I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter

I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is a little uneven but it has three basic ideas: 1) the relative size of souls from small mosquitoes all the way to the most compassionate, selfless humans, and 2) the ability to share one's soul closely in great detail or largely in a general way, 3) consciousness arises from conscience.

Leaving aside the issue of animals for the purpose of this review I believe in the equal treatment and honor of all humans as the basis for good and my conception of goodness itself or God. On the flip side, sociopathic cruelty towards any human is evil and I am not open to relativism. In other words, I completely reject #1 and embrace #3.

The book itself feels like it jumps from these three topics sometimes accompanied with logic puzzles or personal stories without actually persuasively tying these topics together. It wasn't a bad read though, it definitely gets your brain going and introduces some new things to think about.

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The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman

The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was interested in this book mainly because of the title. I thought it would be a sociological exploration of the concept of childhood and how it's changed. The first half of this short book was mostly that but then it was mostly about television dumbing down the world. In part, due to its short length, it wasn't enough of an exploration of anything. It was an okay read though.

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Win Bigly by Scott Adams

Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter by Scott Adams
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

The thesis of this book is that Trump is a master persuader. Let's grant him this even though he has only persuaded 30% of the US population and no world leaders. I suppose he was more persuasive than the other (too many) Republican primary candidates. The concept that he was more persuasive than Hillary Clinton is low grade ridiculous since she persuaded 3 million more people than Trump.

Here's another central proposition in this book: that Trump is not incompetent. See Adams wrote this at the beginning of the administration when that was even moderately believable. Shutting down the pandemic response, and increasing covid deaths in the US say otherwise.

Also he claims that Trump is often "directionally" correct but operates in the realm of hyperbole. But he's not "directionally" correct. And Adams claiming Trump is "directionally" correct is ridiculous levels of bias in favor of Trump no matter how many times Adams says it is not.

Another main theme is that Scott Adams is so smart. He doesn't even understand the most basic concepts about racism. Of course, a racist can hug a black person or kiss a black baby. What utter nonsense. Adams claims he was able to predict elements of the 2016 election accurately! But again, reading this in 2020, you can see that Hillary Clinton is still healthy, Donald Trump has come out in support of white supremacists repeatedly and it was the election of Trump, that erupted in violence in the US. The idea that Trump supporters are not violent and Clinton supporters is divorced from reality. Adams will of course disregard facts in favor of emotions. Possibly because Adams gets everything wrong.

Surprise surprise, Adams is also a climate denier in that he feels that scientists could be in a mass delusion which is just not how science works. Yes, sometimes scientists are wrong but the point is to follow the experiments and analysis and studies until there is something that contradicts it. After decades, there isn't much doubt left about climate science.

Here are some Trump strategies:
1) Refocusing your energy on what he wants to discuss even if he's claiming something crazy. You want the critics to scream so you get attention on what you want.

2) "Setting the table" You can negotiate down from your crazy stance to a more moderate position where you are the winner. (Not at all what Trump has done - he's insisted on the crazy stance.)

3) Continue to repeat the big lie after they've been completely debunked. Adams didn't phrase it like this because he thinks comparisons to Nazis are hyperbole. Or maybe Adams is wrong again.

At a certain point, I started wondering if Adams is mentally ill as he has delusions of grandeur and thinks he can predict the future. I'm not kidding.

This book gets 1 star for making the world a worse place than if Adams had not written it.

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Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

While Gladwell makes some interesting points and connections which deserve attention and action particularly in policing, I think he has too much sympathy for the devil in general. There is no mention for example of how police feel they deserve complete respect or to what extent they feel comfortable abusing their (basically unlimited power). Furthermore, there is no discussion about how racism, both conscious and subconscious, causes white people to expect complete respect from black people, even when they have no cause to expect or merit such perfect and high respect. And the deadly consequences of both such mindsets especially in combination. Trying to explain the Sandra Bland tragedy without more than an allusion to those issues is completely unbalanced.

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Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison

Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating by Christy Harrison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

On the one hand, yes, (1) I see all her social justice points. Very well done. (2) I agree with the culture being a diet-culture complete mess. (3) I agree it helps the diet industry. (4) I agree it's a life-thief. I'm definitely glad I read the book.

