Happy 2023! An old friend recently asked me to help her make a reading list for the new year. She reflected on how easy it is to spend hours reading daily, especially online, only to get to the end of the day and realize almost every word of it was ephemeral. She wondered, what if she just read 20 pages of something worthy every day? By the end of the year, no matter how much time she wasted online, she’d have at least finished a couple of dozen books she’d always meant to read.
Don't mean to self promote, but this great list of books sets it up nicely. I recently launched an app called CommonPlace (link to follow) that enables readers to save their favorite quotes and annotations and post to a reddit / twitter style platform to interact with other readers (apple.co/3Cgs4YV). Would love for people on this substack to post their favorite passages from erudite books.
It's only available for iPhones right now but a website should be live in February and hopefully an android app by March. Goodreads is a pretty terrible product and only covers book reviews, we are trying to be the centralized community for people to discuss the contents and ideas of book. The idea came from reading 'After Virtue' by Alasdair MacIntyre. We would find specific paragraphs that seemed really important but I had a hard time finding targeted commentary without going to rogue blogs.
It can also be leveraged to host digital book clubs, bible studies, and classrooms. Reach out if you have any questions by emailing me at admin@commonplaceapp.com. Cheers and happy New Year!
Humor me -- suppose we measure daily reading in time rather than pages (in part because one often reads on the kindle where “page” size is adjusted to the user’s preferences, so not apples-to-apples with print). What’s a reasonable goal per day in minutes or hours? Assume the reader has a full time job, a family and ADHD.
Since you recommend book about Byzantium, may I ask you what do you think about F. I. Uspensky "History of the Byzantine Empire" trilogy? Have you read it?
1) I tried to find “Saxons, Vikings and Celts” by Bryan Sykes on kindle, but could only find “Blood of the Isles”. Is this the same book with a different title? The subject matter appears to be the same.
2) Assuming it is the same, does the genetics still hold up, or is it out of date? Early on the book says that ancestors of Europeans were hunter gatherers, not middle eastern farmers who moved in later. That is at odds with the HG/Anatolian Farmer/Steppe mix that I understand is the latest evidence based on your writings Razib.
I really liked Cavalli-Sforza, but I'm told the genomic revolution has left his work out of date. If you had to pick one book as a modern History and Geography of Human Genes, what would you recommend?
You continue to think that The Horse, the Wheel, and Language is worthwhile despite the genetic discoveries that show a lot more was going on (e. g. the killing of the majority of autochthonous males). Why do you think its value endures?
What’s the best modern genomics book? I found Who We Are... extremely dense and hard to read.
David Wootton’s The Invention of Science was a great book and I think you’d love it. A super example of what the best kind of classical & generalist education can do for deep historical enquiry. Fun to read but very conceptually coherent.
I was surprised to see The Nurture Assumption & Blank Slate on your not-yet-read list. Maybe they're too basic for someone who regularly reads scientific papers directly and doesn't need a popularization of research
Don't mean to self promote, but this great list of books sets it up nicely. I recently launched an app called CommonPlace (link to follow) that enables readers to save their favorite quotes and annotations and post to a reddit / twitter style platform to interact with other readers (apple.co/3Cgs4YV). Would love for people on this substack to post their favorite passages from erudite books.
It's only available for iPhones right now but a website should be live in February and hopefully an android app by March. Goodreads is a pretty terrible product and only covers book reviews, we are trying to be the centralized community for people to discuss the contents and ideas of book. The idea came from reading 'After Virtue' by Alasdair MacIntyre. We would find specific paragraphs that seemed really important but I had a hard time finding targeted commentary without going to rogue blogs.
It can also be leveraged to host digital book clubs, bible studies, and classrooms. Reach out if you have any questions by emailing me at admin@commonplaceapp.com. Cheers and happy New Year!
Personal favorite is Charles Taylor's 'Ethics of Authenticity' as a sequel to 'The Closing of the American Mind'
Enjoyed this book recommendation list, thanks.
Humor me -- suppose we measure daily reading in time rather than pages (in part because one often reads on the kindle where “page” size is adjusted to the user’s preferences, so not apples-to-apples with print). What’s a reasonable goal per day in minutes or hours? Assume the reader has a full time job, a family and ADHD.
Since you recommend book about Byzantium, may I ask you what do you think about F. I. Uspensky "History of the Byzantine Empire" trilogy? Have you read it?
Fantastic list, thanks.
Two questions if I may:
1) I tried to find “Saxons, Vikings and Celts” by Bryan Sykes on kindle, but could only find “Blood of the Isles”. Is this the same book with a different title? The subject matter appears to be the same.
2) Assuming it is the same, does the genetics still hold up, or is it out of date? Early on the book says that ancestors of Europeans were hunter gatherers, not middle eastern farmers who moved in later. That is at odds with the HG/Anatolian Farmer/Steppe mix that I understand is the latest evidence based on your writings Razib.
I really liked Cavalli-Sforza, but I'm told the genomic revolution has left his work out of date. If you had to pick one book as a modern History and Geography of Human Genes, what would you recommend?
Do you recommend reading the books in a list in the order in which they’re listed?
Love these lists. Have you read The River Kings by Cat Jarman? She talks a lot about gene research and how it ties into new ideas about the Vikings.
Have you read all of these?
You continue to think that The Horse, the Wheel, and Language is worthwhile despite the genetic discoveries that show a lot more was going on (e. g. the killing of the majority of autochthonous males). Why do you think its value endures?
What’s the best modern genomics book? I found Who We Are... extremely dense and hard to read.
David Wootton’s The Invention of Science was a great book and I think you’d love it. A super example of what the best kind of classical & generalist education can do for deep historical enquiry. Fun to read but very conceptually coherent.
I was surprised to see The Nurture Assumption & Blank Slate on your not-yet-read list. Maybe they're too basic for someone who regularly reads scientific papers directly and doesn't need a popularization of research