Book reviews
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On animals that speak, including humans.
Tom Wolfe & Noam Chomsky both claim that no other animals are capable of anything like human speech … while scientists are finally learning to listen.
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On clarity, Matthew Zapruder’s “Why Poetry,” and reading Bruce Weigl.
We should strive for clarity, out of love for those willing to listen.
abuse, Billy Collins, blaming victims, Blast Furnace, Bloomington, Bruce Weigl, childhood, clarity, drug abuse, drug use, honesty, honesty in writing, Introduction to Poetry, jail, mass incarceration, Matthew Zapruder, memory, metaphor, Monroe County Jail, New Leaf New Life, poems, poetry, prison, psychiatry, psychology, PTSD, rape, recovery dorm, rehab, rehabilitation, repressed memories, say it clearly and you make it beautiful, sexual abuse, Spotlight, symbolism, The Impossible, Tom McCarthy, trauma, Why Poetry, writing
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On Daniel Handler’s “All the Dirty Parts”
Heartbreak hurts. Reading will help. And mayhaps Daniel Handler’s “All the Dirty Parts” is a book kids will actually want to read.
All the Dirty Parts, cyanide, Daniel Handler, dating, English class, erotica, Ethan Frome, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Heartbreak, high school, In Search of Lost Time, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Love in the Time of Cholera, Marcel Proust, organic synthesis, pornography, relationships, sex, sex ed, The Magus, unrequited love, Within a Budding Grove
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On ethics and Luke Dittrich’s “Patient H.M.”
When scientists act unethically, it undermines trust in science … which breaks my heart, since the scientific method is awesome.
A Story of Memory Madness and Family Secrets, Arieh Warshel, biochemistry, brain surgery, cell biology, data, enzymology, epilepsy, ethics, fraud, GCC185, graduate school, human experimentation, immunofluorescence, ketosteroid isomerase, KSI, lobotomy, Luke Dittrich, medial temporal lobe, membrane trafficking, memory, MIT, MPR, Patient H.M., primary data, psychosurgery, publish or perish, reproducibility crisis, research, research ethics, RhoBTB3, science, scientific method, shredding files, Stanford, Suzanne Corkin
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On Edward Dolnick’s ‘The Seeds of Life’ and artificial wombs.
Among the smooth guardian frogs of Borneo, females croon to the males, attempting to woo a mate. This is abnormal for frogs: usually females are serenaded. But males of this species are the most devoted parents – they guard the fertilized eggs and carry tadpoles from pond to pond after they hatch. Whereas the females…
creator gods, Drona, Edward Dolnick, Egyptian mythology, evolution, feminism, Hindu mythology, Indian mythology, mate choice, mating practices, mythology, myths, parental effort, paterogenesis, pregnancy, semen, smooth guardian frogs, The Seeds of Life, unilateral reproduction, Wendy Doniger, Women Androgynes and Other Mythical Beasts
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On the Silk Road, Nick Bilton’s ‘American Kingpin,’ and the difference between being clever and being wise.
If someone is clever enough to build a billion-dollar website, should that person also get to decide who lives or dies?
addiction, American Kingpin, anarchist, anarchy, barter, clever, commissary, Dread Pirate Roberts, FBI, H, heroin, honey buns, intelligence, jail, jail bartering, jail economy, kinesthetic learners, libertarian, libertarianism, Nick Bilton, opiates, prison, property rights, Ross Ulbricht, spoons, The Silk Road, types of intelligence, Ulbricht, Variety Jones, violence, War on Drugs, wisdom, withdrawal
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On Finn Murphy’s “The Long Haul” and our dying towns
U.S. economic inequality has caused much of the country to crumble … but the devastation won’t *stay* where it started.
A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road, addiction, ambulance fees, automation, Bloomington, capitalism, college town, drug addiction, drug use, drugs, Empire State, fentanyl, Finn Murphy, Flying J, free markets, government intervention, guaranteed basic income, heartless in the heartland, heroin, highways, homelessness, hospitalization, Indiana, inequality, Jason Shiga, marijuana, meth, meth labs, methamphetamine, opiates, overdose, poverty, property rights, public works program, Robert Reich, Saving Capitalism, seeing America, shooting up, spice, synthetic marijuana, The Long Haul, traveling by bus, unemployment, unhoused
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On idle time, coincidence, and Vivek Shanbhag’s ‘Ghachar Ghochar.’
An idle mind often reads supernatural portent into every coincidence.
45, Annie Jacobsen, atheists in foxholes, author as God, CIA, coincidence, conspiracy, conspiracy theory, curse, Donald Trump, foreshadowing, fraud, germination of supernatural belief, Ghachar Ghochar, hewn stone, idle, idle mind, jubilee, lost car keys, Magic, numerology, Phenomena, PotUS, precognition, prophecy, Puharich, science, speculation, Srinath Perur, statistical manipulation, statistical significance, supernatural, Trump, Vivek Shanbhag, wealth
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On Alvaro Enrigue’s ‘Sudden Death,’ translation, and the power of narrative control.
Translators control our experience of stories; those who control stories, control the world.
Alvaro Enrigue, Aztec, conquest, conquistadors, Cortes, fall of the Aztecs, Geronimo de Aguilar, Hernan Cortes, history of Mexico, history of tennis, Hungary, Malinali Tenepatl, Maya, Natasha Wimmer, octopus literature, Ralph Robinson, Robert Adams, Roma, Stanford, Sudden Death, teaching English, tennis, Thomas More, Translation, underage drinking, Utopia, violence, xingar
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On the Tower of Babel and beneficial curses.
Kind-hearted citizens of the United States needed to be saved from our own complacency.
45, Abdelfattah Kilito, attorney general, Avigdor Shinan, Babel, Babylon, Benjamin Lee Whorf, Bible, climate change, climate destabilization, complacency, congress, cooperation, Cugel the Clever, curse, democrat, Democratic Party, diversity, Donald Trump, education, Elif Batuman, English, Eyes of the Overworld, From Gods to God, Gate of the Gods, Gateway to Heaven, global warming, God, God’s Gate, health care, health care reform, Heisenberg, Ismael, Jack Vance, language, linguistics, mass incarceration, monoculture, Old Testament, personal responbility, perspective, politics, PotUS, President, Quran, republican, Robyn Creswell, sentencing reform, tax code, tax cut, Thai, The Idiot, The Tongue of Adam, tongue, Tower of Babel, Trump, Turkish, uncertainty principle, Valerie Zakovitch, Whorf hypothesis, Yahweh, Yair Zakovitch
Frank Brown Cloud 