Category: nonfiction

  • An experiment in phonelessness

    The plot thus far In 2017, I lost a new smartphone. In the aftermath of its disappearance I decided not to replace it, a feat which I managed for about a month, with an additional few weeks on an old Nokia phone. During this time I found life more serene, serendipitous, and I was happier. […]

  • Top 10 Books I read in 2018

    I’ve just begun my fiftieth book of the year, The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. Like the last book I read, I discovered it via Derek Sivers, who reviewed it on his site. It’s been an interesting read so far, on overcoming one’s own resistance to ambitious endeavours. It’s inspirational, but so far does […]

  • Through a Glass Darkly

    What is it? A weekly chance to meet face-to-face and discuss a wide range of intellectual topics, in an analogue fashion; the idea is to disconnect from the internet and to connect in person. I’ve decided to set up a separate site for it which can be found here.

  • The Elephant in the Brain

    The Elephant in the Brain (2017) is at times an uncomfortable read, but well-worth it for anyone willing to undertake its introspective incursion.  Programmer Kevin Simler (of the fascinating Melting Asphalt blog) and economist Robin Hanson explore why we are prone to self-deception about our motives, and how this deception can shed light on otherwise inexplicable […]

  • 12 Rules for Life

    You probably shouldn’t read Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. I’m not normally one to discourage reading (or intellectual endeavour), but this is a strange exception. It’s not exactly that Peterson is wrong about anything specific, although he occasionally very much is. It is rather that on many topics, he is […]

  • Bullshit Jobs

    First, David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs is an extremely pleasurable read, and you should read it, if nothing else for the accounts of the utterly useless things people have been employed to do. The book was born in the wake of the storm of Graeber’s 2013 article “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs“. The premise is simple: In […]

  • How to Change Your Mind

    A few weeks ago I was fortunate to see Michael Pollan talk about his new book, How to Change Your Mind. He was interviewed by author Zoe Cormier, at a co-working space called Second Home in East London. Pollan is best known for books on food, including the excellent Cooked (2013), the first book of his that I read […]

  • Flourish (2011)

    Psychologist Martin Seligman’s Flourish is a strange book, in that it does not deliver on any of its promises, and yet somehow remains enjoyable. You would be forgiven for assuming, given the book’s rather bold opening that “This book will help you flourish,” that the book will in fact help you flourish—which it does, sort of. […]

  • The 100-Year Life (2016)

    The basic argument of The 100-Year Life, by psychologist Lynda Gratton and economist Andrew Scott, is that not enough is being done to adapt to increasing longevity. After a quite interesting chapter on how drastically longevity has changed (the 1900 US expectancy was under 50!), the book sketches out in some detail archetypes from the baby boomer, […]

  • Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1964)

    Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1964) is a work of impressive scholarship that remains extremely (and sometimes depressingly) relevant today. It traces periods of intellectual flourishing as well as the reactions against them, from the deeply intellectual Founding Fathers to the incoherent and incandescent anti-intellectual aggression of the McCarthy era. The overarching point of the book seems […]