5-stars - Book Reviews (Page 3)

American Gods

Fantastic. Utterly different than anything I've read before - Gaiman is a master storyteller. "American Gods" is a sprawling, delightful, clever, and haunting evocation of the many aspects of America and its land, people, and beliefs. The audiobook narration is great too.

5-stars

The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages

"The Western Canon" is hilarious. Harold Bloom goes hard and doesn't pull any punches. I wish I had read the book rather than listening to the audiobook version so I could have pulled out some of his quotes verbatim, especially when he starts going on about the "

5-stars

Seveneves

Part world-building, part Apollo-13, and part House of Cards. Skip the last third of the book though.

5-stars

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

A sprawling jeremiad encompassing everything from ancient Sumerian law and African slavery to the conquest of the Aztecs and the US going off the gold standard. A notorious anarchist, Graeber delights in attempting to refute conventional wisdom.

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The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch

"The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch" is a fascinating thought experiment about how to build the ideal manual for a reboot of civilization. Dartnell decides that a good post-apocalypse reboot manual has a few critical ingredients: instructions for short-term survival a roadmap for longer-term rebooting

5-stars

Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero

In "Dying Every Day", one of history's greatest philosophers plays the tutor to one of history's most notorious dictators. Alexander had his Aristotle. Nero had his Seneca. Romm animates the famed Stoic and makes us see his world - an imperial Rome full of conniving courtiers, shifting alliances,

5-stars

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

"The Hard Thing About Hard Things" kicked my ass. Ben Horowitz delivers lots of specifics and not a lot of fluff. He talks about the concrete scenarios that CEOs have to handle and provides detailed frameworks for thinking about them. His "Questions for Head of Enterprise Sales

fiction

Cryptonomicon

A bitingly sharp wit, irreverent self awareness, and a brilliantly tangled plot make Stephenson's book a delight. Although it's technically about cryptography during and after WWII, the book reads more like an action/mystery/adventure/historical thriller. Although Stephenson takes many seemingly irrelevant detours and doesn't seem like he's in

history

Anabasis: The Persian Expedition

Beautifully written, the "Anabasis of Xenophon" is one of the truly great accomplishments of world literature and serves as a model for much of what comes after. Xenophon himself was a total badass - a soldier/mercenary, general, philosopher, and historian. Historically, he pretty much picks up where

history

The Cold War: A New History

Gaddis does it again. "The Cold War: A New History" is an eminently readable account of the Cold War that places it in a larger historical, ideological, and strategic context. If you're alive today, you should probably read this book so that you can understand where we're coming

5-stars

Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

I was looking at my highlights for Paul Graham's "Hackers and Painters" and it seems like I basically highlighted the entire book. It's that good. At its core, this is a book about how changes in technology (particularly computer tech) have changed economic and social realities... and the

history

The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World Was Created

"The Birth of Plenty" will blow your mind. The only other book of comparable scope and depth of analysis is "The Discoverers" by Daniel J. Boorstin. In "The Birth of Plenty," Bernstein claims that "...the four factors—property rights, scientific rationalism, capital markets,

history

Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy

Hale's "Lords of the Sea" is a non-stop adventure into maritime classical Greece. Hale has a gift for bringing the historical figures of the Athenian age to life with simple but vivid language. Hale is a wonderful storyteller and I particularly enjoyed his character sketches of the incorrigible