Hey folks,
Keen to add to my list of book recommendations. For me personally, but for a list I want to share on the site, too.
Right now my To Read pile includes Chernobyl by Serhil Plokhy, The Battle for the Falklands by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins, and Read Write Own by Chris Dixon.
Anyone else? 
Hell yeah, more books to add to my already overwhelming book list.
Currently reading Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson as I go through the list of novels I started but never finished. (Others include The faces by Tove Ditlevsen and The women in black by Madeleine St. John, which I loved.)
I just wrapped up Break It Down by Lydia Davis, which has an astonishingly high hit rate of being so good it annoyed me. Her use of language is just incredible.
My to read pile includes Nonviolence by Mark Kurlansky, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, A very easy death by Simone de Beauvoir, Capitalism and the death drive by Byung-Chul Han and Transformative experience by L. A. Paul.
These look excellent. Iāve read a Very Easy Death, itās great.
I think Iām most interested in Capitalism and the death drive.
Iām 80% through the very solid 700+ pages of The Earth Transformed: An Untold History by Peter Frankopan.
It scrupulously attempts to correlate shifts in climate and weather that can be verified and dated using and in ice-core samples and tree rings, radio carbon dating and available observations with historic events of floods, famine, plague and pestilence along with population movement and the rise and fall of civilisations around the globe.
Yes, maybe it sounds dry and depressing but itās well written by a good historian and shows history in a completely new context .
However, I just read the review below and realise that it doesnāt have a very happy ending
The Earth Transformed by Peter Frankopan review ā history through a different lens
Radical Honesty, by Brad Blanton
The Beginning of Infinity, by David Deutsch
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously, Osho
My Secret Garden, Nancy Friday (super off-topic)
The Almanack is a classic.
Three nonfiction books I enjoyed recently:
Havenāt read Chasing the Scream. Whatās the take? Iām assuming it cuts into the failure of the war itself?
It truly feels like itās become even more of a performance than ever.
I saw some data about how drug arrests are down even as Trump is ordering extra judicial strikes on boats he accuses of carrying contraband, because law enforcement are chasing immigration instead of narcotics.
Weird time to be alive.
Oliver Burkeman is great for anti-productivity productivity advice and making peace with imperfection and mortality. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals helped me put things in perspective and let go of the solutionism that dominates most self-help content. I always bring him up whenever someone suggests dreck like Atomic Habits. Iām working through his Meditations for Mortals now and can recommend it too.
āWhy I Deleted My Second Brainā in particular reminded me of Burkemanās approach to embracing human limitation and doing what actually matters rather than fixating on systems.
Iām at the first quarter mark or so, and at this point itās mostly that the war on drugs shouldnāt have been a thing at all:
Now weāve moved to the organized crime / āartifical violenceā created by outlawing drugs, and I believe Reagan and the actual āwar on drugs" chapters will come next. In the intro, the authors also tells us heāll take us to see some producers as well as officials in Portugal (where all drugs have recently been decriminalized), and Iām looking forward to this section particularly. Iāll report back when Iāve finished reading it!
Oh that caught my attention, thanks for the recommendation!
Postman was ahead of his time for sure. I often wonder what he would make of the current media environment. I guess itās not much different really, only āNowā¦ thisā occurs every couple of minutes (or seconds) rather than between longer segments.
Iāve had Technopoly on my reading list for a while, and I imagine it too might be more relevant now than ever.
I often wonder about that.
McLuhan too.
They sort of predicted where weād go. But I wonder if theyād still be surprised by it.
I just got around to watching the mortality timer video and saw that youāve already mentioned Burkeman. That makes sense. Iām not sure Iām sold on the timer, but I will give it a shot. As someone who struggles with existential anxiety, I donāt know if it will make the problem better or worse.
Any thoughts on dealing with anxiety around mortality? Not necessarily in a therapeutic context (though I have read some of Irvin Yalomās work and found it helpful), but maybe in a more practical way? Burkeman does a good job of putting things in perspective, yet that doesnāt exactly make it any easier to process the reality of nonexistence.
Iām also listening to Hubert Dreyfusās lectures on Heidegger. Being-toward-death and thrownness as fundamental conditions of existence provide a useful framework, but I still havenāt arrived at the parts about how to respond to those with resoluteness and authenticity. I donāt know if I have the time or willpower to try to get through all of Being and Time though*.*
I wrote a little something about mortality anxiety a while back as itās something Iāve struggled with. The short version: Plum Villageās guided meditation on impermanence helped a lot.
Repeating the core refrain of āEmbracing the impermanence of everything / Thanks to impermanence, everything is possibleā over and over again really got into my bones. Over time, it helped ā and it gave me something to go back to during anxiety spikes.
Thanks for this, I will try using a similar mantra when I notice Iām fixating on the idea of death. Iām lucky not to have the intrusive thoughts about how I will die, but the concept of non-existence still feels overwhelming, like looking down from a great height, making it hard to focus on anything else.
Iām sure regular meditation would be helpful here, but Iāve always found it challenging. I have mild OCPD, so I am constantly distracted by whether Iām ādoing it rightā when sitting, no matter which technique I employ.
Iāve always found the core message of Buddhism compelling though, especially as presented by Zen teachers. Iāve been a fan of Brad Warner and his somewhat unorthodox approach for some time, even if I donāt always agree with everything he has to say. I even briefly attended a local Shambhala group, although I didnāt agree with everything presented there either. I still find the talks given by Pema Chodron to be useful though.
I downloaded the Plum Village app and will try the other guided meditations there also. I havenāt read much of Thich Nhat Hanhās work, though he has been on my reading list for a while. Every time Iāve seen a brief clip or quote, it has resonated with me.
Thank you again for sharing.
This is a great line by the way: āItās been dishwashers from there on out. Wonāt live in a house without one.ā
āThere are many wonderful concepts and ideals, but if they donāt become who we are, they can be the most fiendish burdens. Understanding something intellectually is not enough; sometimes it is worse than not understanding at all.ā
This is also really valuable and neatly sums up something Iāve been struggling with for most of my life.
Thank you for the recommendation. I enjoy that type of book.
The book I have been reading is Luke Kempās āGoliathās Curse - The History & Future of Societal Collapseā. A fascinating look at humanity.
This is a topic Iām personally very interested in but I highly recommend Revolutionary Taiwan.
Taiwan has a rich and interesting history thatās always worth knowing more about but given the increasing potential for conflict in the Taiwan Strait and the global ramifications of that I do think itās a good idea for people to have a better understanding of what is at the center of those geopolitical tensions because Iāve found that while many take a strong position on Taiwan they often misunderstand it, partly because it does have a complex history thatās difficult to unpack, but mostly because they hold an ideological position when it comes to the US vs China and seemingly donāt even bother trying to understand Taiwan and this muddies the entire discourse around the topic.
Iāve read many books about Taiwan and this one is great at explaining its complex history and politics in a way thatās very clear and readable. The co-author is Taiwanese as well and I think itās important to hear more from a Taiwanese perspective since they typically get talked over by those that want to make a point in competing pro-China and US narratives