In the end, that is what I am fighting for: a world where you don’t have to think about politics constantly.... And when you do, its a form of politics that does not require you be perpetually offended.
Thanks, Bari! I have a birthday coming up, and my wife is always encouraging me to put relatively inexpensive things on an Amazon wish list (I loath Amazon, and won't spend any money on that site unless I have no alternative). You've given me five different books to list!
Thanks for this. I can recommend ‘The Exception’, a Danish novel by Christian Jungersen, written in the early 2000’s about a group of young liberal women who work in a nonprofit where they unwittingly create the evil they profess to fight in the world among themselves.
"The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis" by Leon Kass. A second reading in preparation for Kass's new book on Exodus. These guidebooks chart a path that leads to, among other places, our current revolution as shown in Bulgakov, "The White Guard."
I'm reading, slowly, Just Add Water: Solving the world's problems using its most precious resource, by Rhett Larson. I love his writing and teaching style.
I look forward to this newsletter every week, Bari. And, as a self-proclaimed bibliophile, this particular newsletter made me very excited! I picked up Live Not By Lies and am loving it. When I was 17 (in 1998), I had a chance to visit some family in Estonia and Live Not By Lies reminds me of some of the people I met and the things I witnessed less than a decade after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Thanks for this suggestion!
Alongside this book, I am reading The Politics of Envy by Anne Hendershott. In my opinion, it's an excellent one to read alongside Live Not By Lies because it focuses on the role that envy plays in our current zeitgeist. Just for a taste, Hendershott tellingly says: "While most of today's demands for social justice and egalitarianism claim to be based on a more just distribution of 'the good things of the world,' the truth is that these demands are usually based on envy." As a teacher, I can vouch for the ways envy factors into the decisions that are made by education leaders. Although lip service is paid to choices being made "for the good of the children," I believe many educational decisions are made for the "good reputation" of the teacher, the principal, the school, or the district. Hendershott's book speaks to some of these instances across our society.
My booklist is growing so large lately that my boyfriend is likely to be justified soon enough to start chucking books at me.
Unfortunately I haven't been putting in the time to read as much as a should be here is a run down of a few things I've recently read and I have upcoming to read:
I am currently reading Scott Adam's Life Strategy Degree list of books which include 3 of his books, 2 of Robert Cialdini (Influence - finished - and Pre-suasion reading-), as well as The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (finished), Impossible to Ignore by Carmen Simon, and Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellengerber.
I have started Kindly Inquisitors by Jonathan Rausch (really great book, and small enough that I have no excuse not to finish), Andrew Doyle's Free Speech book, and I am working through Mike Cernovitch's Gorilla Mindset. I have already recently purchased Manufacturing Consent because of my love of Matt Taibbi's work and occasional affinity for Jimmy Dore.
I have other things to read, Gad Saad's The Parasitic Mind, and finish, Cynical Theories, as well.
Chicken soup for the soul? Any Jane Austen novel or a performance of the Tempest. If you’re looking for books which speak directly to today’s fevers, Conrad’s Secret Agent and Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. And Bellow’s the Dean’s December
A friend shared this with me ... it opened the door for me to Bertrand Russell. Bari and others here may find this resonates with the finest aspects of the liberal tradition
Russell cautions that this shift from what he calls “love-knowledge” to “power-knowledge” is the single greatest hazard in the future of science, which is implicitly inseparable from the future of humanity. To protect science from such a shift, he suggests, is not only our duty but our only means of protecting us from ourselves.
The one I've finished as of late is Douglas Murray's The Madness Of Crowds. It was very thought provoking and very well written. He's not afraid to talk about the issues that divide us: gay, woman's issues, trans, and race.
Diversions in quarantine: Tom Stoppard, “Leopoldstadt”; Flaubert, “Madame Bovary”; Kazuo Ishiguro, “Klara and the Sun”; Simone Weill, “The Iliad or the Poem of Force”; Tim Snyder, “Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary”; Walter Isaacson, “Code Breaker”; Jac Schaeffer, “WandaVision”
Like his other novels, deceptively laconic prose with astonishing depth. The central character, Klara, is a very advanced android working hard to approximate human feeling. Ishiguro's artistic achievement is really astonishing: a character who is by definition flat that nevertheless engages your emotions. Klara's journey is ultimately tragic because she cannot exceed her built-in limitations, and her lifespan is short. But her limitations highlight what it means to be human.
Try George Friedman's book "The Storm before the Calm" for an interesting, more America focused take on some of the same issues that Mr. Gurri observes so trenchantly
In the end, that is what I am fighting for: a world where you don’t have to think about politics constantly.... And when you do, its a form of politics that does not require you be perpetually offended.
