Category Archives: Book Notes

Justin Gregg: IF NIETZSCHE WERE A NARWHAL (2022)

Posted on Wednesday 21 September 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a recent nonfiction book with a provocative thesis and some interesting points which nevertheless I give a mixed review of. Perhaps helpful to consider scoring the book along several independent parameters, like on some of those cooking shows, e.g. … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Evolution, Morality | Comments Off on Justin Gregg: IF NIETZSCHE WERE A NARWHAL (2022)

Frederik Pohl’s “Outnumbering the Dead”

Posted on Sunday 11 September 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This week’s novella covered by the Facebook Group reading Gardner Dozois’s big anthology first discussed here is “Outnumbering the Dead” by Frederik Pohl. Coincidentally, it was first published as a chapbook, in December 1992, in the same UK publisher’s line … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, science fiction, Short Fiction | Comments Off on Frederik Pohl’s “Outnumbering the Dead”

Son of Longtermism

Posted on Monday 22 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Some 14 days ago, in this post, I linked and quoted from a NYT guest essay by William MacAskill about valuing the future as much as we value the present. Which struck me as a reasonable position to take, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Human Progress, Humanism, Philosophy, Science, Social Progress | Comments Off on Son of Longtermism

George Gamow: One Two Three… Infinity

Posted on Wednesday 10 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s an oldie, not just for first being published in 1947 (see Wikipedia) but also for being one of the first science nonfiction books I ever read, back when I bought this copy in 1969. (Seen here is the Bantam … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Mathematics, Personal history, Physics, Psychology | Comments Off on George Gamow: One Two Three… Infinity

David McRaney, HOW MINDS CHANGE

Posted on Thursday 4 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion (Portfolio/Penguin, June 2022, 330pp) Almost a decade ago I discovered two books by David McRaney, YOU ARE NOT SO SMART (2011) and YOU ARE NOW LESS DUMB (2013) that … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Psychology | Comments Off on David McRaney, HOW MINDS CHANGE

Randy Olson, HOUSTON, WE HAVE A NARRATIVE

Posted on Monday 1 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This is an interesting book that I’m disappointed by only because it’s not the book I wanted to read. That is, not the author’s fault. An interesting, useful, book nonetheless. (University of Chicago Press, 2015, trade paperback, 260pp) Olson’s book … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Narrative, Science | Comments Off on Randy Olson, HOUSTON, WE HAVE A NARRATIVE

David Brin, POLEMICAL JUDO

Posted on Monday 25 July 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a 2019 book, self-published, subtitled “A Brazen Guide for Sane Americans to Bypass Trench Warfare and Win Our Life or Death Struggle for Civilization.” This is a book full of sound and fury, an expression of Brin’s rage … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Conservative Resistance, Politics | Comments Off on David Brin, POLEMICAL JUDO

Michio Kaku: THE GOD EQUATION, 2

Posted on Saturday 2 July 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve spent my blogging time this afternoon refining yesterday’s post about Michio Kaku’s book THE GOD EQUATION. I’m not sure reducing 20 bullets about each chapter to 10 bullets will make much difference, in terms of my goal to pass … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Physics | Comments Off on Michio Kaku: THE GOD EQUATION, 2

Michio Kaku: THE GOD EQUATION (Doubleday, 2021)

Posted on Friday 1 July 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a book I thought suspect on two or three counts, but which turned out to be quite worthwhile. It’s a succinct, crisp history of physics, from the Greeks to the present, and ending with, though not dwelling too much … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Physics | Comments Off on Michio Kaku: THE GOD EQUATION (Doubleday, 2021)

Vaclav Smil, NUMBERS DON’T LIE

Posted on Friday 3 June 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a 2020 book by a writer I had never heard of, until reading a pre-publication review in PW of his 2022 book How the World Really Works, which was just published in May. Smil is something of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Technology | Comments Off on Vaclav Smil, NUMBERS DON’T LIE