This is the January 2025 ballot for our next round of reading. By February 20, please send Chris Boyd your completed ballot.
Below are the nominations listed alphabetically, neglecting “The”, with descriptions. We had 5 carryover nominations from last election and 31 new nominations for a total of 36 nominations. Thanks for all your nominations!
I would like to take the top 12 for our new list and have 5 carryovers, giving all books a little better chance. The book list includes page counts and publication dates at the bottom of each listing. The ballot is below the book list with directions. Please fill it out, cut and paste to email, and send to me by February 20. Please mail ballots to me directly only, and not to the group.
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference, by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor.
AI is everywhere—and few things are surrounded by so much hype, misinformation, and misunderstanding. In AI Snake Oil, computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor cut through the confusion to give you an essential understanding of how AI works and why it often doesn’t, where it might be useful or harmful, and when you should suspect that companies are using AI hype to sell AI snake oil—products that don’t work, and probably never will. Pub 2024 pg 357
Anaximander: And the Birth of Science, by Carlo Rovelli.
Over two millennia ago, the prescient insights of Anaximander paved the way for cosmology, physics, geography, meteorology, and biology, setting in motion a new way of seeing the world that universal laws govern all phenomena. He introduced a new mode of rational thinking with an openness to uncertainty and the progress of knowledge. Rovelli examines Anaximander as a scientist interested in the deep nature of scientific thinking, which Rovelli locates in the critical and rebellious ability to reimagine the world again and again. Anaximander celebrates the radical lack of certainty that defines the scientific quest for knowledge. Pub 2023 272 pg
The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck, by David Spiegelhalter.
The Art of Uncertainty is an invitation to the reader to consider its essential message: learning to love the unknown by staying present in the moment. If the difficulties of recent years have taught us anything-particularly those who "did everything right" and still saw it all fall apart-it's that none of us has as much control over our lives as we believe. The only thing we can control is our next thought. Living in the I don't know and loving it is an art form we can all master, and The Art of Uncertainty is the perfect guidebook. Pub 2011 pg.306
The Captive Mind, by Czeslaw Milosz.
The best known prose work by the winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right. A central text in the modern effort to understand totalitarianism. --The New York Times Book Review "As timely today as when it was written."--Jerzy Kosinski Pub 1990 pg 272
The Catalyst, by Thomas R. Cech.
In a series of breathtaking discoveries, the biochemist Thomas R. Cech and a diverse cast of brilliant scientists have revealed that RNA—long overlooked as the passive servant of DNA—sits at the center of biology’s greatest mysteries: How did life begin? What makes us human? Why do we get sick and grow old? In The Catalyst, Cech finally brings together years of research to demonstrate that RNA is the true key to understanding life on Earth, from its very origins to our future in the twenty-first century. Pub 2024, pg 289.
Catastrophe Ethics, by Travis Rieder.
In a world of often confusing and terrifying global problems, how should we make choices in our everyday lives? Does anything on the individual level really make a difference? In Catastrophe Ethics, Travis Rieder tackles the moral philosophy puzzles that bedevil us. He explores vital ethical concepts from history and today and offers new ways to think about the “right” thing to do when the challenges we face are larger and more complex than ever before. Pub 2024 pg.336
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, by Ethan Mollick.
After millions of years on our own, humans had developed a kind of co-intelligence that could augment, or even replace, human thinking. Mollick challenges us to utilize AI's enormous power without losing our identity, to learn from it without being misled, and to harness its gifts to create a better human future. Wide ranging, hugely thought provoking, optimistic, and lucid, Co-Intelligence reveals the promise and power of this new era. Pub 2024 pg. 253
The Coming Wave, by Mustafa Suleyman.
Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organize your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy. None of us are prepared. As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the center of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies. Pub 2023 pg.358
Engineering in Plain Sight, by Grady Hillhouse.
