This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
by Daniel J. Levitin
Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming
by Michael E. Mann, Lee R. Kump
Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution
by Leonard Shlain
Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa by Keith B. Richburg
Two Wands, One Nation: An Essay on Race and Community in America by
Richard Lamm
What Blood Won't Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America by
Ariela J. Gross
The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It
Matters by Rose George
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman
Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom
The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin
Generation We: How Millennial Youth are Taking Over America
and Changing Our World Forever by Eric Greenberg & Karl Weber
Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How To Think Differently
by Gregory Berns
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
by Alice Schroeder
The Unfinished Game: Pascal, Fermat, and the 17th Century
Letter that Made the World Modern by Keith Devlin
I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter
The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life
by Philip Zimbardo, John Boyd
The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers (Paperback)
by Daniel L. Schacter
Anathem
by Neal Stephenson
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes
by Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein
___________________________________________________
This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
by Daniel J. Levitin
Think of a song that resonates deep down in your being. Now imagine
sitting down with someone who was there when the song was recorded and
can tell you how that series of sounds was committed to tape, and who
can also explain why that particular combination of rhythms, timbres
and pitches has lodged in your memory, making your pulse race and your
heart swell every time you hear it. Remarkably, Levitin does all this
and more, interrogating the basic nature of hearing and of music
making (this is likely the only book whose jacket sports blurbs from
both Oliver Sacks and Stevie Wonder), without losing an affectionate
appreciation for the songs he's reducing to neural impulses. Levitin
is the ideal guide to this material: he enjoyed a successful career as
a rock musician and studio producer before turning to cognitive
neuroscience, earning a Ph.D. and becoming a top researcher into how
our brains interpret music. Though the book starts off a little dryly
(the first chapter is a crash course in music theory), Levitin's
snappy prose and relaxed style quickly win one over and will leave
readers thinking about the contents of their iPods in an entirely new
way.
___________________________________________________
Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming
by Michael E. Mann, Lee R. Kump
"This rendering of meticulous, documented climate research, stunning
crisp photos, remarkable artwork, and easy to read charts strikes
clear, individual notes, while still managing to come together fully
in the glossy pages like a stirring symphony of popular science." --
DailyKos.com, July 2008
Dire Predictions is a must read for anyone who wants the straight
facts on global warming. It cuts to the heart of the massive 2007 IPCC
report, presenting major scientific findings in easy to understand
language and graphics. Written by two of the scientific community's
most thoughtful researchers, Dire Predictions' unbiased message about
global warming arrives at a time when people need it most! -- Heidi
Cullen, The Weather Channel
Here's a powerful, straight-forward guide to how scientists,
economists, and engineers really understand the problem of global
warming. It makes 20 years of research and consensus-building
completely accessible to anyone who cares to know the truth--and to do
something about it. -- Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
___________________________________________________
Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution
by Leonard Shlain
Amazon.com Review
This book sets out to explore why and when people evolved so far away
from other mammals in several key ways, all of which Dr. Shlain ties
to the biological differences between men and women. As in his
excellent prior work The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict
Between Word and Image (which holds that there are links between the
ascendancy of patriarchy and written language and the descent of
matriarchal societies and goddess-based religions), some of the
concepts proposed in this book might seem a bit of a stretch. And they
are—whether or not they turn out to be factual. Shlain contends, for
instance, that women essentially invented the concept of time due to
their experience of menses. Whatever conclusions the reader comes to,
the author exposes the underlying gender biases in so many scientific
assumptions; the result is one of those books that cannot help but
alter one's perceptions. A consistently engaging writer, Shlain traces
the course
of his own evolving ideas with what might be called a didactic wit:
bold statements are first writ large, then Dr. Shlain reveals how he
came upon them, frequently with colorful anecdotes that show these are
questions he's been wrestling with for many years. It's difficult to
tell whether this fascinating thinker will be viewed as the next
Darwin or as a crank, but there's no denying this is an audacious work
in the realm of evolutionary biology. --Mike McGonigal
___________________________________________________
Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa by Keith B. Richburg
From 1991 to 1994, Keith Richburg was based in Nairobi as the Africa
bureau chief for the Washington Post. He traveled throughout Africa,
from Rwanda to Zaire, witnessing and reporting on wars, famines, mass
murders, and the complexity and corruption of African politics.
