Note: This post is a departure from my usual book review format. It was written when I first read No Bad Parts back in 2024, but I am only just now getting around to publishing it. I hope you enjoy! Cast of Characters: Manager (MN): an intellectual, age 36 Firefighter (FF): a skeptic, age 36 […]
My wife is a librarian, so one of her great joys is finding new books to recommend to people. And she’s damned good at it. She reads widely and has developed a canny ability to internalize someone’s preferences and point them in the direction of something new that they will most likely enjoy. Usually her […]
Table of Contents Three Roads to the Same Door Compulsion or Connection? Where We Are Defining Artificial Intimacy and Attachment Hacking The “Partner” Who Never Takes a Day Off The Differential Question Attachment Paralysis and Relational Atrophy More For Clinicians The Strongest Case Against Takeaways/TL;DR References Three Roads to the Same Door Over the last […]
Jason Pargin’s I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom is a novel about a nightmare road trip across America. The protagonist is Abbott, an anxious, 26-year-old Lyft driver who spends his free time as a small-time streamer. The story starts when Abbott meets Ether, a voluble young woman who offers him $200,000 […]
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Strife is the fourth novel in his Children of Time series. Whenever a series reaches the very upper stratum of my science fiction pantheon, it can be a little scary to learn that a new installment has been published. It’s definitely exciting, but I also fear it might be disappointing. Will […]
Summary: Scott Galloway’s Notes on Being a Man is a memoir that explores the intersection between Galloway’s personal story and America’s current masculinity crisis. Galloway offers lessons from his life and career to provide young men with a set of values and practices that can help them mature and thrive. The book centers on what […]
Lionel Shriver’s A Better Life is a work of political fiction. The setting is New York City in 2023, where the local government has initiated the “Big Apple, Big Heart” program as a response to a massive number of migrants flooding into the city. This program recruits NYC homeowners to offer up spare rooms to […]
Brandon Sanderson’s Rhythm of War is the fourth book in his Stormlight Archive series. As the war between the humans and the forces of Odium rages, Sanderson’s worldbuilding continues to evolve, along with his deep and varied cast of characters. The result is a sprawling narrative that offers exciting new insights and developments, but that […]
Summary: David McKittrick and David McVea’s Making Sense of the Troubles is a chronological history of the conflict in Northern Ireland from 1921 to 2012. Taking a measured and neutral approach, McKittrick and McVea trace the origins, central dynamics, key events, and main figures of the troubles. Making Sense of the Troubles is a valuable […]
Besieged By Change I don’t think I’m alone in saying that 2025 made my head spin. In the many conversations I had about the state of the world this year, I found myself returning to this image of being caught in a “pincer move,” getting squeezed by the dual pressures of developments in AI and […]