Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 12.18.23
I finished four books this week from some amazing authors. We have the incredible new book from Robert Sapolsky about free will as well as a great book on our fear of death. There’s also a classic self-help book as well as a book on debate and rhetoric. Enjoy!
Each of the links to the books are affiliate links, so if you use my link to purchase any of these books, some comes back to support what I do (and it also helps fund my reading habit).
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
This book is timeless. I’ve read it multiple times, and this time, I read it with my son. My son is 14 in his first year of high school and absolutely loved this book. The core message of this book is a great one; stop caring about stupid, trivial things, and give things that matter your attention. But throughout the book, it’s much more than that. There are discussions about working hard, taking responsibility, and being a good person. If you’re one of the few people who haven’t read this book yet, you should.
The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life by Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszczynski
This is such a damn good book. The authors pick up where Ernest Becker left off with his phenomenal book The Denial of Death. The authors wanted to see if they could set up experiments to prove Ernest Becker right by showing how just about everything we do in life is based on our fear of death. Throughout the book, the authors discuss some fantastic experiments they’ve done and show how a person’s perspectives and actions change based on whether or not they’ve been reminded of death. It’s actually kind of scary when we get to the ingroup vs. outgroup topics.
My only criticism of this book is that there are times where they discuss a human behavior but don’t really connect the dots and explain what it has to do with our fear of death. It’s rare that happens in the book, but I noticed it a few times. You’re just kind of expected to believe them whereas other topics have studies to back them up.
Overall, it is a fantastic book, and you should definitely read it.
Words Like Loaded Pistols: The Power of Rhetoric from the Iron Age to the Information Age by Sam Leith
If you want to learn more about the art of rhetoric and debate, this is the book for you. Leith does an excellent job, but I’m just coming to the self-realization that I find these books extremely boring. I always figure reading these types of books will improve my ability to debate, but it seems like they go over a lot of the same things and then point to different stories as examples. I can see how it’s helpful, but if a book as good as this takes me months to read, it’s probably just not a genre I enjoy that much.
Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will by Robert M. Sapolsky
This easily became my favorite book by Robert Sapolsky. I’ve heard some mixed reviews about the book, but this was by far my favorite. His other books took me forever to read just because I’d get so bored, but I think I liked this one even more because it had a bunch of philosophy and psychology rather than biology. There is a chunk of the book dedicated to neuroscience that was a struggle to get through, but other than that, I read this big book pretty fast because I enjoyed it so much.
Sapolsky argues on the side of determinism and that free will is mostly an illusion. For full transparency, this is what I believe as well, so there may be a little bit of a bias. But Sapolsky does an excellent job laying down his arguments and backing it up with research. I don’t think anyone can walk away from this book and not have their perspective changed a little. This book will give you a lot more empathy and shift how you think about crime and punishment.
And before you ask, “So he doesn’t think criminals are responsible for their actions?!”, I’ll stop you right there. He discusses this at length and explains why punishment is needed and explains why with some great arguments and stories that help make it make more sense.
I love this book and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the topic of free will.
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