On the other hand, (1) I'm not 100% convinced about the health benefits or drawbacks to her position. Even if I take her point that the research is unclear, well, it's still unclear. When I was pregnant with my first child I was very heavy and that was no fun at all. It was tough going up the stairs. I don't relish ever returning to that number on the scale because it had consequences even though I was "healthy" because my body was doing what it was supposed to be doing- growing a human life and building up fat to feed the baby. (2) My personal experience with long periods of intuitive eating is that I just gain and gain weight and never plateau. I don't think I'm alone in this. (3) My only periods of weight maintenance have been while I am dieting. And my current diet doesn't benefit the diet industry because while I don't deny myself any foods I do try to eat more fruits and veggies and eat in a certain time frame. It doesn't cost more money because eating less food and less food at restaurants is costing me less money. Finally, (4) let's not pretend that her position doesn't benefit the food industry. As a former employee of the food industry, this is the exact kind of book they would love to champion. For an obvious example, soda is trash food. Sure you can have it as an occasional treat; nothing really needs to be off the menu. But if you're having soda every day, I promise you that's harming your health. There are a million studies about this.

Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1HI1...

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Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man by Mary L. Trump
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is mostly about the Trump family more than Donald Trump specifically. Definitely interesting and terribly sad- mostly for all the people the Trump family ripped off. Of course, saddest of all is the 160,000 dead Americans and counting.

The final section where she opines on the Trump presidency is skippable, as it just an obvious statement of what a complete failure and human tragedy his presidency has been.

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Why We Can't Sleep by Ada Calhoun

Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a much better read than say Lean In, because the author has actually read books about feminism. I especially enjoyed the focus on Generation X because we are forever ignored. Seriously both Generation X and the Millenials have had a much tougher economy to deal with than Boomers, and the world seems almost completely dominated by the Silent Generation and Boomers.

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Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed learning about the research that Gladwell used in this book, and with Gladwell's particular story-telling. I was already familiar with some but not all of the research, and of course, I already believed that we are not all self-made but usually largely dependent on our environments. That said, there was something a cognitively dissonant about including the 10000-hour rule in a book about how the most successful are typically not all self-made.

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Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Todd Gilbert

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Todd Gilbert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I remember reading an article about this book that made such a big impression on me that I mentioned it to Kevin on our first date in 2006. (We have now been married 10 years.) The article: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/ma... In fact, I think I said something like, "I don't believe in happiness." I guess I'm lucky he didn't get up and immediately sprint out. Haha. It's definitely interesting though it's been so successful throughout the years that I was aware of many of the studies already.

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The Honest Truth About Dishonesty by Dan Ariely

The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves by Dan Ariely
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

On the pro side, some of these influences are important to know about in one's personal life and in legal and policy work. On the con side, this book is pretty repetitive if you've read Ariely's other books as I have. Additionally, though I'm aware that this is all based on studies, the lack of actual moral or spiritual perspective in the book is disappointing. Compare for example Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis or The Righteous Mind.

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David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazing first chapter and some interesting ideas that were somewhat supported but overall not a tightly-argued or edited book. First chapter is worth rereading any time you need inspiration.

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The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The interesting part of this book for me is that computers and the internet have changed how we think and how we write. I'm in a strange age group in that I both owned a typewriter as a kid and wrote a few grade school reports by hand, but mostly wrote reports for school on computers, and was already teaching myself html in college. I thought the difference that writing by hand, on the typewriter, or on the computer makes on the style of the writing is particularly interesting since Jennifer Egan says that she drafted the first version of all her novels by hand.

The book seemed a bit disorganized for me though. And it felt insufficiently researched or fleshed out especially in the science section.

I think I have a particularly strange perspective because I only began to read in such a large quantity specifically because as someone with no job or car from 2016-2018, I could get free ebooks and audiobooks from my library. I think since then, my transformation as a reader has been akin to a second college education. I've read about 200 books a year since 2016, including this year, for a total of over 800 books in 4 years. Many of those books were some serious literary tomes- such as the Bible and Moby Dick. So it's easy for me to dismiss the overwrought idea that the internet has made me unable to read serious books and concentrate on them when it's precisely the internet that has increased my reading and understanding of the world.

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Dollars and Sense by Dan Ariely

Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter by Dan Ariely
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a better book if you haven't already read a ton of behavioral economics. For me, it was a compilation of a lot of effects I'd already read about (for example in Ariely's Predictably Irrational). This book would be great for people who don't know that much about behavioral economics who are interested in personal finance.

