⭐⭐ Daily Rituals by Currey
| Full Title | Daily Rituals: How Artists Work |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mason Currey |
| Year Published | 2013 |
| Date Read | July 21, 2021 |
| Rating | 2/5 stars |
I had high hopes for this book as I had seen it recommended a few times on Hacker News. It was a disappointment. The author introduces the book by saying he originally started collecting these insights via a blog, with very short posts. Unfortunately, the book is essentially just that — there’s nothing other than a raw description, always only a few paragraphs long per artist. I was hoping for a more curated kind of approach, or even one that would weave together a few similar styles into a narrative. Not so.
I also found it disappointing that each artist was given a singular explanation of their specific working style. I don’t know anyone who’s approach has stayed the same throughout their life. Potentially this was limited by the sources the author was able to find, though.
Not recommended, maybe OK as a coffee table book you read in small chunks.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway
| Full Title | The Sun Also Rises |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ernest Hemingway |
| Year Published | 1957 |
| Date Read | July 16, 2021 |
| Rating | 5/5 stars |
Great writing style. The perfect book to read while traveling.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Guest List by Foley
| Full Title | The Guest List |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lucy Foley |
| Year Published | 2020 |
| Date Read | July 10, 2021 |
| Rating | 4/5 stars |
Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. I don’t typically read books in the mystery genre but this was pretty enjoyable; it really ramps up in the last half/third. Keeps you guessing until the end, though I didn’t find the ultimate responsible party all that shocking / satisfying. Some too-fortuitous coincidences that challenged my suspension of reality.
⭐⭐ 12 Rules for Life by Peterson
| Full Title | 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jordan B. Peterson |
| Year Published | 2018 |
| Date Read | May 31, 2021 |
| Rating | 2/5 stars |
Listened to about 42%. Can’t say I came away too impressed — while I found myself agreeing with most of the rules themselves, I didn’t consider Peterson’s discussion of them particularly illuminating. He uses significant passages from the Bible to give some flavor to his proposals, but the bulk of this content is orthogonal to his theses and generally far too long-winded. Perhaps others can get most of the value from this book simply by reading the original 42 rules as posted by the author himself a few years ago.
⭐⭐ Lifespan by Sinclair
| Full Title | Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don’t Have To |
|---|---|
| Authors | David A. Sinclair |
| Year Published | 2019 |
| Date Read | April 03, 2021 |
| Rating | 2/5 stars |
Listened to just over half. I got tired after hearing the nth description of a research result about SIR2 or mTOR — interesting to find out about, but ultimately I have no conceptualization of how these proteins fit into a broader story so it’s hard to really grok what’s being explained.
Overall though I thought there were a few interesting ideas. One is that we should start seeing aging as a disease similar to any other; it sounds like a few countries are starting to do so but the idea was mostly new to me. Two is that much of this research is way early — there were a bunch of research results on mice or tapeworms, but the best Sinclair could do in terms of humans were anecdotes of his friends or family. It’s great that his 70-year-old father started feeling better after supplementation, but that should be very far from a recommendation for people generally to start using NMN. I felt like there was also a willful conflation here of some results in non-humans — a paper
might come out about fruit flies, and Sinclair would cite it as “that result in humans would mean 20 years of extra life”; feels a little deceiving to me.
The final piece that I’d like to follow up on is the link between longevity and stress, particularly around hunger and thermoregulation. The book didn’t focus too much on it, but from the sound of it there are actually human trials on this stuff with potentially interesting results.
Probably would not recommend other than to folks that are already interested in longevity assisted by exogenous supplementation.
⭐⭐⭐ Seeing Like a State by Scott
| Full Title | Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed |
|---|---|
| Authors | James C. Scott |
| Year Published | 1999 |
| Date Read | March 25, 2021 |
| Rating | 3/5 stars |
There were some cool ideas here but for some reason I just couldn’t get into it — stopped after 27%. Maybe worth revisiting at some point.