Unlike many black Americans who romanticize Africa, Richburg looks
back on his time there and concludes that he is simply an American,
not an African American. This is a powerful, hard-hitting book,
filled with anguished soul-searching as Richburg makes his way toward
that uncomfortable conclusion.
___________________________________________________
Two Wands, One Nation: An Essay on Race and Community in America by
Richard Lamm
96 pages
In his book, "Two Wands, One Nation," former governor of Colorado
Richard Lamm poses a novel way to think about race and progress: "Let
me offer you, metaphorically, two magic wands that have sweeping
powers to change society. With one wand you could wipe out all racism
and discrimination from the hearts and minds of white America. The
other wand you could wave across the ghettos and barrios of America
and infuse the inhabitants with Japanese or Jewish values, respect
for learning and ambition."
Which wand would you wave?
___________________________________________________
What Blood Won't Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America by
Ariela J. Gross
Through a close reading of racial identity trials in America, this
book offers an eloquent contribution to ongoing debates over
affirmative action, identity politics and the construction of a
"colorblind" society. Historian Gross argues that racial identity
trials--court cases in which outcomes turned on determining a
person's "race" and their concomitant rights and privileges--provides
an excellent basis for viewing the construction of "whiteness" and
assessing the volatile category of race in American society. The
author rigorously examines select cases including the outcomes of
suits for freedom by onetime slaves like Abby Guy, who in 1857
convinced an all-white male jury that she was white and thus
deserving of freedom. Upsetting the familiar notion of the "one-drop
rule" in determining racial identity, Gross shows that in such cases
the notion of what constituted race was itself as much in play as
whether a particular individual could be identified (through some
unstable combination of expert and "common sense" opinion) as one
race or another. The social "performance" of identity is key, and
enduringly so, as Gross periodically underscores by reference to
various modern debates and trends. (Publishers Weekly )
___________________________________________________
The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It
Matters by Rose George
An utterly original exploration of the world of human waste that will
surprise, outrage—and entertain
Produced behind closed doors, disposed of discreetly, and hidden by
euphemism, bodily waste is something common to all and as natural as
breathing, yet we prefer not to talk about it. But we should—even
those of us who take care of our business in pristine, sanitary
conditions. For it's not only in developing countries that human
waste is a major public health threat: population growth is taxing
even the most advanced sewage systems, and the disease spread by
waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single
cause of death. Even in America, 1.95 million people have no access
to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable.
The Big Necessity takes aim at the taboo, revealing everything that
matters about how people do—and don't—deal with their own waste.
Moving from the deep underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York
—an infrastructure disaster waiting to happen—to an Indian slum where
ten toilets are shared by 60,000 people, Rose George stops along the
way to explore the potential saviors: China's five million biogas
digesters, which produce energy from waste; the heroes of third world
sanitation movements; the inventor of the humble Car Loo; and the
U.S. Army's personal lasers used by soldiers to zap their feces in
the field.
With razor-sharp wit and crusading urgency, mixing levity with
gravity, Rose George has turned the subject we like to avoid into a
cause with the most serious of consequences.
