books
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Finished reading: My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education by Jennine Capó Crucet 📚
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Currently reading: Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing by Pete Davis 📚
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Finished reading: Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan 📚 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Charming. Recommend listening to it as an audiobook, as the instruments and ensemble contribute to the experience. Better execution than Cloud Atlas.
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I’ve been looking at all these book-tracking sites, and the first to be open to my “hey, can we have an API?” request has been @literalclub.
It should be possible for a person to update a book status on their own site and then hit APIs to update on book profile sites. 📚
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Currently reading: For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition by Ernest Hemingway 📚 #NorthernFires
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Finished reading: Anxious People: A Novel by Fredrik Backman 📚 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Charming, like watching a small stage play.
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Finished reading: Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs) by Richard K. Morgan 📚
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Finished reading: Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit by Mary Poppendieck / Tom Poppendieck 📚
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Woohoo! I broke #50 on the readwise.io leaderboard! 📚
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📚 Finished reading: Cibola Burn (The Expanse (4)) by James S. A. Corey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (fiction)
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Finished reading: A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny 📚 ⭐⭐⭐
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Decent spot to start The Backyard Adventurer 📚
Lots of runoff creeks and urban ponds in my “backyard” area.
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Finished reading: The Resisters: A novel by Gish Jen 📚
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really fun book about baseball that’s not about baseball at all.
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Finished reading: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu 📚
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Finished reading: Gods of Risk ⭐️⭐️⭐️ by James S. A. Corey 📚
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Finished reading: Parable of the Sower (Earthseed #1) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ by Octavia Butler (my notes) 📚
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Finished reading: Abaddon’s Gate by James S. A. Corey 📚
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📚 Finished Reading: Ursula K. Le Guin: The Last Interview
Ursula K. Le Guin: The Last Interview by edited by David Streitfeld feat. Ursula K. Le Guin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Recommended for any... -
📚 Finished Reading: Why Nations Fail
Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Here’s the summary from my public notes: Extractiv... -
📚 Finished Reading: The Feather Thief
The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson ⭐⭐⭐⭐. Recommended Based on the topics (bird feathers, museums, thieves) I w... -
📚 Finished Reading: Harrow the Ninth
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Tagged: Fiction This is the second in a series of mega-horror, murder-mystery, sci-... -
📚 Finished Reading: An Altar in the World
An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I had heard the author’s name before, but resolved to go re... -
📚 Finished Reading Give and Take by Adam Grant ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I am skeptical of “put people in categories” books, due to all the evidence we have that things like this are not hard & fast categories. This book still had important wisdom to share.
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📚 Finished reading: The End of Alzheimer’s by Dr. Dale Bredesen ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recommended. Even though I am not at higher genetic risk, I’ve ordered this book as a reference, due to the depth of cognitive health information included.
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📚 Finished Reading: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recommended. Atwood has great skill at showing varied human dimensions of power.
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Last one for today. 📚 cleaned up (a little) my notes for The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Highly recommended.
Also, ended up doing so much more linking around today that I went full steam ahead and put a “Digital Garden” link on my blog homepage.
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📚 After reading The Shallows I’ve been wondering if there is some optimal blend between strengthening deep thinking pathways and Internet thinking pathways.
Along the lines of “explore vs. exploit”, what’s sweet spot between attentive consideration and inattentive collection?
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📚Book notes from Signs of Life by Stephanie Lobdell ⭐️⭐️⭐️
(note: trying out a new book review configuration in my experimental digital garden. Feedback encouraged!)
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it’s looking like StoryGraph will become my goodreads alternative. Will spend some more time testing it out. Likely to keep my Reading page and some Bookshop lists. So need to figure out what goes where, and link it all on my Reading page. 📚
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Ok, now that both my fiction and nonfiction 📚 reviews are up, here are the 30 recommended books that are available in bookshop
Happy reading, and I’m looking forward to your recommendations!
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2020: Nonfiction 📚 Review
To view other 2020 review posts (including fiction, feeds, newsletters, and magazines), visit the main post here. I rea... -
2020: Fiction 📚 Review
To view other 2020 review posts (including non-fiction, comics, and magazines), visit the main post here. I read 37 wor... -
2020 Review
As has become my tradition, I’m spending the week around year-end reflecting each day. We grow most rapidly when w... -
Resilient 📚 Review: I Am Not Your Enemy by Michael T. McRay
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Highly Recommended
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📚 Finished Reading: How to Invent Everything by Ryan North
Recommended. A rare ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ book for me!
Informative and delightfully amusing on almost every page.
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📚 Review: An Unintentional Accomplice
📚 Finished Reading: An Unintentional Accomplice by Carolyn L. Baker ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Note: I received a free pdf of this book, wit... -
📚 The Time-Block Plannner by Cal Newport ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Newport’s method is not new, but the planner summarizes it well and provides a good structure for executing it.
The physical product is less fit for purpose (page size, binding, paper), so practicing here and moving elsewhere.
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📚 Now Reading: Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson.
This is unfortunately not a sequel to Warbreaker, but will hopefully be good anyway.
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📚 Finished Reading: The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Best draculas book I’ve read since The Historian. Probably better.
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📚 Finished Reading: Battle Ground by Jim Butcher ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Gets an extra star because River Shoulders and Butters.
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📚 Now Reading: Lo-TEK Design by Radical Indigenism by Julia Watson
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📚 Now Reading: Regenerative Agriculture by Richard Perkins
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📚 Finished Reading: The Shadows by Alex North. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Recommended.
Horror-Thriller with a dreaming angle. I only had the loan for 7 days, and read it quickly in 2.
