I’m deep into reading on the evolution of the welfare state/social policy and the origins of progressive politics. If you are wondering why these haven’t appeared on the site’s book section… I haven’t thrown any of them up but hope to eventually. Too many books, too little time. That said, if anyone has suggested readings on those topics please, please, please post, or send me, your thoughts, titles, ISBN #s, rants, raves, etc… the more the merrier.
I also want to thank to Beltzner for suggesting that book reviews appear on a scale (e.g. “5 out of 10” as opposed to just “5”). I’ve edited the php code so that it now does this.
Speaking of book reviews, they’ve been getting a ton of hits so thought I’d put them front a centre for once. Below are some of the books I’ve read over the past few months that I have managed to write reviews for. To be fair most are positive, but then it’s hard to keep reading books that I find boring or uninteresting. Moreover, since I’m not being paid to finish the book and write a review, those that aren’t good tend to drop off the radar… it is, admittedly, a somewhat Darwinian process.
- Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Anthony D. Williams
- Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity by Lawrence Lessig
- The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod
- Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson
- Fast Food Nation: the Dark Side of the All-American Meal (audiobook) by Eric Schlosser
- Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age by Paul Graham
- Sorry, I Don’t Speak French: Confronting the Canadian Crisis That Won’t Go Away by Graham Fraser
- A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Oh yeah, and here are a couple of books I really liked, but didn’t write reviews for…
eaves.ca 