List: genre:nonfiction

This review is for Ursula K. le Guin's rendition of the Tao Te Ching. It's not exactly a translation (she didn't know Chinese) – she compared a bunch of translations and consulted experts, but also wrote poetry and what seemed right to her.

Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict

by Tsultrim Allione · published 2008 · read 2020-05-24

Feeding Your Demons is woo. It introduces a meditation technique that is rooted in Buddhism and was adapted by the author (a once-Buddhist-nun, now American coach) to a Western audience. The author's voice is a bit grating and, as is requir

The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone

by Steven Sloman · published 2017 · read 2020-01-03

I finally finished The Knowledge Illusion. The five stars here are given despite the writing: It annoyed me a lot, but the thoughts in the book are important enough that they changed my thinking on some issues, so five stars are appropria

Leisure: The Basis of Culture

by Josef Pieper · published 1948 · read 2020-05-24

This book is A Lot. It's a Christian philosopher arguing for the value of Tao, that is, work-transcending leisure.

Die dampfenden Hälse der Pferde im Turm von Babel

by Franz Fühmann · published 1978 · read 2000-03-01

Five stars mean a book changed my life. This book changed my life several times, and I'm not sure it's done with me yet. It's about language. It's about philosophy. It's about linguistics. It's about playing with language, and it's about he

Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel

by Frances Gies, Joseph Gies · published 1994 · read 2021-08-01

Officially my new favourite history book: I'm in love with Frances and Joseph Gies showing off the technology and technological development of the Middle Ages. The book is dense and doesn't coddle the reader, and, as many of their works, is

The Inner Game of Tennis

by W. Timothy Gallwey · published 1974 · read 2020-03-31

I hadn't expected a Zen book, but here we are. This book is short and to the point, and presents a couple of very good takes on not-just-tennis. It applies at the very least to every physical activity and anything that works like a compet

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth

by Chris Hadfield · published 2013 · read 2018-08-26

This book is just nice reading in every regard. You'll learn something about space. You'll learn about NASA and interntional space agency relations. You'll learn about Chris Hadfield's life on earth and in space. It's a peculiar mix of his

Existential Kink

by Carolyn Elliott · published 2020 · read 2020-07-17

First off, a caveat: I do not recommend this book, and I can't say that it was a particularly good book. The five-star rating is due to the fact that it was tremendously helpful to me personally, and was the right book at the right time.

Never Split the Difference

by Chris Voss · published 2016 · read 2021-02-08

Negotiations and bargaining explained by an FBI hostage negotiator – unsurprisingly a book where the show-off anecdotes are gripping. But beneath the standard self-help structure (bits of information sandwiched by ~~boasts~~ stories), there

Die Tante Jolesch

by Friedrich Torberg · published 1975 · read 2008-01-01

Kaffeehauskultur. Tales of the Austrian in-group.

A Little Book on the Human Shadow

by Robert Bly · published 1988 · read 2020-10-09

On a whim, I read A Little Book on the Human Shadow. It's very short, and it felt very much worth my time.

Weaving Fate

by Aidan Wachter · published 2020 · read 2021-01-06

Weaving Fate is a woo book. The author believes in magic and assumes you do, too. I found this strangely refreshing, to be honest, and it made it easy to separate out the useful stuff, for my intents and purposes.

Berlins Drittes Geschlecht

by Magnus Hirschfeld · published 1904 · read 2020-08-12

Berlin's Third Gender (Berlins drittes Geschlecht) by Dr Magnus Hirschfeld is a description of queer lives in Berlin around 1900 (published 1905). Even though it's naturally sad in some ways, it's also encouraging: Berlin was comparatively

The Victorian Internet

by Tom Standage · published 1998 · read 2019-05-24

My first non-fiction book in quite some time, The Victorian Internet is a nice introduction into the rise and fall of the electrical telegraph, and all its implications. Tom Standage shows us in an easy, meandering style how the world

Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration

by Bryan Caplan · published 2019 · read 2019-12-12

I can't really judge the content, not being an economist. But the presentation was very well done: The arguments were clear, with good rhethoric lines and arc, and the illustrations were good, too. There was a fair bit of stereotyping going

The Customer Service Survival Kit: What to Say to Defuse Even the Worst Customer Situations

by Richard S. Gallagher · published 2013 · read 2020-05-08

Really really good and helpful. This is a short book that is full of helpful rules (of-thumb of course) and anecdotes that further your understanding of how to deal with customers. The author has an understanding of why and how customer int

Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction

by Ian J. Deary · published 2001 · read 2020-05-09

Good example of science writing that is useful and accessible without dumbing things down beyond reason. I learnt some things and was surprised how much Ian Deary managed to fit into the slim book.