___________________________________________________
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
In Outliers, Gladwell (The Tipping Point) once again proves masterful
in a genre he essentially pioneered—the book that illuminates secret
patterns behind everyday phenomena. His gift for spotting an
intriguing mystery, luring the reader in, then gradually revealing
his lessons in lucid prose, is on vivid display. Outliers begins with
a provocative look at why certain five-year-old boys enjoy an
advantage in ice hockey, and how these advantages accumulate over
time. We learn what Bill Gates, the Beatles and Mozart had in common:
along with talent and ambition, each enjoyed an unusual opportunity
to intensively cultivate a skill that allowed them to rise above
their peers. A detailed investigation of the unique culture and
skills of Eastern European Jewish immigrants persuasively explains
their rise in 20th-century New York, first in the garment trade and
then in the legal profession. Through case studies ranging from
Canadian junior hockey champions to the robber barons of the Gilded
Age, from Asian math whizzes to software entrepreneurs to the rise of
his own family in Jamaica, Gladwell tears down the myth of individual
merit to explore how culture, circumstance, timing, birth and luck
account for success—and how historical legacies can hold others back
despite ample individual gifts. Even as we know how many of these
stories end, Gladwell restores the suspense and serendipity to these
narratives that make them fresh and surprising.One hazard of this
genre is glibness. In seeking to understand why Asian children score
higher on math tests, Gladwell explores the persistence and
painstaking labor required to cultivate rice as it has been done in
East Asia for thousands of years; though fascinating in its details,
the study does not prove that a rice-growing heritage explains math
prowess, as Gladwell asserts. Another pitfall is the urge to state
the obvious: No one, Gladwell concludes in a chapter comparing a high-
IQ failure named Chris Langan with the brilliantly successful J.
Robert Oppenheimer, not rock stars, not professional athletes, not
software billionaires and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone. But
who in this day and age believes that a high intelligence quotient in
itself promises success? In structuring his book against that
assumption, Gladwell has set up a decidedly flimsy straw man. In the
end it is the seemingly airtight nature of Gladwell's arguments that
works against him. His conclusions are built almost exclusively on
the findings of others—sociologists, psychologists, economists,
historians—yet he rarely delves into the methodology behind those
studies. And he is free to cherry-pick those cases that best
illustrate his points; one is always left wondering about the data he
evaluated and rejected because it did not support his argument, or
perhaps contradicted it altogether. Real life is seldom as neat as it
appears in a Malcolm Gladwell book. (From Publishers Weekly, Reviewed
by Leslie Chang)
___________________________________________________
More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, October 2008: While writer and former
literary agent John Hodgman had a considerable cult following before
the publication of his first book, The Areas of My Expertise, the
exact moment when Hodgmania hit fever pitch can be traced to his
November 16, 2005, appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, when
a "Famous Minor Television Personality" was born. Since then he has
welcomed a new level of visibility as the Resident Expert on The Daily
Show, appearing as the PC in the ubiquitous "Get a Mac" ads, and in
bit roles in movies and on TV, so the world should be primed to
embrace More Information Than You Require, Book Two in his Compendium
of Complete World Knowledge (or, as it says on the cover, "New Ferret,
Same Old Con"). Fun facts, bizarre trivia, and oddball photos ("Figure
51: Jane Addams, Pre-Antlers") are crammed into every corner of the
page with extended riffs on How to Tell the Future Using a Pig's
Spleen, What to Expect While Serving as a Juror, Gambling ("Sure Thing
Number Three: Star Wars Slots"), How to Deal With Some Common
Infestations, and of course, How to Be Famous. And what he did for
hobos in The Areas of My Expertise, celebrating their free spirit and
conniving ways (and a list of 700 hobo names), Hodgman does for
mole-men, the "race of humanoids who live in the complex warren of
tunnels and vast caverns beneath the earth." Did you know, for
instance, that Thomas Jefferson uncovered on his "mole-manic palace
known as Monticello" a "small group (or 'Parlor') of mole-men dining
on weevil pie and discussing world affairs... 'They touched my face,'
wrote Jefferson, 'and hissed, as is their custom.'" Naturally there
are 700 Mole-Man Names and Occupations included ("No. 281: Mr. Wallow
Dripstone, a worm rider"). Hodgman may be up to the same old con, but
this brand new ferret of a book is a wise (and wise-ass) little
predator who will swindle away your reading time with endless hours of
rabies-free laughs.
