrefutable importance in our daily lives, until now its major questions have gone unanswered. Where do new technologies come from? What constitutes innovation, and how is it achieved? Does technology, like biological life, evolve? In this groundbreaking work, pioneering technology thinker and economist W. Brian Arthur answers these questions and more, setting forth a boldly original way of thinking about technology. The Nature of Technology is an elegant and powerful theory of technology’s origins and evolution. Achieving for the development of technology what Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions did for scientific progress, Arthur explains how transformative new technologies arise and how innovation really works. Drawing on a wealth of examples, from historical inventions to the high-tech wonders of today, Arthur takes us on a mind-opening journey that will change the way we think about technology and how it structures our lives. The Nature of Technology is a classic for our times.

    @alanklement I have a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon where Herb Simon taught. I’m familiar with his work. It’s not the end of the discussion. Many recent books offer different interpretations. Read: The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves https://t.co/cyqmA1UwlC

  • The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple award winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

    @samin Currently reading Three Body Problem so is of interest!

  • Wolf Hall

    Hilary Mantel

    Assuming the power recently lost by the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell counsels a mercurial Henry VIII on the latter's efforts to marry Anne Boleyn against the wishes of Rome and many of his people, a successful endeavor that comes with a dangerous price. By the Hawthornden Prize-winning author of Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. 40,000 first printing.

    @HelenMcClory Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel are two of the best books I’ve ever read. It reimagines a story we thought we knew and the language is just brilliant.

  • Bring Up the Bodies

    Hilary Mantel

    WINNER OF THE 2012 MAN BOOKER PRIZE The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head? Bring Up the Bodies is one of The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2012, one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012 and one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2012

    @HelenMcClory Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel are two of the best books I’ve ever read. It reimagines a story we thought we knew and the language is just brilliant.

  • The Grand Dark

    Richard Kadrey

    'The Great War was over, but everyone knew another war was coming and it drove the city a little mad' Raised on the streets of Lower Proszawa, Largo makes his living as a cycle courier in a vast, decadent metropolis. With a dazzling girlfriend and a chance of promotion, he avoids politics and delivers without question. While Lower Proszawa's citizens seek oblivion in sex and drugs, secret police stalk its streets, strange beasts and intelligent machines emerge from its factories, and the powerful prepare for war. Soon, as the dark forces driving the city threaten everything he loves, Largo must confront them and fight to uncover their deepest secrets. From New York Times bestseller Richard Kadrey, The Grand Dark is a subversive fantasy of survival and defiance in a world sleepwalking toward disaster.

    @peterme The Grand Dark Seven Blades in Black The Ends of the World Sea of Rust Washington Black

  • Acclaimed author Sam Sykes returns with a brilliant new epic fantasy that introduces an unforgettable outcast magician caught between two warring empires. Her magic was stolen. She was left for dead. Betrayed by those she trusts most and her magic ripped from her, all Sal the Cacophony has left is her name, her story, and the weapon she used to carve both. But she has a will stronger than magic, and knows exactly where to go. The Scar, a land torn between powerful empires, where rogue mages go to disappear, disgraced soldiers go to die and Sal went with a blade, a gun, and a list of seven names. Revenge will be its own reward. For more from Sam Sykes, check out: The Affinity for Steel TrilogyTome of the UndergatesBlack HaloThe Skybound Sea Bring Down HeavenThe City Stained RedThe Mortal TallyGod's Last Breath

    @peterme The Grand Dark Seven Blades in Black The Ends of the World Sea of Rust Washington Black

  • New York Times Editors' Choice 2017 Forbes Top 10 Best Environment, Climate, and Conservation Book of 2017 As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record—which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish—and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits. Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.

    @peterme The Grand Dark Seven Blades in Black The Ends of the World Sea of Rust Washington Black

  • @peterme The Grand Dark Seven Blades in Black The Ends of the World Sea of Rust Washington Black

  • Washington Black

    Esi Edugyan

    - TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, Entertainment Weekly, Slate - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Boston Globe, NPR, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Economist, Bustle - WINNER OF THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE - FINALIST FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE, THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE, THE ROGERS WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE "Enthralling" --Boston Globe "Extraordinary" --Seattle Times "A rip-roaring tale" --Washington Post A dazzling adventure story about a boy who rises from the ashes of slavery to become a free man of the world. George Washington Black, or "Wash," an eleven-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is terrified to be chosen by his master's brother as his manservant. To his surprise, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning--and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Christopher and Wash must abandon everything. What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic. What brings Christopher and Wash together will tear them apart, propelling Wash even further across the globe in search of his true self. From the blistering cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, from the earliest aquariums of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, Washington Black tells a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again, and asks the question, What is true freedom?

    @peterme The Grand Dark Seven Blades in Black The Ends of the World Sea of Rust Washington Black

  • Bring Up the Bodies

    Hilary Mantel

    WINNER OF THE 2012 MAN BOOKER PRIZE The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head? Bring Up the Bodies is one of The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2012, one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012 and one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2012

    @anne_theriault There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one. —Hilary Mantel, Bring Up The Bodies

  • The Ancestor's Tale

    Richard Dawkins

    A newly revised and expanded edition of the classic account of evolution."

