- In theory, I will review all of these books, someday.
- Lucretius - De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
- You might say Epicurean philosophy was my "gateway drug" to atheism. We translated much of the text in my third-year college Latin class, and I read it over and over again after that. Epicurus had an unsparingly materialist metaphysics, empiricist epistemology, and a frankly hedonistic ethic. He rejected any and all flights of fancy such as immaterial souls or Platonic forms, advising instead that we could gain knowledge of the world through our senses. He taught that the point of our actions is to attain pleasure (conceived of as tranquility) by limiting our desires and banishing our fear of the gods and death. Lucretius's poetry is clear, passionate, and unfailingly humane; the experience of reading it feels much like the experience of reading Ecclesiastes, in that it reminds you over and over how petty our problems really are, how much is ultimately out of our control, and how we would all do best to remember the few things that are really important. The difference, of course, is that De Rerum Natura doesn't leave you feeling like you want to slit your own throat.
- Smith, Adam - The Theory of Moral Sentiments
- This, not "Wealth of Nations," is the book that Adam Smith -- patron saint of capitalism -- considered his masterpiece, and I completely agree. He was adamant that neither book should be studied or understood without the other. You hear economists and politicians talk about him all the time, but they always cite the "Wealth" half. Which is too bad, because the "Moral" half of the context would generally negate the point they are trying to make.
- Popper, Karl - The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vols 1-2
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony - Cosmopolitanism
- Whyte, Jamie - Crimes Against Logic
- Collins, Gail - America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines
- Collins, Gail - Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity, and American Politics
- Pollitt, Katha - Virginity or Death!
- Tavris, Carol - The Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, Inferior Sex, or Opposite Sex
- Holland, Jack - Misogyny: the World's Oldest Prejudice
- Ducat, Stephen J. - The Wimp Factor
- Fermor, Patrick Leigh - A Time of Gifts
- Fermor, Patrick Leigh - Between the Woods and the Water
- Krugman, Paul - The Accidental Theorist
- Warsh, David - Knowledge and the Wealth of Nagions: A Story of Economic Discovery
- De Soto, Hernando - The Mystery of Capital
- Madrick, Jeffrey - End of Affluence
- Hacker, Jacob - The Great Risk Shift
- Harrison, Lawrence - The Central Liberal Truth
- Klein, Naomi - No Logo
- Vaidhyanathan, Siva - Copyrights and Copywrongs: the Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity
- Roberts, Russell - The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance
- Wolff, Jonathan - Robert Nozick: Property, Justice, And The Minimal State
- Riggenbach, Jeff - In Praise of Decadence
- Harbour, William - The Foundations of Conservative Thought
- Hartmann, Thom - What Would Jefferson Do?
- Hartmann, Thom - Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class
- Sunstein, Cass - The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes
- Hofstadter, Richard - The Paranoid Style in American Politics, and Other Essays
- Dahl, Robert - How Democratic is The American Constitution?
- Zinn, Howard - A People's History of the United States
- Irons, Peter - A People's History of The Supreme Court
- Prashad, Vijay - The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World
- Pilger, John - Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism That Changed The World
- Bodanis, David - The Secret Family
- Garrett, Laurie - The Coming Plague
- Sagan, Carl - The Demon-Haunted World
- Diamond, Jared - Guns, Germs And Steel
- Fine, Cordelia - A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives
- Ehrenreich, Barbara - Dancing in the Street: A History of Collective Joy
- Hedges, Chris - War is A Force That Gives Us Meaning
- Frankel, Max - High Noon In The Cold War
- Caldicott, Helen - The New Nuclear Danger
- Oren, Michael - Power, Faith And Fantasy
- Lando, Barry - Web of Deceit
- Everybody should read this book. It's a history of Western involvement in Iraq, from the mid-millennium til the present day. It's absorbing, a fast read, and does an astonishing job of patching together all the bits of information you've probably heard into a coherent narrative of how we got to where we are today. For example, the sanctions ... I'd heard people saying things like "The sanctions worked! Saddam was under control!" and "The sanctions were a joke, those traitorous French (etc, etc)", and "The sanctions were barbaric!". And more. Lynn's descriptions are simple and spare, he's not one for overwrought prose or taking sides, but I was stunned to find out what they really entailed. "Sanctions" sound so bloodless, after all.
One particular phrase has stuck with me. He related the contents of a U.N. report on Iraqi children after several years of sanctions, listing off a long list of traumas and devastation, both mental and physical, and then noted simply that this same generation of shattered youngsters, now grown to adulthood, is the one we handed Iraq to, telling them to go forth and make a democracy. ooooof.
- Everybody should read this book. It's a history of Western involvement in Iraq, from the mid-millennium til the present day. It's absorbing, a fast read, and does an astonishing job of patching together all the bits of information you've probably heard into a coherent narrative of how we got to where we are today. For example, the sanctions ... I'd heard people saying things like "The sanctions worked! Saddam was under control!" and "The sanctions were a joke, those traitorous French (etc, etc)", and "The sanctions were barbaric!". And more. Lynn's descriptions are simple and spare, he's not one for overwrought prose or taking sides, but I was stunned to find out what they really entailed. "Sanctions" sound so bloodless, after all.
- Mitnick, Kevin - The Art of Deception
- Garfinkel, Simson - PGP: Pretty Good Privacy
- Truss, Lynne - Eats, Shoots, And Leaves
- Armstrong, Karen - A Short History of Myth
- Armstrong, Karen - The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religions Traditions
- Armstrong, Karen - The Spiral Staircase
- Ehrman, Bart - Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
- Ingersoll, Robert - What's God Got to Do With It?
- Jacoby, Susan - Freethinkers
- Harris, Sam - The End of Faith
- Hedges, Chris - American Fascists
- Barron, T.A. - The Lost Years of Merlin (series)
- Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
- Dumas, Alexandre - The Count of Monte Cristo
- Gilbreth, Frank - Cheaper by the Dozen
- Gilbreth, Frank - Belles on Their Toes
- Goldman, William - The Princess Bride
- Hugo, Victor - Les Miserables
- Montgomery, L.M. - Anne of Green Gables
- Moody, Ralph - Little Britches
- Moore, Christopher - Bloodsucking Fiends
- Nabokov, Vladimir - Laughter in the Dark
- Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita
- Nabokov, Vladimir - ... well everything
- Orczy, Baroness - The Scarlet Pimpernel
- Meade, Marion - Dorothy Parker
- Pullman, Philip - The Amber Spyglass
- Pullman, Philip - The Subtle Knife
- Pullman, Philip - The Golden Compass
- Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch
- Stendhal - The Red and the Black
- Stephenson, Neal - The Diamond Age, or: A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
- Toole, John Kennedy - A Confederacy of Dunces
- Vonnegut, Kurt - Slaughterhouse-Five
- Watson, Sally - Jade
- White, T.H. - The Once and Future King (quartet)
- Wiesel, Elie - Night