Some Great Books

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Psychology and Sociology:

• Emotional Intelligence, Why it can matter more than IQ by Daniel Goleman 1995. A great, easily readable book on how our minds work.   My review
• The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell 2000. This is a book about "selling", whether it's about selling products or ideas. It is an interesting course in how to work with the psychology of the human mind in an attempt to promote a trend (tipping point).   My review
• Bridges out of Poverty, Strategies for Professionals and Communities by Ruby K. Payne,PhD, Philip E. DeVol and Terie Greussi Smith -revised 2009. The format is: textbook/case studies, methods and suggestions.   My review
• Scarcity, The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives by Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir 2014. This book examines why we often make bad decisions, especially when we feel pressed by something like time, finances, etc. A new awareness helps you think deeper before acting.
• Pandemic Inc. by J. David McSwane 2022. This award-winning author covered the COVID Pandemic as a reporter for ProPublica. His book is about the panic in our government due to our embarrassing unpreparedness and the multitude of cheaters who profit ($Millions) from it.   My review

Politics:

• This Will Not Pass by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns 2022. This book covers events in fine detail, from the Trump Presidency in 2016 and the Biden presidency up to 2022. These two authors conducted hundreds of interviews with people in all levels of government. It is known that many people will tell things in private that they would not say publicly. The book gives us an in-depth look behind the scenes as numerous critical events unfolded. The 2020 Presidential Election and the Jan 6 2021 insurrection are also detailed well.     My review
• How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley 2018. The pull of Fascism is that it simplifies human existence, gives us a "them" whose supposed laziness highlights our own virtuosity and discipline while letting "us" identify with a forceful leader who helps us make sense of the World and whose bluntness to the undeserving seems refreshing. Fascism exploits human weaknesses to propel an authoritarian leader into power.
      Today's rise in inequality and the increasing pressures of Population and Climate Change are driving many into the arms of fascism as a salve for their fears. It now becomes more important than ever to recognize the methods fascism uses, so we can tell when we're being manipulated.     My review
• The Persuaders by Anand Giridharadas 2022. This study of persuasion and persuaders includes a detailed story of the actions of two very powerful influencers: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Anat Shenker-Osorio, who have slightly different but effective methods of persuasion. Anat offers much insight to how messaging often runs counter to one's intent (especially by Democrats)     My review
• The Divider by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser 2022. The authors who are also married, spent four years covering the Trump presidency for the New York Times and the New Yorker. This book is the result of about 300 interviews with White House officials, cabinet officers, members of Congress, generals, diplomats, business executives and others. It is based on contemporaneous notes, diaries, memos and other documents.
      I found their coverage to be quite detailed over those four years and presenting a consistent, yet scary theme of Donald Trump's personality and how it threatens our security. You can read any 20 pages of this 652 page narrative and see Trump's dangerous character.    My review
• How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt 2018. The authors are professors of government who have worked together for over 15 years, thinking, writing and teaching students about failures of democracy. They spent years researching the new forms of authoritarianism emerging across the globe.
      We need to recognize the dangers of the treats to our democracy so we can defend against them. This book explains in detail (with numerous examples) the methods authoritarian's use with lots of real-world examples to show what works and what fails. This book should be a High School requirement worldwide.    My review
• Blowback by Miles Taylor 2023. This is an account of the Trump Administration and its players, told by a Republican (describes himself as a "Compassionate Conservative") who had started in the George W. Bush administration and was put in charge of Threats and Intelligence in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the Trump Administration. DHS had three sections: Border and Immigration, Cybersecurity, and Threats and Intelligence. In his job, Miles Taylor had contact with many players in the Trump administration, including Trump himself. This well-written, interesting book is a hard-to-put-down read.     My review

Climate Change:

• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson 1962. This book was largely responsible for establishing the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.   My review
• The 6th Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert 2014, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a staff writer for The New Yorker who extensively traveled the globe to interview and work with many involved scientists.   My review
• The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen 2017. I discovered this book after reading his article Mass Extinctions on Earth in Scientific American magazine (sept 2020). I was impressed by the author's pervasive knack for vivid depiction in that article. His book is even better!   My review
• The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells 2019. This 40-ish author wasn't particularly environmentally conscious early on, growing up in typical America with its focus on consumption. Gradually, as this Journalist was exposed to various environmental reports, he began to see a picture emerging. These perceptions led him to write this book, as a wake-up call to all who blithely go about their daily habits unaware of the long term affects of our collective behavior.   My review
• Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert 2021. The author starts with the story of the Chicago River, in which we reversed its flow in 1900. Prior to that, the river was a sewer which flowed into Lake Michigan and fostered routine outbreaks of Typhoid and Cholera. This was a massive public works project which resulted in the river ultimately flowing down the Mississippi River. Now we struggle with underwater Electric Fences to prevent the large Asian Carp in the river from entering the Great Lakes and driving many popular fish to extinction. Next is the story of a sinking Louisiana …   My review
• How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates 2021. This is a thorough book, with facts and references, covering all known issues and potential solutions for mitigating Climate Change by 2050.   My review
• The Last Winter by Porter Fox 2021. Porter Fox is an adventurer, author and ski buff. For this book, he toured Northwestern U.S. Maine, European Alps, Antarctica and Greenland, making sure to meet with experts in each region. As he travels, he writes what he is seeing, and laments what the future may bring.   My review

