This blog is run by one person, and I can only discuss and review a tiny, idiosyncratic selection of books. To provide a wider perspective, I’m including a feed from Book Riot, a site that covers a wide array of books, news, and trends.
No Logo by Naomi Klein My rating: 5 of 5 stars I like to read or reread works from earlier eras, especially anything from the 1960s to the 90s that covers social and cultural issues. In this case, I read No Logo shortly after it was released and decided to revisit it. No Logo was …
Marcus Collins straddles the worlds of marketing and academia, as the head of strategy at Wieden + Kennedy while also a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan. In For The Culture, he shares a combination of scholarship and personal insights based on his experiences. You can read For The Culture as someone …
You Can’t Joke About That: Why Everything Is Funny, Nothing Is Sacred, and We’re All in This Together by Kat Timpf My rating: 5 of 5 stars I was not familiar with Kat Timpf before listening to this audiobook. That’s not really significant or surprising, as she’s best known as a Fox commentator and I …
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin My rating: 5 of 5 stars Although Rick Rubin is a famous music producer, called “the most important producer of the last 20 years,” I came to this book knowing little about him. I’m certainly a music fan but I’ve managed to live many decades …
The Content Trap by Bharat Anand My rating: 5 of 5 stars Everyone discusses the importance of “content” today, which often refers to online content such as articles, blog posts, videos, etc. In The Content Trap, Bharat Anand is using the term more broadly, to include all types of products and services. The essence of …
The Death and Life of Great American Cities 60 Years Later It may seem strange to review a book, especially nonfiction, written over a half-century ago. The topics covered by Jane Jacobs (1916-2006), however, are just as relevant today as when she started covering them in the mid-20th century. In that respect, I find reading …
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is a fascinating look at a lifestyle that’s gotten quite a bit more common in recent years but that most people are still ignorant of. Due to a stagnant and shrinking economy, more and more people have been …
The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America by Daniel J. Boorstin My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Image is a modern classic of sociology first published in 1961. Anyone reading it today will probably be struck by how Boorstin identifies trends that are so prevalent today -especially the way society is fixated on …
The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present by Chris Gosden My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is an ambitious, scholarly, and fair-minded look at a fascinating, broad, and contentious topic. Magic, of course, in this context, refers not to illusion or stage magic but to the …
I did both a podcast and a written review of this novel, mostly the same content. Outside Looking In by T. Coraghessan Boyle My rating: 4 of 5 stars Outside Looking In, by T.C. Boyle is a novel about the early days of LSD experimentation in Basel, Switzerland and upstate, New York. Boyle, like any …
