Antonio García Martínez
Founder @spindl_xyz. Wrote 'Chaos Monkeys' (https://t.co/LHo7Hb5gz2). Wearer of many hats. גם זה יעבור 🇺🇲🇪🇸
120+ Book Recommendations by Antonio García Martínez
The Israeli Century
Yossi Shain
Started reading this over shabbat (partial credit @ShabbosReads ?). Wondered when someone would write the thundering "Israel is now the center of world Jewry, the diaspora is a side show whose values are dated and dysfunctional" take...and here it is. https://t.co/xKjEJ0p7Fa
The Image
Daniel J. Boorstin
Discusses news gathering, celebrity, travel, prestige, and the American dreamWe're all just living in a world predicted by Boorstin, McLuhan, Debord, and Ong decades ago, who saw the first break from textual to visual and oral society. The only recent tweak is the acceleration due to ubiquitous networked computing. https://t.co/oHKfoK1COK
Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital
Carlota Perez
This isn't (just) some idle Twitter conjecture. Read Carlota Perez on the nature of financial booms and how they lead to new technological regimes, again and again and again. You need the irrational exuberance to get the railroad or Internet fiber network. https://t.co/j1hxf7jefW
Dominion
Tom Holland
A historian of antiquity shows how the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst... more For the longer version, read @holland_tom. https://t.co/lFcjIoDio3
This Is My God
Herman Wouk
@drakeballew This is a more personal rather than intellectual account, but probably one of the first books I read on Judaism and Jewish life. https://t.co/qKle7urlvS
The War of Return
Adi Schwartz
Two prominent Israeli liberals argue that for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to end with peace, Palestinians must come... more One of the surprise joys of buying used books is finding random documents between the pages. Here, @EinatWilf’s “The War of Return” has a letter from AIPAC thanking a donor with a copy (Wolf spoke at a conference), and summarizing the book’s argument about Israel/Palestine. https://t.co/jlsuLcm1hg
Tubes
Andrew Blum
“Andrew Blum plunges into the unseen but real ether of the Internet in a journey both compelling and profound….You will never open an... more This gives a very surface flavor of the actual wires that make our world talk to itself. https://t.co/JWvlvThfd4
The Pursuit of the Millennium
Norman Cohn
This fascinating book explores the millenarianism that flourished in western Europe between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries.... more For a fascinating compendium of how every Christian society absolutely pops off with some messianic/apocalyptic madness every time they're under social stress, read Cohen. https://t.co/uQrGxKBlEi
Imperial San Francisco
Gray Brechin
"A classic of urban history, environmental history, California history, and socially oriented architectural criticism, this work contains... more Or if you want to know who the names are behind the streets and museums, and how the city went from a hovel of brothels and docks to a real city: https://t.co/tU7vAUYXBE
The Barbary Coast
Herbert Asbury
The history of the Barbary Coast properly begins with the gold rush to California in 1849. If the precious yellow metal hadn't been discovered... more I've always thought the longer history of SF to be more interesting: the Barbary Coast days, the Gold Rush, the mad dash into becoming a Western metropolis. https://t.co/LuYGVppphz
Season of the Witch
David Talbot
Finally got around to reading 'Season of the Witch,' an excellent (though biased) history of post-WWII San Francisco. It lucidly delineates the abrupt 60s/70s-era shift from a conservative Catholic town to the petri dish of American crazy it is now. https://t.co/EHoIBf3fig
The Cryptopians
Laura Shin
The story of the idealists, technologists, and opportunists fighting to bring cryptocurrency to the masses. In their short history, Bitcoin and... more Laura's book is part-drama and part-comedy, and very eye-opening about how some of the more insane and disruptive tech of recent years was created. https://t.co/lAiHTpdN49
Conspiracy
Ryan Holiday
'Mr. A' was the mastermind behind the last Gawker/Hogan wrecking, as documented in @RyanHoliday's excellent 'Conspiracy': https://t.co/L49d4cvBl2
Build
Tony Fadell
I usually dislike the business-book genre, but there are exceptions. Endorse 'Build' by @tfadell. The lessons I already learned the hard (and expensive) way were worth re-iterating, and there's something novel for everyone. Learn the easy way: read. https://t.co/UESbiNm9zM
Super Pumped
Mike Isaac
Isaac delivers a gripping account of Uber's rapid rise, its pitched battles with taxi unions and drivers, the company's toxic internal culture,... more The book is less fanciful, though seems skewed by the obvious sources who dished to Isaac. I still enjoyed reading it (with a big disclaimer). https://t.co/fyxrtNinZD
The War on the West