    @ztdavis Yeah this might work: The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution https://t.co/UbBLvBxApB

  • A leading neuroscientist offers a history of the evolution of the brain from unicellular organisms to the complexity of animals and human beings today Renowned neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux digs into the natural history of life on earth to provide a new perspective on the similarities between us and our ancestors in deep time. This page-turning survey of the whole of terrestrial evolution sheds new light on how nervous systems evolved in animals, how the brain developed, and what it means to be human. In The Deep History of Ourselves, LeDoux argues that the key to understanding human behavior lies in viewing evolution through the prism of the first living organisms. By tracking the chain of the evolutionary timeline he shows how even the earliest single-cell organisms had to solve the same problems we and our cells have to solve each day. Along the way, LeDoux explores our place in nature, how the evolution of nervous systems enhanced the ability of organisms to survive and thrive, and how the emergence of what we humans understand as consciousness made our greatest and most horrendous achievements as a species possible.

    And maybe this one: The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains https://t.co/8WbHSULkwm

  • Why aren’t we more like other apes? How did we win the evolutionary race? Find out how “wise” Homo sapiens really are. Prehistory has never been more exciting: New discoveries are overturning long-held theories left and right. Stone tools in Australia date back 65,000 years—a time when, we once thought, the first Sapiens had barely left Africa. DNA sequencing has unearthed a new hominid group—the Denisovans—and confirmed that crossbreeding with them (and Neanderthals) made Homo sapiens who we are today. A Pocket History of Human Evolution brings us up-to-date on the exploits of all our ancient relatives. Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier consider what accelerated our evolution: Was it tools, our “large” brains, language, empathy, or something else entirely? And why are we the sole surviviors among many early bipedal humans? Their conclusions reveal the various ways ancient humans live on today—from gossip as modern “grooming” to our gendered division of labor—and what the future might hold for our strange and unique species.

    Possibly this book: A Pocket History of Human Evolution: How We Became Sapiens https://t.co/mvJfRUiOO9

  • Angel in the Whirlwind is the epic tale of the American Revolution, from its roots among tax-weary colonists to the triumphant Declaration of Independence and eventual victory and liberty, recounted by Benson Bobrick, lauded by The New York Times as “perhaps the most interesting historian writing in America today.” Overwhelmed with debt following its victory in the French and Indian Wars, England began imposing harsh new tariffs and taxes on its colonists in the 1760s. Rebellion against these measures soon erupted into war. Bobrick thrillingly describes all the major battles, from Lexington and Concord to the dramatic siege of Yorktown, when the British flag was finally lowered before patriot guns. At the same time he weaves together social and political history along with the military history, bringing to life not only the charismatic leaders of the independence movement, but also their lesser-known compatriots, both patriot and loyalist, English and American, whose voices vividly convey the urgency of war. Illuminated by fresh insight, Angel in the Whirlwind is a dramatic narrative of our nation’s birth, in all its passion and glory.

    Reminder that the American Revolution was no sure thing. In fact it was a longshot that almost collapsed multiple times. ANGEL IN THE WHIRLWIND is the best book I ever read on the War of Independence. Gripping read. #July4th https://t.co/IUoB87ofXF

  • Exhalation

    Ted Chiang

    ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Exhalation by Ted Chiang is a collection of short stories that will make you think, grapple with big questions, and feel more human. The best kind of science fiction." --Barack Obama From the acclaimed author of Stories of Your Life and Others--the basis for the Academy Award -nominated film Arrival: a groundbreaking new collection of short fiction. "THE UNIVERSE BEGAN AS AN ENORMOUS BREATH BEING HELD." In these nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories, Ted Chiang tackles some of humanity's oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine. In "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. In "Exhalation," an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom," the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will. Including stories being published for the first time as well as some of his rare and classic uncollected work, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic--revelatory.

    ZOMG four finished! 1. Exhalation https://t.co/xa4xSJrXGv 2. Book Architecture https://t.co/oKtBS6GGJ1 3. Checklist Manifesto https://t.co/3EDQpbIYLG 4. The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life https://t.co/8PkuZLgnIH https://t.co/UZgpS3QIZ0

  • Book Architecture

    Stuart Horwitz

    In Book Architecture: How to Plot and Outline Without Using a Formula, Stuart Horwitz returns with his trademark clarity to help writers craft a powerful plot and an effective outline for their works-in-progress. Along the way, Horwitz offers detailed, concrete examples that reveal how the Book Architecture Method works with everything from literary classics to blockbuster films.

