Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 7.10.23
This week I managed to finish five books from some amazing authors. The list starts with a book by one of my favorite authors, and it’s a new one about the history and science of bisexuality. I also read one of my new favorites on misinformation. We also have books on capitalism, stoicism and cognitive philosophy. 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).
Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw
I’m on the fence about this book and don’t really know how to write an honest review with my personal opinions without coming off like a jerk or potentially insensitive. I absolutely love Julia Shaw’s books. I’ve seen her mention that she’s bi, and then I saw she was writing this book. I like reading books about LGTBQ activism and becoming more aware so I know how I can be a better ally to that community.
What’s good about the book is that I become a lot more aware about some of the challenges bi people face in the world. Julia Shaw brings up a lot of things I think we all know but don’t really talk about. For example, she discusses the perception of bi women vs bi men. Bi women are often overly sexualized and bi men barely get any awareness at all or people often just assume they’re homosexual. She also discusses the media depictions of bi individuals in movies, TV and reality TV.
As far as my personal preference, there’s a lot of history in this book, and I’m just not a huge fan of reading about history.
Where my potentially controversial opinion comes in is with the overarching point of the book. Whenever I read a non-fiction book, I ask, “Who is this for? And what’s it trying to do?” When I (and I assume many others) think of the “B” in LGBTQ, we probably think that out of everyone in that community, bisexuals most likely face less disparities than the other groups within the community.
It’s not to say that any type of disparities or discrimination is OK, but I (maybe wrongfully so) see a parallel with me being half Black while looking white. I can walk in both worlds, and it offers me a lot of privileges that fully Black people don’t have. To many people in this world, I just look white, so I don’t face anywhere near the discrimination that full Black people do. Like bisexual people, biracial people like myself have our own specific struggles, but it’s just not much compared to Black people.
But as I write this, even though I don’t know if this book is needed, maybe it was extremely brave of Julia Shaw to write it. I don’t think I’d have the courage to write a whole book about the “struggles of being biracial” because I’d be afraid I’d be attacked because my problems aren’t much compared to people who aren’t white-passing.
Then again, is it bravery or a form of insensitivity to those communities who have it worse? I’m curious if Shaw has faced backlash from the LGBTQ community for this book.
Now, this review is becoming way too long and I’m diving into some philosophical questions about how marginalized communities interact with each other, so we’ll wrap it up here. Basically, if you’re interested in learning more about bisexuality, feel free to grab this book. Or, if you want to screw with your brain with all the questions I now have, you may enjoy it as well.
Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity by Sander van der Linden
Hot damn did I love this book. I read so many books on this topic, and I always get concerned that each book is going to be exactly the same (because a lot of them are when they’re on a popular topic), but Sander blew my brain up with how good this book is. Sander actually sent me an early copy of the book, but as an audio listener, I just now got a chance to read it and I binged it in a day (I was sitting through a day-long tattoo session, so I had some time).
What separates this book from the others is that researching misinformation is Sander’s life work and are of expertise when it comes to research. Many books on the topic discuss research that others have conducted, and while Sander does discuss a lot of studies in this book, he also has conducted a ton of his own research and experiments. Not only do you learn about why people fall for misinformation, but a primary focus of the book is all of the work Sander and his colleagues have done to help “innoculate” people from misinformation.
The experiments and findings are extremely interesting, and it gives me a ton of hope for the future. They’re doing really interesting and innovative things like running YouTube ads to try and help people scrutinize potentially false information on their own rather than potentially getting into the tribalism of it all, which often doesn’t work.
It was also super interesting reading about how Sander disagrees with some other researchers like Dan Kahan on certain subjects. But I could write about this book all day. Just go grab a copy and start trying to help people avoid getting duped by bad information.
The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality by Andy Clark
As soon as I heard “cognitive philosophy”, I was sold. I listened to an interview with Andy Clark about this book from the awesome Converging Dialogues podcast and knew I had to check the book out. While the book is extremely interesting, it also bored me at some points. That’s nothing to do with the author or his writing, though. There are just parts that dive a little further into neuroscience than I prefer, but overall, I absolutely loved this book.
The book is about how we experience the world and how our brain is a prediction machine. It’s really interesting learning about our perception of reality and reading from a philosopher who thinks about this stuff all day. I really enjoyed the sections about how our predictions shape our biases and what we can do about it, and there’s also some awesome stuff about placebos and similar topics.
End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin
If you’re at all interested in how our current system of capitalism is no good, this is a pretty good book. Peter Turchin has been researching this stuff for years, and basically, he has a theory that history sort of repeats itself and the overproduction of ultra-wealthy elites is no good. Over time, the overproduction of elites creates anger and hostility in the lower classes, but then, even upper-class people start to realize they’re getting screwed over, and then they want to burn down society as well. This ends up leading to revolutions and all sorts of bad things.
My issues with the book are once again personal ones. I’m not a major fan of history books, and there’s an insane amount of history in here. Also, in the beginning, Turchin states that he’ll touch on other countries slightly but not much. I’d say the majority of the book is the history of how this has happened in other countries outside of the United States.
It also felt like at the beginning of the book, Turchin put a lot of effort into making the book digestible for the average reader. He did a great job with that, but then it changes about halfway through. As the book progresses, it gets into a lot more academic language that the average person won’t be a fan of.
Overall, it’s a decent book. I think it could have been a bit shorter as it just kind of starts giving more examples of the same. The book then wraps up nicely with some potential solutions.
How to Hold a Cockroach: A Book for Those Who Are Free and Don’t Know It by Matthew Maxwell
For those who are fans of Stoicisms, this book is okay. It’s super short but nothing amazing. The book is written as a fictional story of a young boy who goes through life and realizes that things aren’t good or bad, they just are what they are. It starts with him realizing cockroaches aren’t gross; they’re just what they are. The story then goes through lessons on relationships, life, death and other topics we struggle with.
I’m an audio listener, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the narrator in this one. But, if you need some stoic reminders, this is an alright book, and it’s ridiculously short, so you don’t have much to lose.
If you enjoyed this post, it’d mean a lot to me if you shared it. Forward it in an email, share it on social media, or whatever suits your fancy.
To stay updated follow me on Twitter and Instagram @TheRewiredSoul and subscribe to the Substack.