Tag Archives: Book review

Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari

“… we are on the threshold of both heaven and hell, moving nervously between the gateway of the one and the anteroom of the other. History has still not decided where we will end up, and a string of coincidences … Continue reading

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Top three books I read in 2019

I managed to reach my goal of reading 24 books in 2019. Ideally it should have been a simple linear process–you know, one book after the other, at more or less a pace of two a month–but it was not. … Continue reading

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Reality is not what it seems, by Carlo Rovelli

I have been fascinated by astrophysics for a while. When I was younger, I used to read Stephen Hawking’s books as soon as they hit the stores. There is something fascinating in imagining the structure of the universe, defying common … Continue reading

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Post-Truth, by Lee McIntyre

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history. —George Orwell The book Post-Truth, by Lee McIntyre, opens with the above quote by George Orwell. Orwell, in fact, opens almost every chapter … Continue reading

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Hitch 22, by Christopher Hitchens

“The man had more wit, style, and substance than a few civilisations I can name” (Sam Harris remembering to Christopher Hitchens) I don’t think I have ever read an autobiography (or memoirs, which is more precise in this case) in … Continue reading

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Justice, by Michael J. Sandel

Michael J. Sandel is a professor at Harvard University who has been teaching a course called Justice for many years. In it, Professor Sandel talks about the different approaches to morality and justice, from Aristotle to Rawls, Kant and Mills. And … Continue reading

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Deep Work, by Cal Newport

I came across Deep Work around a year ago. It was a great time to find out about the book: I was the course director for two undergraduate degrees at Cass and it was becoming difficult to deal with all … Continue reading

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So you’ve been publicly shamed, by Jon Ronson

My first intention was to start this post by mentioning the Danny Baker affair, and linking it to the book I wanted to talk about: So you’ve been publicly shamed, by Jon Ronson. While the situation is not exactly the … Continue reading

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On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder

Post-truth is pre-fascism (Timothy Snyder) Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty (Wendell Phillips) Timothy Snyder is a Professor of History at Yale and, in 2017, he published On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. The timing of the … Continue reading

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Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

I was attracted by the notion of extreme ownership because of the tendency of human beings, and me in particular, of blaming bad luck when things do not go our way. I have always been wary about these thoughts. Things … Continue reading

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