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed

by Eric H. Cline · published 2014 · read 2020-05-16

This book was a great overview of the wider mediterranean civilisations during the Bronze Age, with a short discussion of the so-called collapse towards the end. I went into it expecting a lot of content about the collapse itself, and the b

Descartes’ Error

by António R. Damásio · published 1994 · read 2020-04-18

Didn't hold much new information for me, because its contents have grown so accepted and foundational in the 25 years since publication. Nevertheless it provides a solid fundamental overview in a very readable way, despite also dealing in a

Talking about Machines

by Julian E. Orr · published 1996 · read 2022-02-17

This is technical anthropology, and it is thorough and much better than you'd expect from a potentially dry dissertation from 1990, described as an “underground classic among ethnographers of work”. The central thesis of the book is that

Forge Your Future with Open Source

by VM (Vicky) Brasseur · published 2018 · read 2019-09-20

Forge Your Future with Open Source by VM Brasseur was a book I started with incorrect expectations: I thought I was the target group, and it would explain different things from its actual content. Bummer.

Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century

by Shaun Cole · published 2000 · read 2020-02-18

This book is a treasure! It follows the history of gay men's dress from the days of Oscar Wilde to the 90s, and by necessity along the way explains the cultural changes in and around gay groups. It explains hidden and implicit cultural mea

SSH Mastery: OpenSSH, PuTTY, Tunnels and Keys

by Michael W. Lucas · published 2012 · read 2020-02-05

Well-written as usual. Teaches both implicit cultural knowledge and exciting obscure details in a structured, concise, and comprehensive way.

The Diary of a Young Girl

by Anne Frank · published 1947 · read 2003-04-01

Anne's diary was mandatory reading in school. Our edition included photos of Anne and her family. Contrasting Anne's story with the fact that there are six million of these stories – an unthinkable number to me, even now – made me despair o

Twilight of the Idols

by Friedrich Nietzsche · published 1888 · read 2020-05-25

Nietzsche – in this book, he is equally malevolent spirit, joyfully brilliant shitposter, and asshole. The full title is Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer (*Götzen-Dämmerung, oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philo

HTTP/3 explained

by Daniel Stenberg · published 2018 · read 2020-01-12

HTTP/3 Explained is a little free booklet by curl developer Daniel Stenberg explaining the principles and history behind HTTP/3. I liked the inclusion of recent history and explanation of discussions in the working groups. There is also som

Die Revolution Von 1918/19

by Volker Ullrich · published 2009 · read 2017-11-16

So viel au :( aber ein guter Überblick.

Bring Me the Rhinoceros

by John Tarrant · published 2004 · read 2020-06-21

I read this book after seeing it recommended on Twitter, and I'm glad I did. It's an introduction to Buddhist/Zen koans, with context and interpretative options supplied for each of the

Rewriting the Rules: An Integrative Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships

by Meg Barker · published 2012 · read 2019-10-05

Many if not most books on relationships out there are not good. Sometimes the author had a spot of luck and generalises. Sometimes it's just stuffed with common knowledge, or advice meant to make people feel in control. Of course, most of t

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

by Brené Brown · published 2012 · read 2019-10-01

Daring Greatly by Brené Brown is a book on vulnerability, and touches on many emotional and structural concepts that influence how we can or cannot be vulnerable in our current societes, such as hero worship, scarcity culture, disengageme

100 Ways to Improve Your Writing: Proven Professional Techniques for Writing Ith Style and Power

by Gary Provost · published 1985 · read 2019-09-21

100 Ways to Improve Your Writing by Gary Provost is from 1985 and has aged remarkably well. It's a set of rules, short and to the point. Some advice is dated and not relevant any longer – a couple of hints on how to acquire information an

The Economy of Cities

by Jane Jacobs · published 1969 · read 2021-07-25

This classic (pub. 1969) on city development was extremely accessible to read, particularly considering the ugh field that surrounds economics for me. Jacobs' main premise is that cities don't arise as a consequence of agricultural settleme

Lassen Sie es mich so sagen: Dombrowski deutet die Zeichen der Zeit

by Georg Schramm · published 2007 · read 2010-12-01

Schramm is much better on screen than his writing, but his writing is decent and readable.