Douglas Murray
It has become acceptable to discuss the flaws and crimes of Western culture, but celebrating their contributions is also called hate... more @DouglasKMurray "China has concentration camps *now*. Why do Westerners claim our sins are unique?" Like his previous books, Murray eviscerates the flou rhetoric of mainstream liberalism using a scalpel of tight and cutting prose. He recoils at nothing and spares nobody. https://t.co/S0Zza2aAJB
The War on the West
Douglas Murray
The brilliant and provocative new book from one of the world's foremost political writers 'The anti-Western revisionists have been... more Ecstatic to announce that our next Pull Request guest is bestselling author @DouglasKMurray. His new book 'The War on the West' just came out, and like his previous books, it's a grenade tossed into the mainstream discourse. Tune in tomorrow! https://t.co/Mcvy6eGnR0
Chaos Monkeys
Antonio Garcia Martinez
Liar’s Poker meets The Social Network in an irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble, from industry provocateur Antonio... more @GergelyOrosz I get into a lot of the internal Facebook culture, from the posters to the cultish behavior, in ‘Chaos Monkeys,’ if really want the deep dive. https://t.co/4uplLGYa8I
The United States of Anonymous
Jeff Kosseff
@rabois @loganbartlett @micsolana Read @jkosseff’s new book, which is about just this. https://t.co/k5bN78eZ0j
The Image
Daniel J. Boorstin
Discusses news gathering, celebrity, travel, prestige, and the American dreamA 'pseudo-event' is made-for-consumption media event, usually involving celebrities: entities known for their well-known-ness. These now seem natural, but were once odd: life once consisted of real people and events. Boorstin's book is outstanding. https://t.co/dMnZFl1P0F
The Founders
Jimmy Soni
“Deeply reported and bracingly written, this book is an indispensable guide to modern innovation and entrepreneurship.” —... more @peterthiel @DavidSacks @mlevchin @lukenosek @jimmyasoni Jimmy's book is exceptional: it's tech history as it was being made, as recounted by the people who made it (plus there's an Easter egg embedded in the book!): https://t.co/rzl9l62xeX
Work Pray Code
Carolyn Chen
Her book, both sociological study and cultural rumination, is worth reading. Filled with interviews with actual employees who've subbed in their work lives for a broader religious or community one. It'll resonate with anyone in the Valley daze. https://t.co/9O0Vce3mF9
The Cryptopians
Laura Shin
The story of the idealists, technologists, and opportunists fighting to bring cryptocurrency to the masses. In their short history, Bitcoin and... more Currently reading this on the history of Ethereum, by @laurashin (whom I should probably have on the Pull Request @getcallin show). https://t.co/MLK6wKppJX
The Founders
Jimmy Soni
@DavidSacks @jimmyasoni I can't recommend @jimmyasoni's book highly enough. Full of improvisation and gumption, fear and arrogance, it perfectly captures the operatic drama of early(ish) Silicon Valley and (now) big players when they were just hustlers trying to figure it out. https://t.co/uAx415IHf7
The Managerial Revolution
James Burnham
Read this to understand how we got here: https://t.co/XnOLRecoFl
The Decadent Society
Ross Douthat
From the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bad Religion, a powerful portrait of how our turbulent age is defined... more @machineloveus https://t.co/Gny1osl9RF
Miami
Joan Didion
Didion penned the best portrait of the wild 1980s Miami of my childhood, and the scheming and imperious Cuban exiles who populated it. Told by a wide-eyed New Yorker, of course, but still....a snapshot of a budding metropolis and its febrile origins. https://t.co/MGwmmrlLgl
Bad News
Batya Ungar-Sargon
"Bad News is a response to Thomas Frank's 2004 book "What's the Matter with Kansas." I ask the same question he asked... more @bungarsargon @balajis @AshleyRindsberg Batya's book is out now, and is worth reading for the history of American journalism and how we got here alone. https://t.co/FsQYNridfZ
Leviathan and Its Enemies
Samuel T. Francis
*Leviathan and Its Enemies* is Samuel T. Francis's magnum opus on political theory and the history of the modern world, which had been lost to... more @AleResnik Or go straight to the hard stuff: Francis. ‘Leviathan and its enemies’ https://t.co/v9NGBJRsB0
Le suicide francais - Ces quarante annees qui ont defait la France - Bestseller format (French Edition)
Eric Zemmour
Les Français ont perdu confiance. Ils ont le sentiment que le pays fait fausse route. Mais ils hésitent encore sur les raisons qui ont pu les... more As someone who's followed him since his breakout book 'Le Suicide Francais', it's somewhat amusing to see France's Zemmour compared to Trump. Perhaps if Trump possessed anything like an intellect and regularly wrote non-fiction bestsellers. A better comp would be Ben Shapiro.