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📚 Finished Reading: Banksy Locations & Tours Vol 1 by Martin Bull ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Most of this is no longer strictly useful, but I appreciated this insight into the history of these pieces and areas.
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Recommended 📚: Flash Boys - another great Michael Lewis explainer-of-complex-topics ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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📚 Now Reading: I Am Not Your Enemy
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📚 finished reading: The Vanishing Half
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Recommended
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Now Reading 📚: the nineties-est book that ever ninety-ed
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Added How to Invent Everything to my #Resilient booklist. 📚 I love this book so much. Informative and hilarious. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Finished Reading 📚 Caliban’s War ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Started 📚 Children of Blood and Bone and it is off to a great start.
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📚 Review: Imaginary Borders
Imaginary Borders by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez ⭐️⭐️⭐️, Recommended Some Background The author is a talented hip-hop artist a... -
Finished Reading 📚: Delayed Gratification Issue 37 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Finished Reading 📚 (yesterday) Gideon the Ninth
Interesting due to new perspectives and being many types of books all at once. But yes, it’s big horror at its core.
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📚Now reading (listening): The Water Dancer
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📚 Re-reading: Grave Peril
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📚 Now reading: Delayed Gratification issue 37
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📚 Finished Deep Work by Cal Newport ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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I started Cal Newport’s 📚 Deep Work and it has me pondering something.
As expected (since I really enjoyed Digital Minimalism), though I have just started, I am appreciating the book. However, his early focus on productivity is concerning to me. Often, we think of productivity as the One True Measurement ™ of success, and I’m not sure that’s right.
While effectiveness (towards whatever goal(s) you set) is important, it leaves out factors such as quality, value, repeatability, learning, etc. You could argue that we should build those into the measurements of productivity, but I’d argue we often don’t.
Perhaps my disagreement is due to me being philosophically less of a consequentialist and more of a deontologist or virtue ethicist. In my way of thinking, it’s better to do right with less immediate output than to crank out good output that may be short-sighted.
What about you?
edited to add: Cal addresses this a somewhat when he gets into “busyness” being a (bad) proxy for “productivity”.
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Finished 📚 Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Remove layers of abstraction and build relationships with people as directly as possible. Serve others.
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📚 Finished The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ What if we took similar events to Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves but started the story earlier in history, and gave more attention to humanity? This is that book, and it’s really good.
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📚 Finished Four Futures by Peter Frase. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ How might humans respond to work automation and ecological crisis? Frase presents four possible futures, not to predict but to warn and educate. Ch. 2 is important as it discusses the major problems with idea “ownership”. #AbolishIP
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📚 Review: The Benedict Option
Note: This book came up in conversation recently, and I took a moment to move my review onto my current blog, with some ... -
Recently finished 📚 Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan & Lisa Laskow Lahey. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Recommended for complex vertical/psychological development. Good companion to The Map by Keith M. Eigel & Karl W. Kuhnert. Immunity is more promotional but also has more how-to guidance.
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I liked Malcolm Gladwell’s 📚 Talking to Strangers, but I liked this podcast of him talking about the topic even better. He was more cutting, witty, etc. Great dynamic between Ezra and Malcolm on the show.
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📚 Finished A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Mostly an incredible conclusion to the story. Suffered from inconsistent portrayal of Egwene and Gawyn that went contrary to their character arcs. Rand parts also a little hokey with Mormon stuff.
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📚 Finished Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ With this book, it’s really coming together. I really enjoyed the Perrin, Egwene, Gawyn, Galad, etc. story-crossover scene. Also, Perrin is still the best.
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I’m a day late, but here’s this year’s results for Public Domain Day! 📚 #AbolishIP
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2019 📚 Review: Fiction
Overview I set a goal of reading 63 books in 2019, which was a 10% increase over 2019. I met this goal exactly. I have ... -
2019 📚 Review: Nonfiction
Overview I set a goal of reading 63 books in 2019, which was a 10% increase over 2019. I met this goal exactly. I have ... -
📚 Micro-Review: _The Power of Habit_ by Charles Duhigg
📚 Finished The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ This book is mostly useful narratives that introduce the fact... -
Yay! 📚 Readwise.io silently added Pocket to their automatic list.
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📚 Finished The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson, the other day. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I can see why folks like Egwene, now!
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📚 Finished Educated by Tara Westover. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ An incredible book that was not what I expected it to be. Tara’s memoir tells of her time growing up with what I can most-succinctly describe as “the worst Facebook people”, which does it no justice.
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📚 Finished The Pioneers by David McCullough ⭐️⭐️⭐️
It was surprising to me that this focused on what we now think of as the midwest, and the southeast midwest, at that. This was the west back then.
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📚 Finished Power of Now by Echkhart Tolle. ⭐️⭐️
- 2/3 useful commentary on consciousness
- 2/3 bullshit & misused quotes
- And if you’re saying “hey, those don’t add up” you’re beginning to understand the book
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📚 Finished Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I wish it had included discussion guides/questions like the first book!
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Finished Reading 📚 How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
- There’s promise in psychedelics for treating mental illness & addiction
- Psychedelic results are affected by the intention & context of use
- Meditation & the Overview Effect have related results
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Finished reading: Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan 📚
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Currently reading: How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan 📚
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Finished 📚 How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. Highly recommended. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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📚 Recommended: How Long ‘Ti’l Black Future Month N.K. Jemisin.
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Finished 📚: The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. Highly recommended. I haven’t rated a book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ in a long time! (There’s only 14 such books)
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This essay from LeGuin helps explain why her 📚 are so great: The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