History:

• Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari 2015. Who are we? How did we get to where we are? Where are we going? Questions answered by a sensible interpretation of Human History from about 500,000 years ago to the present (2015).There is a LOT covered in this New York Times Best Seller.   My review
• Homo Deus - A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari 2017. Here, the historian elaborates where he thinks humankind may be headed. Making clear that these are only possible projections and that circumstances often pop up to divert our course.   My review
• 2084 -Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity by John C. Lennox 2020. The author is a professor of Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, but also is a proclaimed Christian and pastoral advisor at Green Templeton College, Oxford. He discusses Artificial Intelligence from a strong reliance on Christianity as a guide. It is not quite what I expected.   My review
• How Civil Wars Start - and How to Stop Them by Barbara F. Walter 2022. The author is a professor of International Relations at the University of California and has been studying Civil Wars globally since 1990. This book is also about how tyrants amass power.   My review

Science:

• The History of Physics by Isaac Asimov, 1966 but with the Introduction and Appendix added by Asimov in 1984 when the initially three books (parts I, II and III) were combined in a 742 page version by the Walker Publishing Company Inc. Asimov (a college professor in chemistry) tells the story of our understanding of science from ancient times to about 1983. This is a very well told true story of our fragmented (and often mistaken throughout history) knowledge and about how developments in one area (say electricity) influence advancements in others (like chemistry).   My review
• This Way to the Universe by Michael Dine, 2022. Michael Dine is a theoretical physicist at UCSC. As a book for the general population, this book is necessarily vague in details but the current status is fairly well covered. The author made a very useful decision to compare many features of the universe using an understandable powers of ten (see the Powers of Ten Video).   My review
• The Age of AI and our Human Future by Henry Kissinger, Eric Scmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher 2021.   Given the many advantages of Artificial Intelligence (AI), companies would feel foolish not to use it. The AI revolution is occurring more quickly than most people suspect. Advantage may go to those who move first. But what are the dangers?

  Militaries around the world are already developing and sometimes deploying AI driven weapons. Even now it is being actively considered in the War on Ukraine).   My review

• Life 3.0: Being human in the age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark 2017. The author (a professor of Theoretical Physics at MIT) carefully explores numerous options and possibilities along the path of developing AI and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). His approach is both Scientific and necessarily Sci-Fi as it deals with the uncertainty of our future. This serious study is needed now by humans because the decisions we will make now affect outcomes later and, once AI grows too powerful, it may be too late to guide it. Max displays unlimited vision in exploring how humans and AI could live for billions of years spreading throughout the universe. This deep discussion of the possibilities makes for a very thought-provoking book.   My review
• A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith 2023. These married authors are a biologist (Kelly) and a Cartoonist (Zach), who were initially for space settlements; until they began this in-depth investigation. Their detailed studies include effects of Gravity, Minimum Sustainable Populations, Food production, Energy, Mining, Markets (Economics), Radiation protection, Sex, Babies, Breathable Atmosphere, Medical needs, Markets (Economics), War and International Law.

  The main focus is on our Moon and Mars, but all local planets, moons and asteroids are also considered. This is probably the first book of an in-depth study of space settlements ever written and it is well done!   My review

Science Fiction:

• The Foundation Series: Is a set of truly Sci-Fi masterpieces by Isaac Asimov (1920-1992). Mostly written in the 1950's, Asimov cleverly added three books to the series in the 1980's. Though each book is a story in itself it is suggested, for continuity, to read these in chronological order: Prelude to Foundation, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, Foundation and Earth, and Forward the Foundation. Get more Info on the Foundation Series online
• Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2015.
  Kim Stanley Robinson is a modern day "Asimov". His stories tend to follow technological practice, which makes them quite believable. Also worth reading (in order)are his "Mars" series: Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars.
    • Recommended by Roman Krznaric in his book The Good Ancestor. Aurora is actually quite factual as to scientific trends in Climate Change and particularly in elaborating our human nature and our fragilities (both mental and biological). My review
• New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2017 is about a plausible future 120 years from now. This Sci-Fi is firmly based around scientific facts and on human nature. Although 613 pages long, every episode was so riveting that it was hard to put the book down! My review
• The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2021. This book is technically science fiction, but is so much based on fact that it becomes a projection into the near future. The multi-award winning author is famous for adhering to current science and for his understanding of the political mind. With this book he projects history forward in a very plausible way. My review

Enjoy!  Ray Herrmann