I was also uncomfortable with the way the authors veered into territory that was somewhat morality- based without a holistic view of the issue. I fear economics often makes this mistake, but to my mind, behavioral economics is more sophisticated and shouldn't make this error. We've rejected the idea that humans make the most rational economic decisions. We've also learned that morality can be very closely tied to empathy and other emotional systems. So I didn't find the section on "fairness" to very sophisticated with regards to current economics, psychology, biology, or ethics research. Sure, you should pay the locksmith his rate for the reasons stated in this book, but I disagree that you shouldn't battle large companies like Netflix or Uber when they do something you consider unfair- and certainly when they do unethical things.

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Why Diets Make Us Fat by Sandra Aamodt

Why Diets Make Us Fat: The Unintended Consequences of Our Obsession with Weight Loss by Sandra Aamodt
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This strikes me as an irresponsible title and first few chapters. The author has clearly looked at a lot of weight studies, though she’s often drawn aggressive conclusions that all diets make you gain weight. Some of the diets aren’t even diets but actual periods of starvation that caused food-related psychological issues.

As the author herself states, there are numerous reasons why people gain weight, not just as the first few chapters suggest, the actual act of dieting. By Chapter 9, she’s listing people who can’t lose weight through intuitive eating. By Chapter 10, she’s discussing how the food environment is itself a huge factor in causing weight gain.

She’s also underplayed the importance of achieving a lower weight- even temporarily- to lifespan.

Maybe start with Chapter 11, and read chapters 1-10 in backward order.


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The Scientific American Brave New Brain by Judith Horstman

The Scientific American Brave New Brain by Judith Horstman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is just a short popular-science book full of the basics of neuroscience and a lot predictions about the future based on early research and science fiction imagination. Nothing amazing here, but a pleasant quick read.

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The Social Animal by David Brooks

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement by David Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The beginning was really good. It was a compilation of the science of human thinking and culture with a hypothetical couple as a storytelling vehicle. But at the end, there were a lot of Brooks's own political views without enough research cited. Frequently Brooks made policy assumptions or cited correlations with no clear explanation of why he was assuming causation. Correlation is not causation! Say it ten times before bed every night!

5 stars for the beginning and end, 2 stars for the word vomit in the politics section.

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Reviving Ophelia 25th Anniversary Edition by Mary Pipher

Reviving Ophelia 25th Anniversary Edition: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read the 2019 anniversary edition and I imagine it's a lot better than the original because it could compare and contrast the problems of young girls in different decades: the 1990s (when I was a teen) and the early 2000s. Though I thought the book was interesting, it was made up predominantly of personal stories and seemed to lack more rigorous science. For example, I never understood precisely what about the culture made girls in the 1990s such a mess that somehow lost its influence in the early 2000s.

Occasionally, the author writes something that makes her seem like a space alien that didn't have anyone proofread the book like for example when she suggested you should never have more than two drinks in a day. Parties?

I thought chapter 13 had some of the most useful information in terms of sparking conversation with children about sexual activity. I also enjoyed the heavy Nebraska focus.

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Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Still Alice by Lisa Genova
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I appreciated the way this took me inside the life and experiences of someone going through something so different, and those experiences were so unexpected and real.

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The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain by Barbara Strauch

The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind by Barbara Strauch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was interested in the section that claimed that older adults are more easily distractable. I wonder about what causes this with children, adults, and myself. This book has other little nuggets of interesting science but despite its short length, it was full of filler anecdotes and contradictory information. While I found it interesting and entertaining, it's not sufficiently scientifically vigorous that I'd recommend it to others.

I read this because it was one of my dad's books, but because it came out in 2010, the year he died, I'm not sure he actually read it. It's just as well because he didn't have much of an opportunity to revel in his middle-aged wisdom.

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Wasted by Marya Hornbacher

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Riveting memoir with very interesting insights into family, psychology, loneliness, and life in general. Kindle and Goodreads tell me that I highlighted 49 sentences or passages, which should give you an idea of how much I valued this writing. A lot of people are overly focused on the fact that the memoir is about the author's struggle with anorexia, but to me, the part I valued most was the author's honest and brilliantly written struggle with despair, depression, and just life itself. It is a bit lopsided because she discusses her pseudo-recoveries after her first two hospitalizations but not after the third, but perhaps her next memoir, which I plan to read, covers that more.

As I said, I highlighted many sentences in the memoir, but this one is so me, haha: "I was my parents' only child, which is unfortunate because you are their pride and joy and the bane of their existence all at once."

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