___________________________________________________
Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom
"A page-turner"
-Newsweek
" Lindstrom dishes up results, alongside a buffet of past research,
with clear writing and deft reasoning."
-Fast Company
"Lindstrom … has an encyclopedic knowledge of advertising history and
an abundance of real-world business experience"
-The Washington Post
"Martin Lindstrom, the boy wonder of branding, tells that the future
of shopping is all in the mind"
-The Sunday Times (UK)
"Shatters conventional wisdom"
- CNBC
"...brings together a great many strands of research to build a
fascinating case. The writing is snappy and the book's a page turner"
-BBC Focus Magazine
"Lindstrom's research should be of interest to any company launching a
new product or brand"
-USA Today
"Lindstrom...has an original, inquisitive mind...His new book is a
fascinating look at how consumers perceive logos, ads, commercials,
brands, and products."
-Time
___________________________________________________
The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin
Waitzkin's name may sound familiar—back in 1993, his father wrote
about Josh's early years as a chess prodigy in Searching for Bobby
Fischer. Now 31, Waitzkin revisits that story from his own perspective
and reveals how the fame that followed the movie based on his father's
book became one of several obstacles to his further development as a
chess master. He turned to tai chi to learn how to relax and feel
comfortable in his body, but then his instructor suggested a more
competitive form of the discipline called "push hands." Once again, he
proved a quick study, and has earned more than a dozen championships
in tournament play. Using examples from both his chess and martial
arts backgrounds, Waitzkin draws out a series of principles for
improving performance in any field. Chapter headings like "Making
Smaller Circles" have a kung fu flair, but the themes are elaborated
in a practical manner that enhances their universality. Waitzkin's
engaging voice and his openness about the limitations he recognized
within himself make him a welcome teacher. The concept of incremental
progress through diligent practice of the fundamentals isn't new, but
Waitzkin certainly gives it a fresh spin.
___________________________________________________
Generation We: How Millennial Youth are Taking Over America
and Changing Our World Forever by Eric Greenberg & Karl Weber
Energy, health care, national security, the environment--these are
just some of the issues where Americans are hungry for solutions
rather than slogans and posturing. I see hope in the fact that, as
Greenberg and Weber detail in this important book, America's next
generation will be prepared to help lead the search for real answers.
--U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate
In a political world poisoned by cynicism and spin, the idealism,
optimism, commitment, and energy of the Millennial generation offer an
inspiring antidote. With their independent thinking and their
readiness to abandon the partisan wars we've been fighting for too
long, today's young people are poised to lead a worldwide revolution.
Generation We captures this transformational moment with insight and
clarity. --Arianna Huffington, founder, The Huffington Post
In my travels around the world, I have been very impressed by today's
young people. They are smart, caring, creative, and generous. I share
the hope expressed by Greenberg and Weber that this new generation
will help re-orient our planet and conquer the problems of poverty,
war, and pollution that currently plague it. --Muhammad Yunus, Founder
of Grameen Bank and Co-Winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize
___________________________________________________
Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How To Think Differently
by Gregory Berns
From Publishers Weekly
Psychiatry professor Berns (Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True
Fulfillment) describes an iconoclast as "a person who does something
that others say can't be done." Though keeping his promise to reveal
the "biological basis" for the ability to think outside the box, Berns
keeps technical explanation to a minimum, instead using themes like
perception, fear and networking to profile a number of famous
free-thinkers. While the ordinary person perceives the world based on
his past experience and "what other people say," the iconoclast is
both willing and able to risk seeing things differently; in the case
of glass sculptor Dale Chihuly, his creative breakthrough (departing
from symmetry in his ice-sculptures) came after a car crash blinded
him in one eye, literally changing his view of the world. The will to
take risks is also paramount; Cardinals baseball coach Branch Rickey
and his controversial hire Jackie Robinson, the first black man in the
Majors, provide models of imagination and fearlessness. Berns also
looks at iconoclasts like Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King Jr., Henry
Ford, the Dixie Chicks, Warren Buffett and Picasso, relating in lucid
terms the mindsets that set them apart.