The Wires of War
Jacob Helberg
From the former News Policy lead at Google, an urgent and groundbreaking account of the high-stakes global cyberwar brewing between... more Helberg's book looks at the information war currently underway between the US and both Russia and China, and how we're failing as an open society to counter our geopolitical opponents. https://t.co/HJU91YppK7
Barbecue and Bad News (An Adams Grove Novel, 6)
Nancy Naigle
Welcome to Adams Grove...where the barbecue isn't the only thing that sizzles. Savannah Dey politely agreed to attend her ex-... more Then on Wednesday at 5pm Pacific we'll have @jacobhelberg, former news policy lead for Google, on to discuss his new book 'The Wires of War'. https://t.co/GfXqwRiISA
The Tree of Life and Prosperity
Michael A. Eisenberg
One of Israel's most successful venture capitalists uses the words and actions of the Hebrew patriarchs to lay the foundations for a... more Then on Wednesday at 5pm Pacific we'll have @jacobhelberg, former news policy lead for Google, on to discuss his new book 'The Wires of War'. https://t.co/GfXqwRiISA
Bad News
Batya Ungar-Sargon
"Bad News is a response to Thomas Frank's 2004 book "What's the Matter with Kansas." I ask the same question he asked... more Batya's book 'Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy' is a look at how media went from a working-class occupation concerned with the economic underdog, to a woke crusade led by elites, for elites. https://t.co/G8UnYFjVHn
The Tree of Life and Prosperity
Michael A. Eisenberg
@getcallin @mikeeisenberg His book is an interesting parallel between the key readings of the Torah and the very worldly life of venture capitalism...and just modernity more broadly. https://t.co/MYtcfcqEDp
Apocalypse Never
Michael Shellenberger
@winmyvote @moultano I nominate @ShellenbergerMD. https://t.co/D1HZKCG0PJ
Why Liberalism Failed (Politics and Culture)
Patrick J. Deneen
Has liberalism failed because it has succeeded?@michelletandler If you’re interested in the new right that’s emerging (rather than the old right of Friedman, Hayek, etc), read Deneen’s “Why Liberalism Failed”. It’s the animating spirit of Vance, Masters, Hawley, and the new generation of conservative politicians. https://t.co/WYBu1P3KNW
The Genetic Lottery
Kathryn Paige Harden
A provocative and timely case for how the science of genetics can help create a more just and equal society In recent years, scientists like... more My latest for Pull Request! An interview with noted geneticist @kph3k who recently made major waves with her phenomenal book 'The Genetic Lottery' about genetics, equity, and public policy. https://t.co/HqrMGKnio3
Imagined Communities
Benedict Anderson
@VinodSreeharsha @amitshetty This is a big topic, but I think it's worth noting that the nation-state (as we understand it today) was an invention of the Enlightenment and made possible by literacy and the printing press. The classic book here is Anderson's 'Imagined Communities'. https://t.co/H3ZeYI5WVm
The Genetic Lottery
Kathryn Paige Harden
Currently reading this by @kph3k. Out Sept. 21st anywhere fine books are sold. She and I will be chatting for Pull Request in a couple of weeks. https://t.co/lchZPkWIF4
The Gun
C. J. Chivers
@cjchivers Just to fanboy on Chivers a bit, his book 'The Gun' is a fascinating history of one of the most impactful inventions of the 20th-century, the AK-47, and how it completely changed the nature of ground war. https://t.co/s7hNLlr0t8
The Fighters
C. J. Chivers
“A classic of war reporting...The author’s stories give heart-rending meaning to the lives and deaths of these men and women, even... more Reading @cjchivers' excellent 'The Fighters', which is just spectacular war reporting on the 'forever wars'. Such sacrifice for such an undeserving and confused leadership class. https://t.co/ehHRvgIdXH
The Deep Places
Ross Douthat
This is his latest, out next month. https://t.co/2DfW2e4zsb
The Prime Ministers
Yehuda Avner
The unique thing about Israeli history, aside from the absolutely wild and improbable adventure of its founding, is how all the main characters and their derring-do is in living memory still: it’s like reading about the Founding Fathers in the 1820s. https://t.co/fE3a3QAIsg
An Anxious Age
Joseph Bottum
Theory: Protestantism is never created nor destroyed, it's merely converted into different forms. https://t.co/aHfXOyVSVk
The Pursuit of the Millennium
Norman Cohn
This fascinating book explores the millenarianism that flourished in western Europe between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries.... more Christian millenarianism, specifically its frequency and intensity, is one of those (many) oddities of the religion. None of this is new; in fact, it's happened with almost every major catastrophe for the past 2,000 years. https://t.co/uQrGxKBlEi
Tournament of Shadows
Karl Ernest Meyer
From the romantic conflicts of the Victorian Great Game to the war-torn history of the region in recent decades, Tournament of Shadows... more A great book on the period, which I’m sure nobody responsible for this fiasco bothered to read, is ‘Tournament of Shadows’. https://t.co/U89B9q5enC
An Anxious Age
Joseph Bottum
The "decent church-goin' women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces" of yesterday (to quote Burroughs), are the blue-check media crowd and institutional mandarins of today. Recommend Bottum on the topic. https://t.co/kFVt7A0oGX
The Virtue of Nationalism
Yoram Hazony
A leading conservative thinker argues that a nationalist order is the only realistic safeguard of liberty in the world today Nationalism is the issue... more Coincidentally, just finished @yhazony's 'The Virtue of Nationalism' and his framing of the collision of the West's shame around Auschwitz and the current state of Israel is an enlightening one, and relevant in all these post-Shoah rekindlings of Jewish life in Europe. https://t.co/86a8X5fyyn
Two Years Before the Mast
Richard Henry Dana
The quote is from 'Two Years Before the Mast', a classic sailing memoir of a Harvard student who drops out to become a common seaman on a trading schooner, rounds the Horn, and ends up trading what's then a very wild California coast. https://t.co/5mM6hjBFcw
An Anxious Age
Joseph Bottum
Investigates the way in which the Catholic Church has achieved a new level of political and cultural importance in an... more @llunved Oh yes! This is all sublimated Protestantism. Bottums' book 'An Anxious Age' is great on this.