How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live

by Missy Vineyard · published 2007 · read 2021-02-25

Everything I knew about the Alexander Technique came from cultural osmosis and Michael Ashcroft's tweets. Now I know more: It's about taking care of your body (posture, harmful patterns, pain and age) by ta

The Manual: A Philosopher’s Guide to Life

by Epictetus · published 2017 · read 2019-09-24

I had a couple of stressful weeks, with both positive and negative experiences with wonderful people. When I start losing my equilibrium (ok, no, when I have irrevocably lost my equilibrium), I sometimes go back and read The Manual, a v

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language

by Gretchen McCulloch · published 2019 · read 2020-04-18

Excellent book on internet linguistics! Touches all the important points and then some. I learnt about Third Places and where thankful!Tobias notation originates, and felt myself and my internet habits covered quite comprehensively.

Loving What Is

by Byron Katie · published 2002 · read 2022-08-27

This is one of the books where the loss of my notes and highlights hits hard. Would've loved to actually summarise the book here rather than giving an abridged version of my thoughts. Here goes nothing: The premise is that there are four

Queer Tattoo

by Brody Polinsky · published 2022 · read 2022-09-05

My tattoo artist had this on her shelf when I went and got my first ever tattoo. It caught my eye (the binding is very distinctive!), and I immediately ordered it when I got home. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing to exist. The breadth of s

Little Book of Demons

by Ramsey Dukes · published 2004 · read 2022-09-26

Ramsey Dukes has such a strong voice. It's a blessing and a curse: his words come across like he'd say them, but sometimes you want to whack him over the head (not too much, but maybe with a newspaper …). The book aims to explain why a

Four Thousand Weeks

by Oliver Burkeman · published 2021 · read 2022-10-07

Again a victim of my lost notes. Enjoyed this book very much, led to some violent life decluttering. Bonus points for continuing to live in my head to some degree, rather than being a one-time intervention. The quick summary is "you only

Das Dritte Reich des Traums

by Charlotte Beradt · published 1966 · read 2022-10-28

Covering the time from 1933–1939 in Germany, this book is the result of the dreams reported by over 300 people to the author – sometimes directly, sometimes via a doctor friend of hers. She kept the reports semi-encrypted and hidden in the

Vierbeinige Freunde

by Vera Tschaplina · published 1950 · last read 2023-01-10

Childhood favourite, especially after I found out that this wasn't a magical fairytale about living with a lion in the middle of Moscow, but that it was reality! Lots of small bits that I loved, especially how Chaplina talked about her work

Transforming your self

by Steve Andreas · published 2002 · read 2023-02-25

Reviewing this book a year and a half after reading it is rough, because I … barely remember reading it, tbh. But after going through my notes, a lot of it seeped into my thoughts, especially the attitude of “don’t try to do the thing, inst

Bread and Wine

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1999 · read 2024-11-11

Chip meets Dennis, who lives on the street. It’s everything. It’s romantic, it’s hot, it’s matter-of-fact. It only gets better by knowing they are still together. I’m not usually one for graphic novels (graphic novellas?), but this one … yu

The Tyranny of Metrics

by Jerry Z. Muller · published 2017 · read 2020-04-17

Good points, tediously made. Metrics are problematic, both in expected and in surprising ways. Once you target a metric instead of using it, you have lost.

How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method

by George Pólya · published 1944 · read 2020-03-31

How to Solve It is decent, but overrated – the first 10% are pretty good, and then there are a few nuggets of really good advice interspersed with the neverending examples of the principles introduced in the first part.

