favorite recently read books
Discover my favorite recently read books! Explore this curated list of top reads, from gripping fiction to insightful non-fiction, that captivated me and might inspire your next great read.
Item Not Found
ID: 157851777X
(Type: books)
Book
The Black Swan
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives. Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the impossible. For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don't know. He offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications. The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory.The Black Swan is a landmark book, itself a black swan.
Book
Strangers to Ourselves
by Timothy D. Wilson
"Is introspection the best path to self-knowledge? What are we trying to discover? In a tour of the unconscious, as contemporary psychological science has redefined it, Timothy D. Wilson introduces a hidden mental world of judgements, feelings, and motives that introspection may never show."--Global Books in Print.
Book
The Good Man
by Edward Jae-Suk Lee
With this striking novel, Edward Jae-Suk Lee delivers the beautifully and poignantly told story of Gabriel Cuttman, an aging Korean War veteran--a good man who has done bad things and is struggling with a terrible secret.
Item Not Found
ID: 0142000078
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0060889659
(Type: books)
Book
Blindsight
by Peter Watts
Two months since the stars fell... Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown. Two months of silence, while a world holds its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route. So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn't want to meet? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed, and the fainter one she'll do any good if she is. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist--an informational topologist with half his mind gone--as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge. You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find. But you'd give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them...
Item Not Found
ID: 0465028020
(Type: books)
Book
Big Bang
by Simon Singh
A half century ago, a shocking Washington Post headline claimed that the world began in five cataclysmic minutes rather than having existed for all time; a skeptical scientist dubbed the maverick theory the Big Bang. In this amazingly comprehensible history of the universe, Simon Singh decodes the mystery behind the Big Bang theory, lading us through the development of one of the most extraordinary, important, and awe-inspiring theories in science.
Item Not Found
ID: 060960810X
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 1400042666
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0470089199
(Type: books)
Book
A Deepness in the Sky
by Vernor Vinge
After thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. Two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds. The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But first, both groups must wait at the aliens' very doorstep for their strange star to relight and for their planet to reawaken, as it does every two hundred and fifty years.... Then, following terrible treachery, the Qeng Ho must fight for their freedom and for the lives of the unsuspecting innocents on the planet below, while the aliens themselves play a role unsuspected by the Qeng Ho and Emergents alike. More than just a great science fiction adventure, A Deepness in the Sky is a universal drama of courage, self-discovery, and the redemptive power of love. A Deepness in the Sky is a 1999 Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel and the winner of the 2000 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Book
Cloud Atlas
by David Stephen Mitchell
Recounts the connected stories of people from the past and the distant future, from a nineteenth-century notary and an investigative journalist in the 1970s to a young man who searches for meaning in a post-apocalyptic world.
Book
The Fabric of the Cosmos
by Brian Greene
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ⢠From one of the worldâs leading physicists and author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe, comes âan astonishing rideâ through the universe (The New York Times) that makes us look at reality in a completely different way. Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. From Newtonâs unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einsteinâs fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanicsâ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.
Item Not Found
ID: 1596910135
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0262731622
(Type: books)
Book
The Code Book
by Simon Singh
In his first book since the bestselling Fermat's Enigma, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy. Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world's most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history and what drives it. It will also make you wonder how private that e-mail you just sent really is.
Book
Persepolis
by Marjane Satrapi
BEST SELLER ⢠A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK ⢠Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapiâs acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. âA wholly original achievement.... Satrapi evokes herself and her schoolmates coming of age in a world of protests and disappearances.... A stark, shocking impact.â âThe New York Times: "The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years" In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the coming-of-age story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shahâs regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iranâs last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjaneâs childâs-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.
Item Not Found
ID: 067976867X
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0812973038
(Type: books)
Book
Fortune's Formula
by William Poundstone
In 1961, MIT mathematics professor Ed Thorp made a small Vegas fortune by "counting cards"; his 1962 bestseller, "Beat the Dealer," made the phrase a household word. With Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, Thorp next conquered the roulette tables. In this prosaic but fascinating cultural history, the author tells not only what they did but how they did it.
Book
Blind Side
by Michael Lewis
The author examines the phenomenon of the high value of the left tackle in football, using as his example an underprivileged youngster from Tennessee.