The Decadent Society
Ross Douthat
From the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bad Religion, a “clever and stimulating” (The New York Times Book... more Wednesday, 3/17 We'll have one of my favorite writers on, NYT columnist and author @DouthatNYT. His book 'Decadence' is a beautifully grim diagnosis of our national malaise, plus he's got a *new* book coming out. https://t.co/aBMyTNPW5y https://t.co/6M1feOCQQd
Ben Franklin's Web Site
Robert Ellis Smith
Explore the hidden niches of American history to discover the tug between our yearning for privacy and our insatiable curiosity. Book jacket.This is from Robert Ellis Smith's "Ben Franklin's Web Site" which is a breezy and timely review of privacy practice and law going back to the nation's founding. https://t.co/GIh7xjHRkh
Return of the Strong Gods
R. R. Reno
"'Return of the Strong Gods,'...is a thoughtful contribution to American political debate. It is incisively written and full of... more @AndrewSmithClub Indeed. https://t.co/JFy2h2l56m
The God That Failed
Richard H. Crossman
This classic work and crucial document of the Cold War brings together essays by six of the most important writers of the twentieth century,... more This of course is a reference to this classic collection of essays by former Communist intellectuals. https://t.co/dzHPGhEJFs
Private Truths, Public Lies
Timur Kuran
@KyleTibbitts Recommend this gem by @timurkuran. https://t.co/ay81Po99Zg
Imagined Communities
Benedict Anderson
The defining, best-selling book on the history, origins and development of nationalism What are the imagined communities that... more Some of the most grievously overlooked history in the "how was the modern world invented?" genre is the invention of nation-states (that's right, they're a novel invention), and how that was a necessary and coterminous step with liberal democracy. https://t.co/5zYOdXDejC
The New Class War
Michael Lind
To understand the full implications of a society run by PMCs, recommend The New Class War by Lind. https://t.co/McqwZWJSWu
Rise and Kill First
Ronen Bergman
Presents an assessment of Israel's state-sponsored assassination programs that evaluates the protective beliefs that are instituted into... more Israel has maintained a targeted killing program since before it existed. A prior example was the civilian intimidation and assassination of the German scientists helping Egypt build a rocket program. @ronenbergman's book is the epic history. https://t.co/aSZZffFGUl
The Darkening Age
Catherine Nixey
A bold new history of the rise of Christianity, showing how its radical followers helped to annihilate Greek and Roman civilizationI recently finished @CatherineNixey's excellent (though polemical) 'A Darkening Age', about early Christian zealots and how they dismantled the Classical world piece by piece. Toppling of statues has always been kind of popular in these moments. https://t.co/l66LvDjSyH
The New Class War
Michael Lind
In his 'New Class War', he just dissects the political status quo like a biology teacher does a worm: no organ or component is spared his dry, cutting scrutiny. https://t.co/9qaE5UhpTz
No Rules Rules
Reed Hastings
I gave into the latest Valley book fad, and I'm reading the Netflix book. It's surprisingly good, though it's a playbook for turning yourself into an upbeat and efficient capitalist soldier (while at work at least). https://t.co/IUYfX6r7YC
An Anxious Age
Joseph Bottum
Investigates the way in which the Catholic Church has achieved a new level of political and cultural importance in an... more @rezendi It's subtle. I recommend reading @JosephBottum's 'An Anxious Age' for how the church-going Episcopalian of the past became today's Whole Foods-shopping, BLM-sign-waving White liberal. https://t.co/qBfGvibMgQ
How Dante Can Save Your Life
Rod Dreher
@alexqgb You're not the first. By @roddreher. https://t.co/ad3e6MxQZJ
An Anxious Age
Joseph Bottum
Investigates the way in which the Catholic Church has achieved a new level of political and cultural importance in an... more Back to Protestantism: I'd never discerned the direct relationship between the bien-pensant liberalism of the Whole Foods class with the implosion of post-war Mainline Protestantism until I read @JosephBottum's excellent 'An Anxious Age'. Recommended. https://t.co/qBfGvibMgQ
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
Christopher Lasch
"[A] passionate, compelling, and disturbing argument that the ills of democracy in the United States today arise from the default of its elites.... more @daily_barbarian THAT book is an absolute work of genius. It's almost unfathomable how prescient Lasch managed to be.
