El Deafo
{5/5} “Just like Bruce Wayne uses all that crazy technology to turn himself into Batman on TV… I can use my own crazy technology — the phonic ear — to turn myself into a superhero, too! My power? Super hearing!” El Deafo by Cece Bell, published in 2014 Cece becomes deaf as a young child […]
Nonfiction books
Here’s an update to this list. Best of the best Last Chance to See… by Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams The Roving Mind by Isaac Asimov (%) El Deafo by Cece Bell Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh 1984: Spring – […]
Hyperbole and a Half
{5/5} “As soon as you became aware that eating huge amounts of salt is really, really, uncomfortably salty, you should have stopped eating salt. That’s the solution. The solution is not to begin eating pepper to cancel out the salt.” — from a letter to her 4-year-old self Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate situations, flawed […]
The Age of Wood
{5/5} “Wood has actually played a central role in our history. It is the one material that has provided continuity in our long evolutionary and cultural story, from apes moving about the forest, through spear-throwing hunter-gatherers and ax-wielding farmers to roof-building carpenters and paper reading scholars.” The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and […]
Nonfiction books
Here’s an update to this list. Best of the best Last Chance to See… by Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams The Roving Mind by Isaac Asimov (%) 1984: Spring – A Choice of Futures by Arthur C. Clarke The Ancestor’s Tale by […]
The Story of More
{5/5} “If we can refrain from overestimating our likelihood of failure, then neither must we underestimate our capacity for success.” The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here by Hope Jahren, published in 2020 Jahren uses her birth year of 1969 as a marker to compare how […]
Nonfiction books
Here’s an update to this list. Best of the best Last Chance to See… – Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big – Scott Adams The Roving Mind – Isaac Asimov (%) 1984: Spring – A Choice of Futures – Arthur C. Clarke The Ancestor’s Tale – […]
Word by Word
{5/5} “Lexicographers spend a lifetime swimming through the English language in a way that no one else does; the very nature of lexicography demands it. English is a beautiful, bewildering language, and the deeper you dive into it, the more effort it takes to come up to the surface for air.” Word by Word: The […]
The Invisibility of Success
{5/5} “When things work, the forces that make them work are invisible.” The Invisibility of Success and Other Investigations by Daniel Quinn, published in 2014 This is a collection of essays and talks Quinn gave over a period of several years. Here are some highlights, with direct quotations: On civilizations that disappeared, like the Maya […]
Nonfiction books
Here’s an update to this list. Best of the best Last Chance to See… – Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big – Scott Adams The Roving Mind – Isaac Asimov (%) 1984: Spring – A Choice of Futures – Arthur C. Clarke The Ancestor’s Tale – […]