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Recently Read Books
January 03rd, 2021
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As part of the beginning of the new year, I wanted to try to get better about
writing little notes about some of the books that I've read recently.  I'm not
a particularly voracious reader anymore, but I still manage to find time to
bounce around some books every couple of months.

Here is a very short list of some not-reviews of books that I've recently read:

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"The Death of the Necromancer" by Martha Wells [0]

I really enjoyed this book.
It reminded me of a more refined version of the Gentleman Bastard series of
books by Scott Lynch [1] -- set in a pseudo-Victorian area with a combination
of then-technology and magic.  Think steampunk without the emphasis on steam.
I am finding that I really enjoy these types of settings in fantasy fiction
that combine a mixture of 17-19th century settings with magic.

The descriptions are beautiful, the characters are alive, and the focus on an
anti-hero as the protaganist of the story makes this book feel like it was
recently written then it actually was.  I'd recommend this if you enjoy fantasy
fiction, especially fiction with a mix of action and mystery.

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"The Evolution of Everyday Things" by Henry Petroski [2]
"The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman [3]

I've talked about these before in my previous post, so I won't spend much on
them here.  They're both similar, though Petroski's book obviously focuses more
on how common items (for the 1990s) have evolved over time whereas the Norman
book focuses on how humans and design intersect.

The Petroski book is really good for a skim.  I found his explanations
long-winded (I found that he is incredibly repetitive in his arguments, but I
don't know the context of the audience he is writing to) but the gist is really
facinating.  I "finished" this book but only after skimming most of each
chapter.

The Norman book is more accessible, but does drill down deeper into design than
the Petroski book.  It's another book that I'd recommend a skim to see if
there's anything that sparks some interest first before digging in deep.  I
found a lot of the surface arguments about how design can fail people to be
enough to keep me happy, though admittedly I've spent some considerable amount
of time over the past few years consuming other design-related content (such as
podcasts) so I knew some of the arguments presented in this book.

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"The Righteous Mind:Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by
Jonathan Haidt [4]

This is one of those non-fiction books that I tell everyone I meet to read.
The arguments it presents for understanding the spectrum between liberal and
conservative have become a permanent lense through which I've been viewing the
world, especially the context that I find myself in now as a person from the
United States.

Haidt goes out of his way to describe why we need a balance of thinking across
the political ideological spectrum and demonstrates the dangers of how ruinous
one way of thinking can be detrimental to society.

I could easily write an essay on this book, so I won't to keep brevity here.
If you've ever wondered how someone with a completely different political point
of view can believe in the things that they do, then you should read this book
to develop a greater level of compassion and understanding for them.


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[0] - https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-death-of-the-necromancer_martha-wells/323466/#edition=2378080&idiq=666276
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Lynch#Gentleman_Bastards
[2] - https://archive.org/details/pdfy--rXmwRDB5uzq5MmU/page/n1/mode/2up
[3] - https://www.biblio.com/9780385267748
[4] - https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-righteous-mind-why-good-people-are-divided-by-politics-and-religion_jonathan-haidt/256175/#edition=7003082&idiq=10241557