The Bay of Pigs
Peter Wyden
It saddens me to think that likely >95% of Americans younger than me have no idea what Bay of Pigs even represents. It was one of the most bizarre, high-stakes gambles this country has ever made. Read about it. You won't believe it. https://t.co/nkJmNNWV78
- Popular consensus says that the US rose over 150 years to Cold War victory and world domination, and is now in slow decline. But is this right
... more Today's sunset reading brought to you by @MacaesBruno, who graciously agreed to be interviewed for The Pull Request about his new book 'History Has Begun'. https://t.co/QiF9gqUjrD
Private Truths, Public Lies
Timur Kuran
Preface Living a Lie The Significance of Preference Falsification Private and Public Preferences Private Opinion, Public Opinion The... more The best book on this is the academic but very readable 'Private Truths, Public Lies' by @timurkuran. What tangled webs we weave, when we all try to fit in while under the gaze of a crowdsourced panopticon. https://t.co/x9aclbftHE
- There are moments in life when one is caught utterly unprepared. Drawing on both his rabbinical training and his scholarship in
... more From Alan Lew's wonderful rumination on the Jewish 'Days of Awe' (the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur): https://t.co/J6LCVkQyog
The Revolt of the Public
Martin Gurri
Riding a tsunami of information, the public has trampled on the temples of authority in every domain of human activity,... more I'm (re)reading 'Revolt of the Public' by @mgurri as homework for an interview, and it's so damn good. Seems even more prescient now than when it came out. https://t.co/8HPF75gDKe
Never Lost Again
Bill Kilday
@kane This book by @bkilday recounts that miraculous transformation from primitive humans navigating the world by line of sight and paper maps to navigating it as gods. https://t.co/eeHx0rkdla
Ninety Percent of Everything
Rose George
Slightly less piratical, @rosegeorge3's 'Ninety Percent of Everything' is a great romp through the world of modern shipping. https://t.co/bmxUE5yxPm
Outlaw Sea
William Langewiesche
As for how is it that a Moldovan-flagged vessel owned by a Russian on the way to Mozambique gets stuck in Beirut: the modern world of shipping is a fascinating and lawless one, regulated (if at all) by archaic custom and the home of endless corruption. https://t.co/HAT30BisBY
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (Harriman Definitive Edition)
Charles MacKay
Charles MacKay's groundbreaking examination of a staggering variety of popular delusions, crazes and mass follies is presented... more To those of with a history fetish for all the panics, manias, lunatic crusades, and self-induced bouts of collective madness, but who somehow still wonder how humans could be so stupid, our present is just a feast of pedagogical delights. Read MacKay: https://t.co/R3yQmK6Kw4
Prefab Architecture
Ryan E. Smith
Prefabrication and Architecture, a manual about prefab architecture, is primarily written for the architect and construction... more The housing problem is a fascinating one, and one we desperately need to solve. For a great textbook on both the history and current trends in prefab housing, check out this book (among others): https://t.co/c4FV6FeUra
Sacred Fragments
Neil Gillman
The modern Jew, living in a world of shattered beliefs and competing ideologies, is often confronted with questions of faith. Sacred Fragments... more @Pooch7171 This book which, despite the current hideous cover, is a wide-ranging rumination on modernity and (mostly) Jewish spirituality. From the Conservative Jewish tradition. https://t.co/UqIubuRDNz
In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd
Ana Menéndez
A collection of short stories from the heart of Castro's Cuba illuminates the wit and powerful insight of this Pushcart Prize-winning... more @lacker @TeflonGeek Also, 'In Cuba I was a German Shepherd'. Again, more of a literary memoir than non-fiction: https://t.co/fffVOZUmkG
Dreaming in Cuban
Cristina García
The story of a family divided politically and geographically by the Cuban revolution.--Publisher description.@lacker @TeflonGeek Not very many. Historically, the Western left was enamored with the revolution, thus mostly ignored the Miami exiles (when it wasn't denigrating them). There have been a few literary treatments. 'Dreaming in Cuban' by Cristina Garcia (local SF author): https://t.co/yEy7vLR9Zm
So You've Been Publicly Shamed
Jon Ronson
"From the author of The Psychopath Test and Lost at Sea, an exploration of shame, one of our world's most overlooked forces.... more @JewishWonk Jon Ronson wrote a pretty definitive book back in the early days of the phenomenon. It now reads almost as quaint, the shock at something that's now commonplace. But I think he captures the dynamics well. https://t.co/vkNoeGjEnj
