Books
- 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
- 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
- Changing Lenses: a life-altering introduction to Restorative Justice.
- Weapons of Math Destruction: this book about big data misuse was a great resource for my talk on big data security (Security Thinking for Big Data).
- Conflict is not Abuse: A nuanced, challenging, imperfect, and incredibly important book about how we respond to conflict, and how trauma- and supremacy-based anxieties affect those responses.
- How to Win Friends and Influence People: classic advice, though some of the examples haven’t aged well.
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: introduces them well with a story, ends with a good reference to the ideas.
- Reviving Old Scratch: Richard Beck of Experimental Theology addresses the tendency towards secular humanism within progressive theology.
- The No Asshole Rule: good advice for how to prevent (or deal with) bad workplaces.
- Getting to “Yes”: classic negotiation advice.
- Utopia of Rules: a philosophical exploration of our relationship with bureaucracy.
- Irresistible Revolution: an autohagiography of radical christian experiments. For a heroic everyday method for Christian living, see: Stranger God.
- The Dispossessed: This is a wonderful take on sci-fi that explores work, societies, and beliefs. Our means are our ends.
- The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear: beautiful bardic fantasy. (These were re-reads)
- The Seventh Princess: I’m amazed this fantasy book for children isn’t still in publication.
- Fight Club: strange writing style, but better than the movie. Really good, assuming you read both the problems and “solutions" as satire.
- Warbreaker: this is my favorite Cosmere/Sanderson book. (This was a re-read)
- Slaughterhouse Five: so it goes, but it doesn’t have to.
- The Handmaid’s Tale: maybe this time a dystopian work will warn us off?
- The Rise and Fall of DODO: almost as good as Anathem.
- The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance: The Stormlight Archive take a long time to get going, but end up being worth it. If you’re reading Stormlight Archive and missed the novella, get lifted up by this bit of awesome: Edgedancer.
- The Butcher of Anderson Station: read this novella after the first Expanse book.
- Dragonsong: this was my first Pern experience, and it was really good.
📚 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.
📚 Finished Power of Now by Echkhart Tolle. ⭐️⭐️
📚 Finished Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I wish it had included discussion guides/questions like the first book!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Finished Reading 📚 How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
Finished reading: Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan 📚
Currently reading: How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan 📚
Sunday Quote 📚
Sunday Quote 📚
Finished 📚 How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. Highly recommended. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Reading Will Larson’s An Elegant Puzzle and noting he’s in lock-step with Sally Williamson on the topic of Leading Executive Conversations. Great stuff here and throughout the book so far. 📚
📚 Recommended: How Long ‘Ti’l Black Future Month N.K. Jemisin.
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)
Highly successful HPB run 📚 Bonus: that’s a signed edition of Fall
Goodbye, Urusla 📚
Food for Thought: 2018-01-23
This essay from LeGuin helps explain why her writing is so great: The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
Update: She has passed
Waging Nonviolence interviews the executive director of Life After Hate and and they discuss how we help people leave violent organizations.
“I’m simply tired and bored by a progressive Christianity that doesn’t believe in anything, at least anything beyond Jesus being a model exemplar of liberal humanism.” From Experimental Theology
A good breakdown of USA immigration issues.
Experimental Theology looks at idolatry in the workplace.
Quality essay on Toxic Tech Culture.
Cory Doctorow says there’s more to the long game in the attention wars.
Related: Here’s how to turn your phone greyscale, with a quick shortcut to restore color when you need it.
“The #Resistance Just Gave Darth Vader’s NSA Broad Spy Powers” Less sarcastic article here.
Solid Last Jedi thinkpiece roundup:
Not the Droid You’re Looking For: Subtler Political Points from The Last Jedi from C4SS
Why so many men hate The Last Jedi but can’t agree on why from Bitter Gertrude
Lure of Myth from Slate
From the makers of Juicero, we now have “raw water”. Yes, people are charging exorbitant amounts for dangerous water.
Shellfish, which generally stay in the same area, are good subjects for observing the effects of our waste entering the ocean.
This essay from LeGuin helps explain why her 📚 are so great: The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
📚 2017 Book Recommendations
Goodreads made this list from my reading, but here are my direct recommendations:
Non-fiction:
Fiction:
What are your recommendations?