Thanks, Bari! I have a birthday coming up, and my wife is always encouraging me to put relatively inexpensive things on an Amazon wish list (I loath Amazon, and won't spend any money on that site unless I have no alternative). You've given me five different books to list!
Thanks for this. I can recommend ‘The Exception’, a Danish novel by Christian Jungersen, written in the early 2000’s about a group of young liberal women who work in a nonprofit where they unwittingly create the evil they profess to fight in the world among themselves.
Bari, I’ve just joined Common Sense due to a former student of mind (and mutual friend). I’m reading Christopher Hitchens’ WHY ORWELL MATTERS.
"The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis" by Leon Kass. A second reading in preparation for Kass's new book on Exodus. These guidebooks chart a path that leads to, among other places, our current revolution as shown in Bulgakov, "The White Guard."
Phil Marcus
I'm reading, slowly, Just Add Water: Solving the world's problems using its most precious resource, by Rhett Larson. I love his writing and teaching style.
I recently read "The Power and the Glory" by Grahm Greene and it was truly an amazing novel
I look forward to this newsletter every week, Bari. And, as a self-proclaimed bibliophile, this particular newsletter made me very excited! I picked up Live Not By Lies and am loving it. When I was 17 (in 1998), I had a chance to visit some family in Estonia and Live Not By Lies reminds me of some of the people I met and the things I witnessed less than a decade after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Thanks for this suggestion!
Alongside this book, I am reading The Politics of Envy by Anne Hendershott. In my opinion, it's an excellent one to read alongside Live Not By Lies because it focuses on the role that envy plays in our current zeitgeist. Just for a taste, Hendershott tellingly says: "While most of today's demands for social justice and egalitarianism claim to be based on a more just distribution of 'the good things of the world,' the truth is that these demands are usually based on envy." As a teacher, I can vouch for the ways envy factors into the decisions that are made by education leaders. Although lip service is paid to choices being made "for the good of the children," I believe many educational decisions are made for the "good reputation" of the teacher, the principal, the school, or the district. Hendershott's book speaks to some of these instances across our society.
My booklist is growing so large lately that my boyfriend is likely to be justified soon enough to start chucking books at me.
Unfortunately I haven't been putting in the time to read as much as a should be here is a run down of a few things I've recently read and I have upcoming to read:
I am currently reading Scott Adam's Life Strategy Degree list of books which include 3 of his books, 2 of Robert Cialdini (Influence - finished - and Pre-suasion reading-), as well as The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (finished), Impossible to Ignore by Carmen Simon, and Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellengerber.
I have started Kindly Inquisitors by Jonathan Rausch (really great book, and small enough that I have no excuse not to finish), Andrew Doyle's Free Speech book, and I am working through Mike Cernovitch's Gorilla Mindset. I have already recently purchased Manufacturing Consent because of my love of Matt Taibbi's work and occasional affinity for Jimmy Dore.
I have other things to read, Gad Saad's The Parasitic Mind, and finish, Cynical Theories, as well.
Chicken soup for the soul? Any Jane Austen novel or a performance of the Tempest. If you’re looking for books which speak directly to today’s fevers, Conrad’s Secret Agent and Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. And Bellow’s the Dean’s December
A friend shared this with me ... it opened the door for me to Bertrand Russell. Bari and others here may find this resonates with the finest aspects of the liberal tradition
Russell cautions that this shift from what he calls “love-knowledge” to “power-knowledge” is the single greatest hazard in the future of science, which is implicitly inseparable from the future of humanity. To protect science from such a shift, he suggests, is not only our duty but our only means of protecting us from ourselves.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/05/08/bertrand-russell-the-scientific-outlook/
I'm reading Self-Portrait In Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams right now and it's so good.
The one I've finished as of late is Douglas Murray's The Madness Of Crowds. It was very thought provoking and very well written. He's not afraid to talk about the issues that divide us: gay, woman's issues, trans, and race.
Diversions in quarantine: Tom Stoppard, “Leopoldstadt”; Flaubert, “Madame Bovary”; Kazuo Ishiguro, “Klara and the Sun”; Simone Weill, “The Iliad or the Poem of Force”; Tim Snyder, “Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary”; Walter Isaacson, “Code Breaker”; Jac Schaeffer, “WandaVision”
Your thoughts on the Ishiguro? I’ve read a couple of others, but not this one.
Like his other novels, deceptively laconic prose with astonishing depth. The central character, Klara, is a very advanced android working hard to approximate human feeling. Ishiguro's artistic achievement is really astonishing: a character who is by definition flat that nevertheless engages your emotions. Klara's journey is ultimately tragic because she cannot exceed her built-in limitations, and her lifespan is short. But her limitations highlight what it means to be human.
Bari,
Try George Friedman's book "The Storm before the Calm" for an interesting, more America focused take on some of the same issues that Mr. Gurri observes so trenchantly