Each section of this accessible, informative book features colorful illustrations revealing the fascinating details of how the human-made world works. An ideal road trip companion, this book offers a fresh perspective on the parts of the environment that often blend into the background. Readers will learn to identify characteristics of the electrical grid, roadways, railways, bridges, tunnels, waterways, and more. Engineering in Plain Sight inspires curiosity, interest, and engagement in how the infrastructure around us is designed and constructed. Pub 2022 pg 264
The Extinction of Experience: Being Human In A Disembodied World, by Christine Rosen.
In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control. To recover our humanity and come back to the real world, we must reclaim serendipity, community, patience, and risk Pub 2024 pg. 258
The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, by Virginia Postrel.
The story of humanity is the story of textiles—as old as civilization itself. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo’s David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code. Pub 2020 pg.321
Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters, by Brian Klaas.
In Fluke, myth-shattering social scientist Brian Klaas takes a deep-dive into the phenomenon of random chance and the chaos it can sow, taking aim at most people’s neat and tidy version of reality. Has the evolution of humans been inevitable, or are we simply the product of a series of freak accidents? Klaas provides a brilliantly fresh look at why things happen—all while providing mind-bending lessons on how we can live smarter, be happier, and lead more fulfilling lives. Pub 2024 pg. 336
From Sensing to Sentience: How Feeling Emerges from the Brain, by Todd E. Feinberg.
Emergent properties are broadly defined as features of a complex system that are not present in the parts of a system when they are considered in isolation but may emerge as a system feature of those parts and their interactions. Viewing sentience as an emergent process can explain both its neurobiological basis as well its perplexing personal nature, thus solving the historical philosophical problem of the apparent “explanatory gap” between the brain and experience. Pub 2024 pg 216
A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend them Back, by Bruce Schneier.
Bruce Schneier takes hacking out of the world of computing and uses it to analyze the systems that underpin our society. For those who would don the “white hat,” we can understand the hacking mindset and rebuild our economic, political, and legal systems to counter those who would exploit our society. And we can harness artificial intelligence to improve existing systems, predict and defend against hacks, and realize a more equitable world. Pub 2023 pg. 298
Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, by Jamil Zaki.
Cynical thinking deepens social problems: when we expect the worst in people, we often bring it out of them. We don’t have to remain stuck in this cynicism trap. Through science and storytelling, Jamil Zaki imparts the secret for beating back cynicism: hopeful skepticism, thinking critically about people and our problems, while honoring and encouraging our strengths. Far from being naïve, hopeful skepticism is a precise way of understanding others that can rebalance our view of human nature and help us build the world we truly want. Pub 2024 pg.270
How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II, by Phillips Payson O'Brien.
World War II is usually seen as a titanic land battle, decided by mass armies, most importantly those on the Eastern Front.. The author shows how the Allies developed a predominance of air and sea power which put unbearable pressure on Germany and Japan's entire war-fighting machine from Europe and the Mediterranean to the Pacific. Battles such as El Alamein, Stalingrad and Kursk did not win World War II; air and sea power did. Pub 2019 pg 462.
Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFO’s, by Luis Alezondo.
Luis “Lue” Elizondo is a former senior intelligence official and special agent who was recruited into a strange and highly sensitive US government program to investigate UAP. To accomplish his mission, Elizondo had to rely on decades of experience gained working some of America’s most classified programs. Even then, he was not prepared for what he would learn, including the truth about the government’s long shadowy involvement in UAP investigations, and the lengths officials would take to keep it a secret. Pub 2024 pg 300.
Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life, by Shigehiro Oishi.
In recent years, Shige Oishi's award-winning work has proposed a third dimension to a good life: psychological richness, a concept that prioritizes curiosity, exploration, and a variety of experiences that help us grow as people. He explores the shortcomings of happiness and meaning as guides to a good life, pointing to complacency and regret as a "happiness trap" and narrowness and misplaced loyalty as a “meaning trap.” Psychological richness, Oishi proposes, balances the other two, offering insight and growth spurred by embracing uncertainty and challenges. Pub 2025 pg. 256
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, by Zoe Schlanger.