The Checklist Manifesto

by Atul Gawande · published 2009 · read 2021-10-30

Checklists good – this message has been spread through all tech conferences for the last several years, so I didn't expect much from this book. It's the slightly more fleshed-out (but also just inflated) version of the original essay. If I

The Limits of Organization

by Kenneth J. Arrow · published 1974 · read 2021-11-12

Didn't finish this book, my brain isn't sufficiently economist-shaped. I even tried to read it twice this year, so I'm declaring this an unsuccessful attempt. Still, some very rough and unedited notes on what I read before giving up:

Against the Grain

by James C. Scott · published 2017 · read 2020-10-18

Impressive and intriguing: Against the Grain tells the story of early state-building as a story of agriculture – that's not new. What's new is that James Scott has spent years aggregating the current insights of history and archaeology to

Between Copernicus and Galileo

by James M. Lattis · published 1994 · read 2022-01-11

I wanted to learn more about Christoph Clavius, the Jesuit who contributed significantly to the Gregorian calendar reform, which is a standing interest of mine. It turns out that this book int

Gender Euphoria

by Laura Kate Dale · published 2021 · read 2021-10-10

Gender Euphoria does some things very well, but felt generally underwhelming. Let me explain: I was happy to see a collection of essays on this theme, because from what I can see, especially younger parts of trans* communities often focus o

Stuff Matters

by Mark Miodownik · published 2013 · read 2022-03-12

All my notes are lost to a hardware disaster, so the tl;dr is just: material pop-science, fun read, drags on in places. Nice without being great. The chapters on steel and chocolate were great, the one on concrete could have been great but

Last Chance to See

by Douglas Adams · published 1990 · read 2011-08-01

Douglas Adams presents: Humans destroying the Earth (for a change). As fun as a book on this topic can be. Well-informed, well-researched, well-written.

Mit Rechten reden: Ein Leitfaden

by Per Leo · published 2017 · read 2018-05-29

Not terrible, but not good either.

Bringing Columbia Home: The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew

by Michael D. Leinbach · published 2018 · read 2018-10-04

Bringing Columbia Home is the story of the aftermath of the break-up of the Columbia shuttle, told by Michael D. Leinbach who was a launch manager at NASA and bore responsibility during the collection of Columbia and the ensuing review. I

No One Could Have Known

by Josef Pieper · published 1970 · read 2020-11-26

Maybe, if you should never meet your heroes, you should not read their autobiographies either. Not that Pieper was my hero before that, but he did provide some interesting insights and made me think better of Catholic philosophers collectiv

Über das christliche Menschenbild

by Josef Pieper · published 1964 · read 2020-11-20

A short book by Pieper, which I read mostly because it was there (and I like Pieper). Not as impressive as some of his work, it struck me more like one of the notebook blogs – a bit unfinished, a bit WIP, scoring points against other phil

Traktat über die Klugheit

by Josef Pieper · published 1960 · read 2020-11-23

Josef Pieper on prudence as the most important of the cardinal virtues, following (as always) Thomas of Aquin.

Heretics

by G.K. Chesterton · published 1905 · read 2021-06-03

Chesterton is an utter bastard, and enjoying himself while he's at it. As a result, I enjoyed myself, too: He's unrepentant in how conservative he is, and he likes using a handful of cheap tricks to make himself seem both very clever and ve

Where Good Ideas Come from

by Steven Johnson · published 2010 · read 2020-04-11

This book has got a couple of good things to say (be playful, be prolific, facilitate accidents and clashes), and tells a bunch of really neat anecdotes of past inventions and big ideas. I don't really think the anecdotes are good arguments

On the Manner of Negotiating with Princes

by François de Callières · published 1983 · read 2019-12-19

I enjoyed this book a lot, because it gives insight into the thoughts and everyday work of diplomats three hundred years ago. It's not a subject I've thought about in detail before, so this was fascinating. The approach to the matter is bro

The Right Stuff

by Tom Wolfe · published 1979 · read 2022-02-11

The Right Stuff is what you need to be an absolutely bonkers guy, who thinks that a 23% likelihood of dying in an accident on the job (as a soldier, so excluding any combat deaths) sounds great and fun. It's the story of fighter pilots, a

Turn the Ship Around!

by L. David Marquet · published 2012 · read 2021-03-11

Anarchic structures are great, particularly at groups under a certain size. I know this, my friends know this – I didn't expect a US submarine captain to know and advocate it. Yet that was the pleasant surprise I got.

Die Weimarer Republik

by Gunther Mai · published 2009 · read 2018-02-10

Liest sich gut und informativ, einem wird nur halt immer wieder zwischendurch dabei schlecht. Liegt aber am Inhalt, nicht am Stil.

