Photo by Guillaume Meurice
What ties all these disparate reads together is a grappling with the human condition and our relationship to the broader world. Each book left me with a better understanding of the cosmos than I had before, even when I didn’t always like them. Such is the life of a curious reader amongst the billions of stars and stories.
Read More
Photo by Stanislav Kondratiev
While many of my book reviews have been longer essays published on my blog or episodes of my podcast, Red Reviews, I also write shorter book reviews for social media. These appear mostly on Instagram, as it is the social media platform I primarily use and it has a longer character limit for captions than, say, Threads or Twitter. Instagram’s 2,200 character limit for captions requires you to be concise and clear, and I enjoy the challenge to keep my posts within that character limit. It’s actually a lot of fun to write a quick review that is informative as well as indicative of my opinion. This blog post will be the first in a series of blog posts where I will share a few reviews that are connected by a common theme, along with photographs of the books as they appeared on Instagram.
This first set of reviews are tied together under the theme of “science and society,” which highlights books that employ science and/or philosophy to expound on social issues. From Bertrand Russell’s argument for a four-hour workday to Christopher Lasch’s conception of a “minimal self,” each of these books provide provocative insights into the human condition.
Read More
The prolific science fiction author Isaac Asimov, best known for books such as I, Robot and the Foundation series, devoted his life to the causes of science, knowledge, and education. He valued the importance of intellect for a healthy democracy, lamenting the United States’ tendency towards anti-intellectualism. Yet, he also criticized the arrogance, foolishness, and elitism of some of the most intellectually-gifted in our society, particularly in his involvement with Mensa, the social organization of high-IQ individuals. His experiences with the group, good and especially bad, fostered his growing distaste for IQ tests, intellectual gamesmanship, and reactionary politics. In this essay, we’ll be exploring these themes and how their interaction cultivated Asimov’s unique position of anti-elitist intellectualism.
Read More
Image: New York TImes
Paul Kurtz’s skepticism is so much more than debunking the supernatural or fact-checking dubious claims. It is a powerful tool used in the service of improving ourselves, the lives of others, our societies, and our planet. It is rooted in the Enlightenment tradition of Immanuel Kant, who encouraged us to “sapere aude,” or “dare to know.” We often focus on the “know” part of that phrase, as cliches abound on the importance of knowledge (“knowledge is power,” “knowledge is half the battle,” etc.). Yet, Kurtz’s skepticism also homes in on the value of daring, how seeking knowledge can not only give us the correct answer but can give us a better life. We should dare to know—with all of the successes and failures we’ll find along the way—because that’s what makes life worth living.
Read More