SubscribeConfessions of an Economic Hitman
I don’t recall at what point I became aware of John Perkin’s tell-all exposé on the seedy underworld of global politics, but while the idea was intriguing, it sounded a bit too exaggerated for my tastes, and I left it well enough alone. Finally, I could not resist the temptation to read this tome [...]
The Guinea Pig Diaries
I became a fan of A.J. Jacobs when I read his debut book, The Know-It-All. The idea of reading the entire encyclopedia was a bit preposterous, but overshadowed by the sheer joy of trivia; I never really thought of it as an experiment per se. Things changed a bit with The Year [...]
Perfect Rigor
I still remember reading for the first time about Grisha Perelman’s solution to the Poincaré Conjecture on Slashdot back in 2004. I knew nothing about the Poincaré Conjecture other than it was famous—one of those big question marks in mathematics like Fermat’s Last Theorem—and therefore big news.
What generated even more press than the solution [...]
Last Words
Last Words took about 17 years to write. As the story goes, Carlin commissioned it in 1993 with Tony Hendra, but it wasn’t until Carlin died in 2008 that Hendra finally pulled together all of his recorded conversations, notes, and other materials and cranked out the more or less definitive semiautobiography of George Carlin, [...]
Fire in the Grove
Standard social studies fare more most high school students is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which horrifically and succinctly summarizes the excesses of the industrial age that eventually led to novels like The Jungle and the creation of institutions of governmental oversight. For those who don’t know or have forgotten the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, [...]
Where Men Win Glory
There was a time—ever so briefly—when Pat Tillman dominated the news cycle. Actually, there were two times: one, when the football semi-star joined the military and become a posterboy for patriotism and self-sacrifice, and another when he died via friendly fire, becoming yet another It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World story [...]
Recent Comments
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Nice review, Ben. I actually hadn’t heard of this book, but I might have to look for it. True SF...
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If you mean the current, theme, I can’t take the credit for that. It’s Renegade, by...
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I’ve just stumbled upon your site and wanted to tell you how great I think your...
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just found out about the other book myself, waiting for it to be delivered. i dont blame you for...
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It’s interesting that the filmmakers (or the screenwriter) made the decision to approach the...
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