Working in Public
Nadia Eghbal
The weirdest thing I could tell non-tech people about how the tech world works is this: The entire tech world runs largely on free software written by volunteers, and everything you touch sits above that base. @nayafia has written THE book documenting that astounding reality. https://t.co/t7l9lJ5dnX
Dominion
Tom Holland
A historian of antiquity shows how the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst... more It is so utterly baked into the Western worldview at this point that the weirdness of it goes largely unremarked upon, except for those steeped in the very tradition from which it emerged. For more, I'd consult @holland_tom's 'Dominion'. https://t.co/lFcjIol99V
Sacred Fragments
Neil Gillman
The modern Jew, living in a world of shattered beliefs and competing ideologies, is often confronted with questions of faith. Sacred Fragments... more I wonder how many followers I'd lose if this account turned into a Jewish book discussion. In further news, 'Sacred Fragments' by Neil Gillman is an excellent self-debate around empiricist modernity vs. revealed covenantal monotheism. https://t.co/BnUvaxakYz
The Biggest Game in Town
Al Alvarez
@wesyang Ditto Al Alvarez. I'd check out both before embarking on it. https://t.co/DuZTEWQzKw
Positively Fifth Street
James McManus
@wesyang No, but the good news is that for standard Texas Hold 'Em, the math isn't very complex. If math were key, poker wouldn't be perhaps the last remaining game of skill AI hasn't conquered. James McManus was a writerly sort who played poker at a high level: https://t.co/yo8qp0B7Jk
The Decadent Society
Ross Douthat
From the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bad Religion, a powerful portrait of how our turbulent age is defined... more In @DouthatNYT's latest book 'Decadence', he posits this thought experiment: Would you rather live in a world with all human technology until around 2000 (but no Internet or social media)? Or all technology right now, except for 20th-century technologies like indoor plumbing?
Six Days of War
Michael B. Oren
It's Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim), the holiday that commemorates the unification of Jerusalem following the capture of East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War. A good a time as any to finally read this classic from @DrMichaelOren. https://t.co/oBsHOCI9cu
Rise and Kill First
Ronen Bergman
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The first definitive history of the Mossad, Shin Bet, and the IDF's targeted killing programs, hailed by The New York... more "If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first." -Babylonian Talmud I'm reading 'Rise and Kill First' by @ronenbergman. Please remind me to never piss off the Israeli state. https://t.co/j07Ff3Rv3D
The Making of Prince of Persia
Jordan Mechner
Two new books! Courtesy of @stripepress and @katelaurielee. Per usual, Stripe Press books are the most beautifully laid out and printed book published today. https://t.co/NXVXCmM7zC
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
Richard W. Hamming
Two new books! Courtesy of @stripepress and @katelaurielee. Per usual, Stripe Press books are the most beautifully laid out and printed book published today. https://t.co/NXVXCmM7zC
Halakhic Man
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik
Halakhic Man is the classic work of modern Jewish and religious thought by the twentieth century's preeminent Orthodox Jewish... more @NaCo89 This looks interesting. Thanks! https://t.co/d5NxnSTCms
A Paradise Built in Hell
Rebecca Solnit
Explores the phenomenon through which people become resourceful and altruistic after a disaster and communities reflect a shared sense... more This isn't even odd if you look at data. Human 'pro-sociality' skyrockets precisely in times of disaster and need. The only time I felt anything like a neighborhood spirit in suburban Miami was the weeks after Hurricane Andrew, which wrecked the city. https://t.co/qoVsxfDSVH
Discovering The News
Michael Schudson
@Velowit Those subscription powered, regional papers were all completely and explicitly partisan. The only thing remotely resembling 'news' were the new 'wire' services, precisely because their content could be syndicated by any side. Read: https://t.co/BGQx7SNbq8
Empire of Illusion
Chris Hedges
The author navigates America's divided culture--where a minority embraces film, theater, and books, while the majority cling to a... more @sriramk @briannekimmel Did you ever read 'Empire of Illusion' by Hedges? He's a former seminarian turned socialist, and he kicks of his redo of Boorstin's The Image with a mock-rhapsodic take of a WWE match. Wouldn't read whole book, but if the sample has the wrestling part, definitely worth it.