    ZOMG four finished! 1. Exhalation https://t.co/xa4xSJrXGv 2. Book Architecture https://t.co/oKtBS6GGJ1 3. Checklist Manifesto https://t.co/3EDQpbIYLG 4. The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life https://t.co/8PkuZLgnIH https://t.co/UZgpS3QIZ0

  • A New York Times Bestseller In latest bestseller, Atul Gawande shows what the simple idea of the checklist reveals about the complexity of our lives and how we can deal with it. The modern world has given us stupendous know-how. Yet avoidable failures continue to plague us in health care, government, the law, the financial industry--in almost every realm of organized activity. And the reason is simple: the volume and complexity of knowledge today has exceeded our ability as individuals to properly deliver it to people--consistently, correctly, safely. We train longer, specialize more, use ever-advancing technologies, and still we fail. Atul Gawande makes a compelling argument that we can do better, using the simplest of methods: the checklist. In riveting stories, he reveals what checklists can do, what they can't, and how they could bring about striking improvements in a variety of fields, from medicine and disaster recovery to professions and businesses of all kinds. And the insights are making a difference. Already, a simple surgical checklist from the World Health Organization designed by following the ideas described here has been adopted in more than twenty countries as a standard for care and has been heralded as "the biggest clinical invention in thirty years" (The Independent).

    ZOMG four finished! 1. Exhalation https://t.co/xa4xSJrXGv 2. Book Architecture https://t.co/oKtBS6GGJ1 3. Checklist Manifesto https://t.co/3EDQpbIYLG 4. The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life https://t.co/8PkuZLgnIH https://t.co/UZgpS3QIZ0

  • The Path

    Michael Puett

    For the first time an award-winning Harvard professor shares the lessons from his wildly popular course on classical Chinese philosophy, showing you how these ancient ideas can guide you on the path to a good life today. The lessons taught by ancient Chinese philosophers surprisingly still apply, and they challenge our fundamental assumptions about how to lead a fulfilled, happy, and successful life. Self-discovery, it turns out, comes through looking outward, not inward. Power comes from holding back. Good relationships come from small gestures. Spontaneity comes from practice. And excellence comes from what you choose to do, not your “natural” abilities. Counterintuitive. Countercultural. Even revolutionary. These powerful ideas have made Professor Michael Puett's course the third most popular at Harvard University in recent years, with enrollment surging every year since it was first offered in 2006. It's clear students are drawn by a bold promise Professor Puett makes on the first day of class: “These ideas will change your life.” Now he offers his course to the world.

    ZOMG four finished! 1. Exhalation https://t.co/xa4xSJrXGv 2. Book Architecture https://t.co/oKtBS6GGJ1 3. Checklist Manifesto https://t.co/3EDQpbIYLG 4. The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life https://t.co/8PkuZLgnIH https://t.co/UZgpS3QIZ0

  • Exhalation

    Ted Chiang

    ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Exhalation by Ted Chiang is a collection of short stories that will make you think, grapple with big questions, and feel more human. The best kind of science fiction." --Barack Obama From the acclaimed author of Stories of Your Life and Others--the basis for the Academy Award -nominated film Arrival: a groundbreaking new collection of short fiction. "THE UNIVERSE BEGAN AS AN ENORMOUS BREATH BEING HELD." In these nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories, Ted Chiang tackles some of humanity's oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine. In "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. In "Exhalation," an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom," the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will. Including stories being published for the first time as well as some of his rare and classic uncollected work, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic--revelatory.

    Probably the best scifi short story I've ever read is "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom," the last story in Ted Chiang's new book Exhalation https://t.co/tmpH81R549

  • The Alienist

    Caleb Carr

    Paperback edition with new afterword originally published by Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006.

    @andybudd +1 for The Alienist. Also E.L. Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS and Peter Quinn's BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE and HEYDAY by Kurt Andersen.

  • The waterworks

    E. L. Doctorow

    In post-Civil War New York City, a young pedestrian recognizes his supposedly dead father riding in a passing horse-drawn omnibus. By the author of Ragtime. 100,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo. Tour.

    @andybudd +1 for The Alienist. Also E.L. Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS and Peter Quinn's BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE and HEYDAY by Kurt Andersen.

  • A likable Irish-American hustler, a Yankee stockbroker, a beautiful mulatto musical comedy star, and her white minstrel lover experience life in New York City during the Civil War Draft Riots

    @andybudd +1 for The Alienist. Also E.L. Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS and Peter Quinn's BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE and HEYDAY by Kurt Andersen.

  • Heyday

    Kurt Andersen

    Englishman Benjamin Knowles heads for America to build a new life and joins up with three young Americans--journalist Timothy Skaggs, war veteran Duff Lucking, and Duff's actress sister, Polly--to seek their fortunes in the gold fields of California.

    @andybudd +1 for The Alienist. Also E.L. Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS and Peter Quinn's BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE and HEYDAY by Kurt Andersen.

  • Present Shock

    Douglas Rushkoff

    Back in the 1970s, futurism was all the rage. But looking forward is becoming a thing of the past. According to Douglas Rushkoff, presentism is the new ethos of a society that's always on, in real time, updating live. Guided by neither history nor long term goals, we navigate a sea of media that blend the past and future into a mash-up of instantaneous experience. Rushkoff shows how this trend is both disorienting and exhilarating. But we are in danger of squandering this cognitive surplus on trivia. Rushkoff shows how we can instead ground ourselves in the present tense.

    @mulegirl The book PRESENT SHOCK (which I recommend) goes into this a lot. It's a way of stopping time and building a meaningful present (which currently alludes us).