W. White

Excellent course

Revisado: 04-20-25

Shermer helpfully arms us to see through conspiracy theories without our having to throw caution to the winds. Though conspiracy theories are about threats, some real, & some not & some indeterminate, we also get to see the very real threats that the theories themselves can present. I learned a lot from Schermer’s open-minded reporting. I anticipate that you will be well-served as an individual & as a citizen by accessing this work.

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Better Chess

Revisado: 04-18-25

The authors did a great job of educating the reader to think more deeply about an evolutionary perspective & need to adapt to society as it evolves. For everything there is a season, a time for regulations & a time to set aside regulations. That insight alone was well worth the time spent listening. I finished the book sobered as I had to give up a few of my own sacred cows along the way due to the authors’ effectively presenting their evidence, but I also finished listening with a sense of possibility for the future, a touch of optimism so needed in these trying times. Highly recommended. Will make you think.

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Balanced, inspiring, important, eye-opening

Revisado: 10-06-24

RBR has insightfully written & enthusiastically narrated a moving call for all of us to orient or reorient ourselves towards the common good rather than winning or profiting in the short run at any cost. He calls out those in that latter immediate gratification category irrespective of political party, with plenty of red AND blue examples. At the end of the book he uses quotes & examples to reinforce the importance of our education in supporting democracy & an equitable landscape for us all. Robert Reich is clearly, to my eye, an excellent educator, & I truly hope anyone willing to be further educated will give this book a listen. In doing so, I see you as taking one more fateful step towards orienting towards the common good. I find doing so is contagious. I think you’ll find that this way of being in the world is not only good for us all, but in longer term good for you as well. Reich nails it! So glad I invested time in this listen.

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About much more than AI

Revisado: 09-25-24

My 4th YNH read/listen, & though I’ve quite liked them all, I think this one is the most important to widely disseminate. Each of the 4 major sections is like a book in itself & individually worth the price of admission. This book is a strong reminder of how much we need thoughtful historians like YNH to make sense of an ever more complicated world. Highly recommended.

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Brilliant Analysis

Revisado: 08-01-24

Dr. Richardson does an excellent job of allowing us to see current events & situations through the lens of history, which makes it much more interesting and also, hopefully, will make it more receptive to change for the better. The professor truly is a first class educator & what we need more of in this world is education. Highly recommended.

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Profound but lighthearted

Revisado: 02-19-24

I have probably read half a dozen Zen Buddhist books by Brad Warner, and I must say that I have loved every one of them. Each one seems to take me a little deeper even though I’m not reading them in any sort of chronological order. Just finished my second listen of The Other Side of … and found I enjoyed it even more than the first listen. For me, these books are more like an engaging experience than just reading a book. Highly recommended. 

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OK but couple of sketchy references

Revisado: 01-01-22

Overall helpful series of nutritional snippets but disappointed he didn’t fully vet Daniel Amen before including his quotes. Adolescent humor & very conversational writing style, but it mostly worked, & Shawn was able to pull it off.

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Trilogy w/thematic unity but each is unique

Revisado: 12-12-21

I read Sapiens, Homo Deus, & 21 Lessons in quick succession within a week, so compelling was the material. Derek Perkins’ narration is stellar. Just as feathers, invented for warmth, were repurposed for flight, YNH revisits some similar ideas in each book, but rather than feeling redundant, to my eye, he used them to expand & interweave the complexities, giving me a deeper understanding. Though each of his three books stand well alone, and are not dependent on each other, the asynchronous orchestral afterglow of the ideas & questions of all three books is poignant, pleasant & unsettling. I hope his work continues to gain a wider and wider audience. So if possible, please read all three. If I could choose one only, I’d probably choose 21 lessons, not because it’s necessarily the best, though it may be, but because it contains more of the internodal essence of his thinking. As for the best order, I only know how I experienced the work, in published sequence, but I imagine that all six possible sequences could work well. Why? Flash back 2500 years to Chuang Tzu’s use of “goblet words” that “evoke” new thinking, & having read one or another of Harari’s other books, I have changed, and the resulting evocation of the words in the next book will be different yet again. Now that I’ve digested all 3 with Audible, I’ve bought them in paper to have another go to see what else I can learn. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. These three books call us to examine our world, our history, & the implications of a deeper understanding of that history in projecting our future, & I was especially moved by 21 Lessons’ last chapter call for us to embark on the interoceptive road to the oxymoronic self-discovery that there is no self, wherein narration is no substitute for experience. Also there’s a short Q&A in the back of the paperback which is quite good, though I don’t recollect it in the Audible version. In summary, the book is fully 5 stars, & my experience in reading/listening was a solid ten.

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Maybe good for his “faithful”

Revisado: 07-26-21

I found myself much less impressed with his sophomoric “epiphanies“ then he is himself, & very much with himself. Maybe his style of laughing at his own jokes works in a face-to-face seminar, but in the quiet of my car listening, it felt intrusive and “over the top.“ Canfield’s intro doesn’t ring true either. Too bad this was a waste of time after half a dozen Audible real winners in a row.

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Science affirming, soul refreshing

Revisado: 07-28-20

Tim Desmond’s work here really delivers, tough & humbled. Touched me while slipping powerful lessons past my mental gatekeepers. Worth many times the price of admission.

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