- How only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout world history Are mass violence and
... more @AlxThomp It comes off as inhumane, but putting on our amoral economic historian hats on for a sec, it's largely correct. Four things consistently reduce inequality: plague, revolutions, mass-conscript warfare, and social collapse. For more such upbeat takes: https://t.co/k0LDnZlL4Z
What it Takes
Richard Ben Cramer
@paulg @giridevanur @krenzx @naval @eladgil As much as I'd love to imagine both these scenarios, I have a hard time believing that any tech person would run the gauntlet necessary to assume public office in the US. At least from my reading of accounts like 'What It Takes' (a classic of the genre). https://t.co/wTtVujqz7z
Gnomes Deluxe Collector's Edition
Wil Huygen
Explains everything one might want to know about gnomes, including how long they live, what their houses are made of, how long pregnancy... more @SirKneeland It's from that 'Gnomes' book, I think. A classic! https://t.co/LNZ2MzKPFI
The Attention Merchants
Tim Wu
"From Tim Wu, author of award-winning The Master Switch, and who coined the phrase "net neutrality"--a revelatory look at the... more I feel guilty confessing this given our books were reviewed together by @nybooks, but I only just now gave @superwuster's 'Attention Merchants' a full read. It's excellent, and will likely live on as the reference history on modern advertising. https://t.co/u4GWppMZhw
All this is from Eric Hoffer's 'The True Believer', which is a prophetic masterpiece just bristling with wisdom. The average page jumps with more insight than a year's worth of a 'serious' glossy magazine. https://t.co/DpDkT8zCSv
The Book of Ecclesiastes
Tremper Longman
In this contribution to The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, Trevor Longman takes a canonical-Christocentric... more The Book of Ecclesiastes is, of course, one of the greatest works of Western culture. I find myself (re)reading it constantly.
The Elementary Particles
Michel Houellebecq
A new novel by the author of Whatever follows the lives and fortunes of Bruno and Marcel, born to a bohemian mother during the 1960s, who... more Recently someone asked me to give them a book so 'they'd get to know me', and my thought is to give them Houellebecq's 'Elementary Particles', but I fear I'll never hear from them again.
The Stand
Stephen King
A monumentally devastating plague leaves only a few survivors who, while experiencing dreams of a battle between good... more @DanielRogoff The Stand! I recall reading that cinder block of a book in high school over the course of a few days. Stephen King is unduly snubbed by the elite literary set.
Spark
Bill Chambers
Learn how to use, deploy, and maintain Apache Spark with this comprehensive guide, written by the creators of the open-source cluster-... more @Wrexler_42 I'm reading a technical guide on distributed computing, if you can believe it. How far I have fallen in my return to tech. Woe is me. Woe is me! https://t.co/rbUORJ1nv4
Chaos Monkeys Intl
Antonio Garcia Martinez
Imagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a data center powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure... more @oliviasolon No. Not at all. Entirely the opposite. Look up the history of 'Sponsored Stories' (or read the chapter in Chaos Monkeys), the tag-along monetization product to platform. Huge failure, wasted a year of time (at least).
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
**THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER** 'Interesting and provocative... It gives you a sense of how briefly we've been on this Earth'... more @sarthakgh @zck Did we talk about 'Sapiens' yet? Because Harari has really changed me.
The End of Men
Hanna Rosin
@boomereng Apparently, they're over with. https://t.co/mb7U8WE4cR
Boyd
Robert Coram
John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest U.S. fighter... more For more on Boyd, this is an excellent source: https://t.co/qKZyPppQZb
The Prince
Niccolò Machiavelli
The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli, is a 16th-century political treatise. The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of... more There are very few modern books I'd classify as works of genius, as being on par with Machiavelli's 'The Prince' or Sun Tzu's 'Art of War'. But Eric Hoffer's 'The True Believer' is one. And now supremely timely. Written by a lifelong tramp and longshoreman, no less. https://t.co/lIIuMfze46
The Art of War
Sun Tzu
The Art of War is composed of only about 6,000 Chinese characters, it is considered by many to be the greatest book on strategy and... more There are very few modern books I'd classify as works of genius, as being on par with Machiavelli's 'The Prince' or Sun Tzu's 'Art of War'. But Eric Hoffer's 'The True Believer' is one. And now supremely timely. Written by a lifelong tramp and longshoreman, no less. https://t.co/lIIuMfze46
There are very few modern books I'd classify as works of genius, as being on par with Machiavelli's 'The Prince' or Sun Tzu's 'Art of War'. But Eric Hoffer's 'The True Believer' is one. And now supremely timely. Written by a lifelong tramp and longshoreman, no less. https://t.co/lIIuMfze46
The Road
Cormac McCarthy
@metaphoricmusic @argyris @Micaheadowcroft @PatrickDeneen I've only read The Road. I should probably read more.
