Ward Fransworth – The practicing Stoic
there is no reason to get too excited about this book.
Truly understanding strangers is difficult, but failing to do so may cause grave harm to individuals as well as society as a whole
Malcolm Gladwell – Talking to strangers
Gladwell once more makes his well known point that prejudice is often subconscious and institutionalized (cf. also Blink), this time inspired by a BLM atrocity.
It is a miracle that databases actually work, considering all the things that can go wrong
Martin Kleppmann – Designing Data-intensive applications
Surprisingly readable for a text of this sort of technical depth
Folk tales about vampires and werewolves are based in an exaggerated fear for rabies
The detailed synopsis of (what seems like) every book, play, or movie that ever mentioned rabies gets boring pretty fast.
Kill Powerpoint, have to 2-pizza teams, and get your core values straight
Colin Brayer and Bill Carr – Working backwards
Somehow, there is no mention of pee bottles or other excesses concerning operational staff in the book.
It requires a lot of dedication to learn superior memorization skills, but it can be done
Joshua Foer – Moonwalking with Einstein
Endearing blend of journalism and personal experience.
Experiencing other people’s suffering leads us away from rational decision making
The seemingly controversial thesis turns out to be a platitude hidden behind a carefully crafted facade of definitions.
Feigning intelligence is not too difficult, considering that people can be fooled in many different ways
Brian Christian – The most human human
Unfortunately, the book does not explicitly challenge if humans are adequate judges in the Turing test.
It is easy to find an excuse for trying phychedelics when you are in a midlife crisis
Michael Pollan – How to change your mind
It is much harder to relate to the author’s obsession, which seems mostly driven by a some vague feeling of disappointment concerning life in general.
Whenever you need to come to a rational decision: use Mathematics
Jordan Ellenberg – How not to be wrong
A cornucopia of charming mathematical anecdotes and facts
The left terrorizes the right while bathing in victimhood
The purposeful one-sided rant makes the book lose all credibility, in particular since the arguments can easily be reversed – especially in the wake of Trump’s desperate challenge the US election outcome.
Poverty is not just characterized by lack of money, but also by unpredictability of cash flow and risk exposure
Daryl Collins – Portfolios of the poor
Thorough application of small data that provides valuable insight in how people live on less than 2$ a day – and what that implies for microfinance.
20th century science gave rise to some truly mind-blowing concepts
Benjamin Labatut – When we cease to understand the world
A highly entertaining fictionalized history of landmark scientific breakthroughs.
Ongoing advances in technology make that ethical norms develop incredibly fast
Filled with highly interesting statistics about the evolution of public perception on ethical issues.
The philosophy of the Silicon Valley elite is just a bunch of ill understood one-liners from preferably obscure thinkers
Adrian Daub – What tech calls thinking
Entertaining and polemic book, although many of the author’s points hardly need to be argued.
It is not political philosophy, but political geography that led Democrats in the USA to embrace the knowledge economy
Jonathan Rodden – Why cities lose
In the US election system, geographic concentration puts democrats at a fundamental disadvantage.
If you allow yourself to think on a different timescale, trees are surprisingly dynamic
Colin Tudge – The secret life of trees
There is a limit to the degree of suspense that you can bring into taxonomy.
It is quite hard to die in peace while owning the most famous diamond in the world
Anita Anand and William Dalrymple – Koh-i-Noor
The stone itself is just an excuse to tell wonderful stories.
Over the past decades, most economists have been forced to flex their opinion on the efficient market hypothesis
Justin Fox – The myth of the rational market
The book resists the temptation to get lost in juicy stories, but focuses on the evolution of ideas.
The combination of dogged determination and a bit of luck can turn an antihero into a hero
Anita Anand – The patient assassin
Compelling story telling and enriching perspectives make it hard not to become fascinated by Udham Singh and his quest for revenge.