You Don’t Know Js: This & Object Prototypes by Kyle Simpson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A very nice explanation of this-binding and prototype delegation in Javascript. This cleared up a lot of the arcana of Javascript’s object system for me.
Author: dave
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A marvelous history of a terrible disease.
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Review: A Confederacy of Dunces
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This novel certainly has its moments. Only the main character is truly fleshed out, but he’s such a singular creation you have to admire the effort.
Madness in Civilization: The Cultural History of Insanity by Andrew Scull
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A history of how civilization has viewed and dealt with the mentally ill in its midst. It is not a proud history. The seriously mentally ill do not seem to be much better off in 2015 than they were in any preceding century.
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Review: Scope and Closures
Scope and Closures by Kyle Simpson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a great little book. This might be the first Javascript book I’ve managed to finish without having my eyes glaze over from the tedium. Modern technical books tend to lean far too much on how-to examples and not enough time on deeper explanations. This book focuses on one particular aspect of the language, scope rules and closures, and explains it in depth. The author understands how important well-crafted analogies and mental models are for achieving genuine understanding.
The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West by Mark Lilla
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A history of the debate (putting it very mildly) in the West on the proper role of religion in politics. Lilla uses the Great Separation to name the period, beginning with Hobbes, in which the idea that religion and politics should be separate began to take shape and recounts the different thinkers who advanced this idea that eventually came to be the default assumption in the West. But, as Lilla shows, this idea was never inevitable and is not now irreversible. The “Stillborn” in the title refers to an early 20th century attempt by liberal thinkers and theologians in Germany to bring politics and religion back together. Though it never took hold and was swept away by the events of the second world war, it demonstrates how a religiously-infused politics will always be a “live” idea.
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Review: Clojure Programming
Clojure Programming by Chas Emerick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a very good reference to Clojure, I can recommend it for anyone wanting to learn the language. I like a lot of the ideas in Clojure and it’s well worth learning the basics just to be introduced to them. Ultimately, I found I just didn’t find the language as compelling as some others I’ve learned recently like Erlang and Go, which seem to require a smaller mental model to work in.
Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A lovely sequence of short but dense meditations on the deeper significance of selected English words. Very rewarding, but best read slowly.
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Review: Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon
Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Oddly reminiscent of The Tender Bar this collection of sort-of-sci-fi stories from Amazing is pretty entertaining and has spots of very good writing. It tends to descend into the cornball a little too much for my taste.
Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy by Eri Hotta
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The extraordinary story of the blind stumble of Japan’s government and military into its disastrous war with the US during World War II. I had no idea how easily this could have been averted, and how many people at the top of Japan’s leadership were aware of the likely disastrous outcome. A fascinating and tragic account of institutional and collective decision making gone horribly wrong.