Rating: 7.7/10. This book gives a comprehensive scientific overview of sleep. Although there are still many unanswered questions, there’s been a lot of research lately and this book sums it up. Sleep is a very necessary function of life. Every living organism requires it, although in different amounts, and total lack of sleep very quickly…
Category: Nonfiction
The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan
Rating: 4.5/10. A classic book by astronomer Carl Sagan about how to distinguish science from pseudoscience. The beginning is really interesting and talks about a man who seems well-read, but his knowledge is completely wrong. Stuff like aliens, UFOs, ghosts, Atlantis, crop circles, other supernatural stuff. The book proceeds to debunk all of these in…
Factfulness by Hans Rosling
Rating: 8.4/10. This book was written by Hans Rosling (the same guy that made The Joy of Stats documentary) just before he died in 2017. [redacted] recommended it to me. It uses stats to show that despite what the media portrays, and despite popular conception, the world is not such a bad place. Extreme poverty…
Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Rating: 5.7/10. This is the third Taleb book that I’ve read, and it was recommended by [redacted]. I’m disappointed in this book, and felt it was downhill from Black Swan, then to Antifragile, then this book. Compared to the previous two books, it’s a lot less structured, and he kind of throws out a mix…
Getting to Yes by Fisher, Ury, and Patton
Rating: 8.5/10. This book tells you how to negotiate more effectively. A common negotiating mistake is to use positional negotiation, which is each side picking an arbitrary position (eg: buy the car for $5000), and going back and forth until you’re tired and agree, or you both walk out. Positional negotiation is highly arbitrary, and…
Trump: A Graphic Biography by Ted Rall
Rating: 8.3/10. A biography of Trump in graphical novel format. This book was written after Trump won the republican primaries (May 2016) but before he won the presidency (Nov 2016). First, the book describes the political and economic circumstances that led to Trump coming into power. After the 2008 financial crisis, many low-skilled Americans felt…
12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson
Rating: 8.2/10. Jordan Peterson’s new book that quickly hit #1 on the bestsellers lists after being released this year. He’s famous around UofT for speaking out against social justice warriors, but [redacted] told me that he’s got a lot of interesting videos on philosophy of how to live your life. This book summarizes a lot…
Visual Intelligence by Amy Herman
Rating: 8.0/10. This book uses art to teach you to notice your surroundings more, which is very interesting. The basic premise is there’s a lot of things that we miss, but can be quite important. The two biggest ideas in this book for me: Train yourself to be more visually perceptive by looking at art,…
Dying Words by Nicholas Evans
Rating: 8.0/10. There are over 6000 languages in the world, but many of them are endangered. Often, they structure their grammar in really weird ways, like keeping track of absolute directions instead of left/right, or needing to specify how one got some information. There are lots of reasons why studying and preserving endangered languages are…
Birth of a Theorem by Cedric Villani
Rating: 7.4/10. Memoir by Fields medalist Cedric Villani describing the process of discovering a mathematical proof. It’s inspiring that even for somebody as smart as him, math is difficult and he doesn’t always know what he’s doing. However, he does a poor job of explaining the math — his expositions are way too technical, aimed…
Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan
Rating: 8.5/10. This is a memoir by a 24 year old girl who developed a rare neurological disease, called “Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis”. It’s rare enough that initially, all the doctors were unable to correctly diagnose the disease, instead thinking she had bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Her condition worsened and she became psychotic, until they identified…
Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Rating: 8.2/10. Why is the city of Nogales, Arizona so much richer than Nogales, Sonora, when they’re only separated by a fence? This book explains why some countries like Canada are so much better off than Mexico, and most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are struggling to survive. According to this book, the crucial difference is…