Oranges

by John McPhee · published 1967 · read 2021-08-14

A whole book about oranges: focusing on the orange growing industry in Florida, but also touching on history, uses, research and biology. The book is 60 years old by now, so naturally some of it is outdated, but it was neat to see something

The Communist Manifesto

by Karl Marx · published 1848 · read 2020-04-12

Short, readable, to the point. The predictive parts were outdated shortly after publishing the manifesto, but the analytical parts were highly interesting and often spot on.

An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England

by Augustus Pugin · published 1872 · read 2022-09-07

Nearly a 4-star read just by how funny it was to read. Look, hey, I prefer Chesterton's nonfiction regardless of my disagreement with him, and this is the same style of angry old Brit grumbling (with powerful eloquence) at the state of th

Growing Old in the Middle Ages

by Shulamith Shahar · published 2002 · read 2023-01-27

Old age was generally precarious and on the margins in the Middle Ages. However, the status and practical circumstances of old people varied by country, century, class, identity and so on, and the results are a fascinating study in options.

The Middle Ages: A Very Short Introduction

by Miri Rubin · published 2014 · read 2022-02-08

A disappointing VSI book, this time around: light on substance, but heavy on the condescension. I'll list a couple of things that annoyed me (lest I start thinking I liked the book) and then some things I learnt: Annoyances “Eve

Thinking, Fast and Slow

by Daniel Kahneman · published 2011 · read 2018-05-29

Reproduction crisis hits hard, doesn't it. People who buy too much of Kahneman's book are insufferable.

Focusing

by Eugene T. Gendlin · published 1978 · read 2019-07-15

Focusing by Eugene T. Gendlin was my first book I really wanted to give up on this year. I'm always very hesitant to pick up non-fiction books, especially those that touch on self-help or psychology in any way. There's so much misinformat

God’s Philosophers

by James Hannam · published 2009 · read 2021-10-14

This book came recommended by Seb Falk in the bibliography of The Light Ages, and it's also on the reading list of /r/askHistorians, which I trust a lot. I found this book harder to like – who writes sentences like “when the barbarian tribe

All About Love: New Visions

by bell hooks · published 1999 · read 2020-03-15

This book has good, true sentences. It also has weird stretches. It reads like a time capsule into late 70s/early 80s feminism, so I was surprised at the 1999 release date. I liked it for the respectful discussion of agency and how both men

The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

by Gene Kim · published 2013 · read 2013-09-01

The Phoenix Project is a very nice management introduction for IT projects, talking about ITIL, about processes and about Agile Methods.

Models: Attract Women Through Honesty

by Mark Manson · published 2011 · read 2020-04-16

Do not read this book, except if you're not interested in dating women. In that case, read my objection below and replace all "woman" with "person" and "women" with "people" so that the ridiculous parts stand out better.

Schadenfreude

by Tiffany Watt Smith · published 2018 · read 2021-01-08

Schadenfreude ist die schönste Freude” – “Schadenfreude is the best joy” says a German proverb. If you're not on board with this, this book might make you look at the more positive sides of finding joy in other people's misfortune. Or it mi

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

by Pete Walker · published 2013 · read 2020-02-16

First off: I'm not quite the target group for this book, and this has influenced my rating. I think the book says a lot of true things and reading it will do no harm and may significantly help you if you're in the right place. I think the a

Get Together: How to build a community with your people

by Bailey Richardson · published 2019 · read 2020-03-05

This is an alright book if you want to build a "community" for a corporate entity. It tries to provide more than that, but everything it suggests is just slightly icky and tainted with this corporate language. But it does provide actionable

Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary

by Linus Torvalds · published 2001 · read 2008-12-01

Torvalds tells his (and his project's) life story up to 2000. Nothing special.

The Book Nobody Read

by Owen Gingerich · published 2004 · read 2021-11-09

Tenured professors are just built different or something. The object of the book is Copernicus' "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres", which Prof. Gingerich set out to see all extant versions of (first and second editions, that is),

Das Dritte Reich: Geschichte einer Diktatur

by Ulrich Herbert · published 2016 · read 2018-02-10

Sehr trocken geschrieben. Der Band zur 1918er-Revolution aus derselben Reihe ist da ungleich besser.

Joy of Movement

by Kelly McGonigal · published 2019 · read 2023-01-16