What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is. Pub 2024 pg. 298
Love and Math, by Edward Frankel.
Considered by many to be a Grand Unified Theory of mathematics, the Langlands Program enables researchers to translate findings from one field to another so that they can solve problems, such as Fermat's last theorem, that had seemed intractable before. At its core, Love and Math is a story about accessing a new way of thinking, which can enrich our lives and empower us to better understand the world and our place in it. It is an invitation to discover the magic hidden universe of mathematics. Pub 2014 pg.304
Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future, by Ed Conway.
Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. They built our world, and they will transform our future. These are the six most crucial substances in human history. They took us from the Dark Ages to the present day. They power our computers and phones, build our homes and offices, and create life-saving medicines. As we wrestle with climate change, energy crises and the threat of new global conflict, Conway shows why these substances matter more than ever before, and how the hidden battle to control them will shape our geopolitical future. Pub 2023 p.491
Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks From The Stone Age To AI, by Yuval Noah Harari.
Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence. Pub 2024 pg.425
Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet, by Hannah Richie.
This "eye-opening and essential" book (Bill Gates) will transform how you see our biggest environmental problems—and explains how we can solve them. Not the End of the World will give you the tools to understand our current crisis and make lifestyle changes that actually have an impact. Hannah cuts through the noise by outlining what works, what doesn’t, and what we urgently need to focus on so we can leave a sustainable planet for future generations. These problems are big. But they are solvable. We are not doomed. We can build a better future for everyone. Let’s turn that opportunity into reality. Pub 2024 pg. 311
Nudge: The Final Edition, by Richard R. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein.
The authors have rewritten the book from cover to cover, offering a wealth of new insights, for both its avowed fans and newcomers to the field, about a wide variety of issues that we face in our daily lives—COVID-19, health, personal finance, retirement savings, credit card debt, home mortgages, medical care, organ donation, climate change, and “sludge” (paperwork and other nuisances we don’t want, and that keep us from getting what we do want)—all while honoring one of the cardinal rules of nudging: make it fun! Pub 2021 pg. 384
Psych: The Story of the Human Mind, by Paul Bloom.
Bloom reveals what psychology can tell us about the most pressing moral and political issues of our time—including belief in conspiracy theories, the role of genes in explaining human differences, and the nature of prejudice and hatred. Bloom also shows how psychology can give us practical insights into important issues—from the treatment of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety to the best way to lead happy and fulfilling lives. Psych is an engrossing guide to the most important topic there is: it is the story of us. Pub 2023 pg. 464
Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, by Malcalm Gladwell.
Through a series of riveting stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering. He takes us to the streets of Los Angeles to meet the world’s most successful bank robbers, rediscovers a forgotten television show from the 1970s that changed the world, visits the site of a historic experiment on a tiny cul-de-sac in northern California, and offers an alternate history of two of the biggest epidemics of our day: COVID and the opioid crisis. With his characteristic mix of storytelling and social science, he offers a guide to making sense of the contagions of the modern world. It’s time we took tipping points seriously Pub 2024 pg 346
The Science of Systems: A Unified View of Nature's Patterns, by David Shugar.
The Science of Systems provides a unified approach to study all types of natural patterns and implores readers to embrace a worldview centered on connection and complexity. Complex systems challenge the view that nature can be understood as separate and predictable parts. This interdisciplinary work studies underlying principles in logical systems. Patterns that are given particular attention include equilibrium, flux, symmetry, fractals, chaos, information, self-organization, and emergence. The book is adorned with hundreds of figures to vividly illustrate these patterns observed in nature. Pub 2024 pg 243
The Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist's Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life, by Nathalie A. Cabrol.
Cabrol is a celebrated astrobiologist and the director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute He takes us on an odyssey by exploring how life began on Earth in order to understand what’s necessary for its existence elsewhere. While Mars and the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn are among the top contenders, with more than 300 million exoplanets in the habitable zone of their stars in the Milky Way alone, to think we are alone, or the only advanced intelligent civilization, may be little more than nonsense. Pub 2024 pg. 320
Source Code: My Beginnings, by Bill Gates.