All the Trouble in the World
P. J. O'Rourke
In light of the Gretapocalypse, I re-read the 'Overpopulation' chapter (sub-title: 'Just enough of me, way too much of you') in PJ O'Rourke's 'All The Trouble in the World'. Oft-repeated at this point, but we don't make humorists like we used to. https://t.co/4LjIzrET4h
The Outlaw Ocean
Ian Urbina
A riveting, adrenaline-fueled journey through some of the most dangerous regions of the earth--the high seas, where lawlessness and... more @rezendi @anne_theriault Reading this one now. https://t.co/d8dxgJL7i4
The Outlaw Sea
William Langewiesche
@anne_theriault @rezendi Read his 'Outlaw Sea' if you liked his nautical reporting. https://t.co/HAT30BisBY
Prefab Architecture
Ryan E. Smith
Prefabrication and Architecture, a manual about prefab architecture, is primarily written for the architect and construction... more @NODEeco If you're interested in more about prefab housing, this book is really great. Yes, the tech has been around for a while (Sears used to sell prefab houses), and the barriers are mostly psychological or legal. But I think its time has come. https://t.co/t7QsCyFdoZ
Liar's Poker
Michael Lewis
The author recounts his experiences on the lucrative Wall Street bond market of the 1980s, where young traders made millions in a very... more @paulg @rivatez Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, which motivated me to drop out of a PhD for Wall Street, and then motivated me to write my own memoir.
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen
Winner of the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun.... more @taffyakner To be clear, I think Franzen deserves much of the praise heaped on him. 'The Corrections' was a monumental work whose passages still ring in memory. I thought 'Freedom' was solid, but its detour into bird-saving harangues by the end left me indifferent to news of 'Purity'.
Gratitude
William Frank Buckley
The conservative columnist renews his call for a year of voluntary national service for young people eighteen and over, in areas such as... more @argyris You know who wrote an entire book about that idea? William F. Buckley. https://t.co/9YT5Cz6pdI
Super Pumped
Mike Isaac
Isaac delivers a gripping account of Uber's rapid rise, its pitched battles with taxi unions and drivers, the company's toxic internal culture,... more With @CaseyNewton, @karaswisher , and @MikeIsaac at the book launch party. Meaning...you should all buy this book. https://t.co/1dP1eaZhRY https://t.co/RkLewgWU21
Private Truths, Public Lies
Timur Kuran
Preface Living a Lie The Significance of Preference Falsification Private and Public Preferences Private Opinion, Public Opinion The... more The viral premium placed on performative belief by social media only makes the delta between falsified and revealed preference only grow. The key work here is Kuran's 'Private Truths, Public Lies', which delineates the phenomenon in academic depth. https://t.co/x9aclbftHE
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Tom Wolfe
Describes the escapades of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, a drug-saturated group of hippies who get in and out of trouble with the law.@argyris And then 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' to understand NorCal hippie culture.
The right stuff
Tom Wolfe
A narrative of the early days of the U.S. space program and the people who made it happen, including Chuck Yeager, Pete Conrad, Gus Grissom,... more @argyris 'The Right Stuff', which is very timely given the Apollo anniversary.
Dinosaurs: A Visual Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition
Dorling Kindersley Publishing Staff
Updated with the latest discoveries about the prehistoric world! Explore all of prehistory--the plants, the reptiles, the swimmers,... more The existential despair of reading the Smithsonian's excellent dinosaur encyclopedia to your child, and realizing that all of human life pales in comparison to the 56 million years of the Jurassic and that nothing matters. https://t.co/LMSh3dClqs
The Odyssey of Homer
Homer
It's as if the densely textual refuses to be oralised, cf. Walter Ong. While the reverse doesn't seem true to us (we can read 'The Odyssey'), we're actually missing the in-person attributes that made orality unique: the vagaries of recitation, music, chanting, body language.
The War of Art
Steven Pressfield
"In this powerful, straight-from-the-hip examination of the internal obstacles to success, bestselling author Steven Pressfield shows... more If any creative needs a tough-love pep talk, or any aspiring creative needs a reality check around what being a 'professional' means, I recommend Pressfield's 'The War of Art'. It's the harsh lesson (or reminder) you need. https://t.co/Z1gbyA5QxZ
The Image
Daniel Joseph Boorstin
For more on our pseudo-event culture, Boorstin's 'The Image' is a brilliant exploration of how that culture started with TV. https://t.co/N7Pe3ajkIy
Bobos in Paradise
David Brooks
Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at... more The most hilarious sendup of the NYT weddings nomenklatura is of course the first chapter of @nytdavidbrooks 'Bobos in Paradise', a perhaps unparalleled skewering of that entire caste. https://t.co/1tpGidqPo7
All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren
Willie Stark's obsession with political power leads to the ultimate corruption of his gubernatorial administration.From perhaps the best American political novel ever written, Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men". https://t.co/nTHi29JfC4
The Culture of Narcissism
Christopher Lasch
When The Culture of Narcissism was first published in 1979, Christopher Lasch was hailed as a "biblical prophet" (Time). Lasch's... more Here's my soundcloud... Actually, fuck that. Go read Christopher Lasch's 'The Culture of Narcissism' instead. He called our current insanity in the 80s/90s, in tight, evocative prose. 'Revolt of the Elites' also called our current political moment. https://t.co/FgBPesNddg