Earlier quoted context omitted.
Affiliate links? Like, Bill Gates gets some money when you click through his blog? Please tel me I'm misunderstanding.
No, another commenter posted links but slapped affiliate tags on them.
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The Best Books I Read in 2015
51–60 of 157 posts
Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015
#52Anyone who refers to David Brooks as "the insightful New York Times columnist" has lost me as a reader. I can't remember the last time he had an original, or even accurate, thought. http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/i-dont-think-david-brooks-i... Here are two good books: * The Korean War: A History - Little known fact: The US took the wrong side in the Korean War by putting the former officers of the Japanese imperial…
I skimmed your article and I'm now convinced that Albert Burneko is a mean person. That was about 3479 words of ad hominem. I have to respect such persistence. But I have no opinion on David Brooks.
I don't think it's entirely ad-hominem. This is actually a fairly accurate description of his output:
"...He has been a reliable producer of out-of-touch, tissue-thin pronouncements on the perils of our secularized, technologized 21st century lives, virtually all of which rightly can be interpreted as passive-aggressive nostalgia for what Family Circus comics told him “outdoors” might have been like when he was a kid. You could just about set your calendar by it: In a month of Brooks, you’d get the call to begin or continue a war with Iraq or Iran, the grasping attempt to paint some cretinous Senator or presidential hopeful as the intellectual heir to Edmund Burke, and then, at last, the decline-and-fall column. You’d see a headline like “The Slow Virtues” or “The Hollow Century” or “Why the Teens Are Despicable,” and you’d know ol’ Dave’s coffee shop was out of plain croissants a week ago and the barista had a nose-ring and he’d decided he’d witnessed the death of the Western moral tradition."
Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Goodreads top books list is just a popularity contest. People vote for the books they recognize.
Not to mention that Amazon acquired Goodreads in 2013. The integration makes the Amazon "best of" more likely to be aligned with Goodreads.
Do you have any evidence of that, or are you just saying 'of course Amazon must have done something'? I use goodreads and haven't noticed any changes that would cause that.
Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015
#54Did anyone read the books he recommended last year? Were they worthwhile?
I dunno, but I've read some of the books from this year's list and I liked them. Especially Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, although I think it was a bit longer than it needed to be. It's a high value book, but I got most of the value from the first chapter.
Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015
#55Anyone who refers to David Brooks as "the insightful New York Times columnist" has lost me as a reader. I can't remember the last time he had an original, or even accurate, thought. http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/i-dont-think-david-brooks-i... Here are two good books: * The Korean War: A History - Little known fact: The US took the wrong side in the Korean War by putting the former officers of the Japanese imperial…
His strength is in political philosophy/history. There was a point when he strayed into pop-science-type inquiries about human behavior, that relied a lot on generous leaps of logic. I think that was where he got the most of his bad reputation.
But, his writings on conservative political philosophy is insightful, if not original (not something I care about personally). His old-school Burkean conservatism gives him an internally consistent, rational framework from which to critique or support the current GOP, from the center-right. It doesn't always work, but worth the read nonetheless, imo.
And, like Gates, I like his extension of that political framework as a critique of our current ideals and values.
Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015
#56I'm always sad that lists like this from tech people never contain any fiction. I have often seen the sentiment that everything you read should have some kind of educational value or it's just a waste of time. Does Bill Gates not read fiction? Perhaps he understands that he would be looked down on if he were to include some in his list.
I feel like I can get my fix of fiction via TV and movies which is probably close to one hundred hours per month, perhaps more. More fiction is not what I need right now. I suspect most people's media consumption follows mine. Books are great for learning while TV/movies are great for storytelling. Yes, I understand the benefits of the novel, but its value proposition for me from a time perspective is very poor, especially since the standard length of the novel is a lot of filler to meet commercial expectations (I'm not paying fifteen bucks for 120 pages!). Most fiction books I've read can easily be edited down to novella length and lose next to nothing of substance.
Conversely, My wife consumes nothing but fiction. I find that pretty sad honestly.
Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015
#57Anyone who refers to David Brooks as "the insightful New York Times columnist" has lost me as a reader. I can't remember the last time he had an original, or even accurate, thought. http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/i-dont-think-david-brooks-i... Here are two good books: * The Korean War: A History - Little known fact: The US took the wrong side in the Korean War by putting the former officers of the Japanese imperial…
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Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015
#58"Waking up: A guide to spirituality without religion" by neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris. Don't be so quick to dismiss it please, give it a try. It's not mysticism.
Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I skimmed your article and I'm now convinced that Albert Burneko is a mean person. That was about 3479 words of ad hominem. I have to respect such persistence. But I have no opinion on David Brooks.
I don't think it's entirely ad-hominem. This is actually a fairly accurate description of his output: "...He has been a reliable producer of out-of-touch, tissue-thin pronouncements on the perils of our secularized, technologized 21st century lives, virtually all of which rightly can be interpreted as passive-aggressive nostalgia for what Family Circus comics told him “outdoors” might have been like when he was a kid…
He also describes himself as a third wave feminist, and was an early advocate of the conservative argument for gay marriage.
Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015
#60I'm always sad that lists like this from tech people never contain any fiction. I have often seen the sentiment that everything you read should have some kind of educational value or it's just a waste of time. Does Bill Gates not read fiction? Perhaps he understands that he would be looked down on if he were to include some in his list.
You show follow John Carmack[0] or Elon Musk[1] on twitter. They keep making my sci fi queue grow (John more so than Elon though).