Book
The Undercover Economist
by Tim Harford
âThe economy [isnât] a bunch of rather dull statistics with names like GDP (gross domestic product),â notes Tim Harford, columnist and regular guest on NPRâs Marketplace, âeconomics is about who gets what and why.â In this acclaimed and riveting bookâpart exposĂŠ, part userâs manualâthe astute and entertaining columnist from the Financial Times demystifies the ways in which money works in the world. From why the coffee in your cup costs so much to why efficiency is not necessarily the answer to ensuring a fair society, from improving health care to curing crosstown trafficâall the dirty little secrets of dollars and cents are delightfully revealed by The Undercover Economist. âA rare specimen: a book on economics that will enthrall its readers . . . It brings the power of economics to life.â âSteven D. Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics âA playful guide to the economics of everyday life, and as such is something of an elder sibling to Steven Levittâs wild child, the hugely successful Freakonomics.â âThe Economist âA tour de force . . . If you need to be convinced of the everrelevant and fascinating nature of economics, read this insightful and witty book.â âJagdish Bhagwati, author of In Defense of Globalization âThis is a book to savor.â âThe New York Times âHarford writes like a dream. From his book I found out why thereâs a Starbucks on every corner [and] how not to get duped in an auction. Reading The Undercover Economist is like spending an ordinary day wearing X-ray goggles.â âDavid Bodanis, author of Electric Universe âMuch wit and wisdom.â âThe Houston Chronicle From Publishers Weekly Nattily packaged-the cover sports a Roy Lichtensteinesque image of an economist in Dick Tracy garb-and cleverly written, this book applies basic economic theory to such modern phenomena as Starbucks' pricing system and Microsoft's stock values. While the concepts explored are those encountered in Microeconomics 101, Harford gracefully explains abstruse ideas like pricing along the demand curve and game theory using real world examples without relying on graphs or jargon. The book addresses free market economic theory, but Harford is not a complete apologist for capitalism; he shows how companies from Amazon.com to Whole Foods to Starbucks have gouged consumers through guerrilla pricing techniques and explains the high rents in London (it has more to do with agriculture than one might think). Harford comes down soft on Chinese sweatshops, acknowledging "conditions in factories are terrible," but "sweatshops are better than the horrors that came before them, and a step on the road to something better." Perhaps, but Harford doesn't question whether communism or a capitalist-style industrial revolution are the only two choices available in modern economies. That aside, the book is unequaled in its accessibility and ability to show how free market economic forces affect readers' day-to-day. Copyright Š Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Bookmarks Magazine Harford exposes the dark underbelly of capitalism in Undercover Economist. Compared with Steven Levittâs and Stephen J. Dubnerâs popular Freakonomics (*** July/Aug 2005), the book uses simple, playful examples (written in plain English) to elucidate complex economic theories. Critics agree that the book will grip readers interested in understanding free-market forces but disagree about Harfordâs approach. Some thought the author mastered the small ideas while keeping in sight the larger context of globalization; others faulted Harford for failing to criticize certain economic theories and to ground his arguments in political, organizational structures. Either way, his case studiesâsome entertaining, others indicative of times to comeâwill make you think twice about that cup of coffee. Copyright Š 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
Book
The Ancestor's Tale
by Richard Dawkins
A renowned biologist provides a sweeping chronicle of more than four billion years of life on Earth, shedding new light on evolutionary theory and history, sexual selection, speciation, extinction, and genetics.
Book
The Paradox of Choice
by Barry Schwartz
In the spirit of Alvin Tofflerâs Future Shock, a social critique of our obsession with choice, and how it contributes to anxiety, dissatisfaction and regret. This paperback includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested readings, and more. Whether weâre buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions--both big and small--have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. We assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice--the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish--becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice--from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs--has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on the important ones and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
Item Not Found
ID: 0029177766
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0691128383
(Type: books)
Book
Number9Dream
by David Mitchell
By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize âA novel as accomplished as anything being written.ââNewsweek Number9Dream is the international literary sensation from a writer with astonishing range and imaginative energyâan intoxicating ride through Tokyoâs dark underworlds and the even more mysterious landscapes of our collective dreams. David Mitchell follows his eerily precocious, globe-striding first novel, Ghostwritten, with a work that is in its way even more ambitious. In outward form, Number9Dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sisterâs death and his motherâs breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crossesâthrough a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luckâa number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his fatherâs identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer. Why is the line between the world of his experiences and the world of his dreams so blurry? Why do so many horrible things keep happening to him? What is it about the number 9? To answer these questions, and ultimately to come to terms with his inheritance, Eiji must somehow acquire an insight into the workings of history and fate that would be rare in anyone, much less in a boy from out of town with a price on his head and less than the cost of a Beatles disc to his name. Praise for Number9Dream âDeliriousâa grand blur of overwhelming sensation.ââEntertainment Weekly âTo call Mitchellâs book a simple quest novel . . is like calling Don DeLilloâs Underworld the story of a missing baseball.ââThe New York Times Book Review âNumber9Dream, with its propulsive energy, its Joycean eruption of language and playfulness, represents further confirmation that David Mitchell should be counted among the top young novelists working today.ââSan Francisco Chronicle âMitchellâs new novel has been described as a cross between Don DeLillo and William Gibson, and although thatâs a perfectly serviceable cocktail-party formula, it doesnât do justice to this odd, fitfully compelling work.ââThe New Yorker âLeaping with ease from surrealist fables to a teenage coming-of-age story and then spinning back to Yakuza gangster battles and World War IIâera kamikaze diaries, Mitchell is an aerial freestyle ski-jumper of fiction. Somehow, after performing feats of literary gymnastics, he manages to stick the landing.ââThe Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Book
No One Belongs Here More Than You
by Miranda July
Presents a collection of short works featuring sympathetic protagonists whose inherent sensitivities render them particularly vulnerable to unexpected events.
Item Not Found
ID: 1419526006
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 1882968336
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0618551050
(Type: books)
Book
After Dark
by ćä¸ćĽć¨š
With his trademark humor and psychological insight, Murakami's power of observation plays out in this sleek novel of encounters set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn.
Item Not Found
ID: 0393324427
(Type: books)