___________________________________________________
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
by Alice Schroeder
From Publishers Weekly
In this startlingly frank account of Buffett's life, Schroeder, a
former managing director at Morgan Stanley—and hand picked by Buffett
to be his biographer—strips away the mystery that has long cloaked the
word's richest man to reveal a life and fortune erected around lucid
and inspired business vision and unimaginable personal complexity. In
a book that is dominated by unstinting descriptions of Buffett's
appetites—for profit, women (particularly nurturing maternal types),
food (Buffett maintained his and his family's weight by "dangling
money")—it is refreshing that Schroeder keeps her tone free of
judgment or awe; Buffett's plain-speaking suffuses the book and
renders his public and private successes and failures wonderfully
human and universal. Schroeder's sections detailing the genesis of
Buffett's investment strategy, his early mentoring by Benjamin Graham
(who imparted the memorable "cigar butt" scheme: purchasing discarded
stocks and taking a final puff). Inspiring managerial advice abounds
and competes with gossipy tidbits (the married Buffett's very public
relationship with Washington Post editor Katherine Graham) in this
rich, surprisingly affecting biography.
___________________________________________________
The Unfinished Game: Pascal, Fermat, and the 17th Century
Letter that Made the World Modern by Keith Devlin
PublishersWeekly.com
"This informative book is a lively, quick read for anyone who wonders
about the science of predicting what's next and how deeply it affects
our lives."
New Scientist
"This breezy book shows why probability theory, though not Pascal and
Fermat's last, was undoubtedly their most important theorem."
Washington Times
"Mr. Devlin shares the great mathematicians' correspondence, walks
readers through critical mathematical problems and contextualizes it
all in a lively narrative. The book is a refreshing testimony to the
rewards of thinking rationally about how future events might
unfold.... [A] rewarding read…. Mr. Devlin does a remarkable job of
showing just how much derived from the history-changing Pascal-Fermat
correspondence."
MAA Online
"This book is not only about mathematics. It is also a tale of how
mathematics, and science in general, is really done…. Very well
written and accessible to everyone…. This is highly recommended
reading…. [It] should find a place in every mathematician's library."
___________________________________________________
I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Hofstadter—who won a Pulitzer for his 1979 book,
Gödel, Escher, Bach—blends a surprising array of disciplines and
styles in his continuing rumination on the nature of consciousness.
Eschewing the study of biological processes as inadequate to the task,
he argues that the phenomenon of self-awareness is best explained by
an abstract model based on symbols and self-referential "loops,"
which, as they accumulate experiences, create high-level
consciousness. Theories aside, it's impossible not to experience this
book as a tender, remarkably personal and poignant effort to
understand the death of his wife from cancer in 1993—and to grasp how
consciousness mediates our otherwise ineffable relationships. In the
end, Hofstadter's view is deeply philosophical rather than scientific.
It's hopeful and romantic as well, as his model allows one
consciousness to create and maintain within itself true
representations of the essence of another. The book is all
Hofstadter—part theory, some of it difficult; part affecting memoir;
part inventive thought experiment—presented for the most part with an
incorrigible playfulness. And whatever readers' reaction to the
underlying arguments for this unique view of consciousness, they will
find the model provocative and heroically humane.
