Blog

A detective story set in the Bay Area featuring a protagonist who fronts a Barry Manilow cover band. Pretty good.

A tart little book about punctuation.

A neurologist explores the connections between emotion and rationality. Well argued and generally eye-opening, though sometimes a bit dry.

Pointed and well-written essays on evolution, religion, and other subjects.

An engrossing novel set in the French court during the Hundred Years War.

Howe and Strauss profile the Millenial Generation, those people born after 1982, and predict their lives will be more similar to those of the Greatest Generation than those of the immediately preceding generations (13th, Boomer, and Silent).

Schlosser researches three components of America’s underground economy: marijuana, migrant labor, and pornography. Darned fascinating.

A chronicle of the different forms of American snobbery, including food snobbery, education snobbery, political snobbery, and reverse snobbery. Very entertaining.

This short volume presents a capsule history of Islam’s reaction to the West and modernity over the course of Islam’s history, and tries to answer the question of why Islam has fared so poorly in the bargain. It’s an interesting and informative read, but it leaves a definitive answer as a task for the reader.