Source Code is the human, personal story of how Bill Gates became who he is today: his childhood, his early passions and pursuits. It’s the story of his principled grandmother and ambitious parents, his first deep friendships and the sudden death of his best friend; of his struggles to fit in and his discovery of a world of coding and computers in the dawn of a new era; of embarking in his early teens on a path that took him from midnight escapades at a nearby computer center to his college dorm room, where he sparked a revolution that would change the world. Pub 2025 pg 336
Tales of the Quantum: Understanding Physics' Most Fundamental Theory, by Art Hobson,
This is a book about quanta and their unexpected, some would say peculiar, behavior--tales, if you will, of the quantum. This book explains those habits--the quantum rules--in everyday language, without mathematics or unnecessary technicalities. Everybody has heard that we live in a world made of atoms. But everything, including atoms, is made of highly unified or "coherent" bundles of energy called "quanta" that (like everything else) obey certain rules, "quantum physics." Pub 2017 pg 304
Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts, by Annie Duke (daughter of Mensan linquist, author, and speaker, Richard Lederer).
The key to long-term success (and avoiding worrying yourself to death) is to think in bets: How sure am I? What are the possible ways things could turn out? What decision has the highest odds of success? Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time? Or is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making? Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. Pub 2018 pg. 288
The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life, by Nick Lane.
For two and a half billion years, from the very origins of life, single-celled organisms such as bacteria evolved without changing their basic form. Then, on just one occasion in four billion years, they made the jump to complexity. All complex life, from mushrooms to man, shares puzzling features, such as sex, which are unknown in bacteria. Lane’s hypothesis draws on cutting-edge research into the link between energy and cell biology, in order to deliver a compelling account of evolution from the very origins of life to the emergence of multicellular organisms, while offering deep insights into our own lives and deaths. Pub 2015 pg.369
Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean, by Matt Strassler.
A theoretical physicist takes readers on an awe-inspiring journey—found in "no other book" (Science)—to discover how the universe generates everything from nothing at all: "If you want to know what's really going on in the realms of relativity and particle physics, read this book" (Sean Carroll). Much like water and air, empty space ripples in various ways, and we ourselves, made from its ripples, can move through space as effortlessly as waves crossing an ocean, deftly weaving together daily experience and fundamental physics. Pub 2024 pg.387
Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East, by Amanda H. Podany.
In this sweeping history of the ancient Near East, Amanda Podany takes readers on a gripping journey from the creation of the world's first cities to the conquests of Alexander the Great. The book is built around the life stories of many ancient men and women, from kings, priestesses, and merchants to brickmakers, musicians, and weavers. Their habits of daily life, beliefs, triumphs, and crises, and the changes that people faced over time are explored through their own written words and the buildings, cities, and empires in which they lived Pub 2022 pg. 543.
White Holes, by Carlo Rovelli.
Let us journey, with beloved physicist Carlo Rovelli, into the heart of a black hole. We slip beyond its horizon and tumble down this crack in the universe. As we plunge, we see geometry fold. Time and space pull and stretch. And finally, at the black hole’s core, space and time dissolve, and a white hole is born. Rovelli writes just as compellingly about the work of a scientist as he does the marvels of the universe. Guiding us beyond the horizon, he invites us to experience the fever and the disquiet of science—and the strange and startling life of a white hole Pub 2023 pg. 176
Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters, by Charan Ranganath.
A new understanding of memory is emerging from the latest scientific research. Pioneering neuroscientist and psychologist Charan Ranganath radically reframes the way we think about the everyday act of remembering. He reveals the surprising ways our brains record the past and how we use that information to understand who we are in the present, and to imagine and plan for the future. When we understand memory power-- and its quirks--we can cut through the clutter and remember the things we want to remember. We can make freer choices and plan a happier future. Pub 2024 pg. 288