___________________________________________________
The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life
by Philip Zimbardo, John Boyd
From Publishers Weekly
Time is our most valuable possession: we are obsessed with schedules
and multitasking to save time, say the authors of this insightful
study of the importance of time in our lives. Yet people spend time
less wisely than money. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect), professor
emeritus of psychology at Stanford, and Boyd, research director for
Yahoo!, draw on their two decades of research to explain why people
devalue time. They blend scientific results into a straightforward
narrative exploring various past-, present- and future-oriented ways
of perceiving time and argue against becoming imprisoned or obsessed
by any one of these. Zimbardo and Boyd have cogent insight into all of
time's elements and show how they can be used for success, better
health and greater fulfillment. For instance, understanding the role
of time in investment can lead to wiser financial decisions, and a
relationship will not work if one partner is focused on today's
pleasure while the other wants to plan for the future. This is a
compelling and practical primer (filled with quizzes and tests) on
making every moment count.
___________________________________________________
The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers
by Daniel L. Schacter
Illustrating decades of research with compelling and often bizarre
examples of glitches and miscues, Daniel L. Schacter's The Seven Sins
of Memory dusts off an old topic and finds material of both practical
and theoretical interest. Chairman of Harvard's Department of
Psychology, Schacter knows his stuff and how to present it memorably.
Organizing the book by examining each of seven "sins," such as
absent-mindedness and suggestibility, Schacter slowly builds his case
that these sometimes enraging bugs are actually side effects of system
features we wouldn't want to do without. For example, when we focus
our attention on one aspect of our surroundings, we inevitably draw
attention away from others:
Consider this scenario: if you were watching a circle of people
passing a basketball and someone dressed in a gorilla costume walked
through the circle, beat his chest, and exited, of course you would
notice him immediately--wouldn't you? [Researchers] filmed such a
scene and showed it to people who were asked to track the movement of
the ball by counting the number of passes made by one of the teams.
Approximately half of the participants failed to notice the gorilla.
Scientists concerned about interesting a general audience would do
well to use more gorilla suits. Schacter elegantly weaves this
curiosity into his text along with clinical stories and frontline
research. Recent advances in brain imaging have boosted his field
considerably, and the formerly remote psychological territory has
yielded plenty of exciting discoveries. Though some of the practical
material seems like reheated common sense (Haunted by a traumatic
memory? Talk about it.), it's backed up by solid scientific work.
Write a note, tie string around the finger, or hire an assistant for
reminders, but by all means remember to pick up a copy of The Seven
Sins of Memory
___________________________________________________
Anathem
by Neal Stephenson
In this follow-up to his historical Baroque Cycle trilogy, which
fictionalized the early-18th century scientific revolution, Stephenson
(Cryptonomicon) conjures a far-future Earth-like planet, Arbre, where
scientists, philosophers and mathematicians—a religious order unto
themselves—have been cloistered behind concent (convent) walls. Their
role is to nurture all knowledge while safeguarding it from the
vagaries of the irrational saecular outside world. Among the monastic
scholars is 19-year-old Raz, collected into the concent at age eight
and now a decenarian, or tenner (someone allowed contact with the
world beyond the stronghold walls only once a decade). But
millennia-old rules are cataclysmically shattered when
extraterrestrial catastrophe looms, and Raz and his teenage
companions—engaging in intense intellectual debate one moment,
wrestling like rambunctious adolescents the next—are summoned to save
the world. Stephenson's expansive storytelling echoes Walter Miller's
classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, the space operas of Larry Niven and
the cultural meditations Douglas Hofstadter—a heady mix of antecedents
that makes for long stretches of dazzling entertainment occasionally
interrupted by pages of numbing colloquy.
___________________________________________________
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes
by Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein
Review
" The zaniest bestseller of the year."
—The Boston Globe
" I laughed, I learned, I loved it."
—Roy Blount, Jr. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Product Description
Here's a lively, hilarious, not-so-reverent crash course through the
great philosophical traditions, schools, concepts, and thinkers. It's
Philosophy 101 for everyone who knows not to take all this heavy stuff
too seriously. Some of the Big Ideas are Existentialism (what do Hegel
and Bette Midler have in common?), Philosophy of Language (how to
express what it's like being stranded on a desert island with Halle
Berry), Feminist Philosophy (why, in the end, a man is always a man),
and much more. Finally—it all makes sense!