I post quarterly updates at Holodoxa to highlight the interesting things I’ve recently happened across, make recommendations, and summarize my reading/media diet. For those who may have missed my 2024 first quarter recap, it can be found here.
Spring evaporated into what, to someone of my extraction and phenotype, is already an oppressive Summer. I’m essentially a hyperhidrosis case like many a David Foster Wallace protagonist and St. Dave himself. So I can’t say I am excited about the recent heatwave. Nonetheless, I have enjoyed the opportunities that both balmy and broiling temperatures afford.
Sunrise Kingdom (The Goings On)
Despite the temptations of the great outdoors, I have still managed to do plenty of reading and some hacking away on my laptop. I shall recount the fruits of that labor next. Unfortunately, I have fallen a little behind on getting posts published. I’m currently down about a post or two a month versus my usual rate, but I think many readers appreciate not being bombarded with emails. There is of course so many interesting competing for our attention.
Some of my laggard posting is a function of my other responsibilities, but I have also been working on things behind the scenes and have been actively posting on Substack Notes. I turn out a lot of book reviews on Goodreads, and I don’t want to be simply cross-posting between Goodreads and Substack. I want to create real additional value to new and loyal readers and other casual readers on Substack’s excellent platform.
Today, I can tentatively announce that I am finally launching a podcast here! Launch will likely come in late Summer or early Fall. There are a lot of details to be determined, but I will aim for a biweekly or monthly release schedule. The podcast is shaping up to be a conversational show which I will co-host with an interesting and intelligent guy who is new to Substack. The closest immediate comparison that jumps to mind is Agnes Callard and Robin Hanson’s Minds Almost Meeting. The pod will touch on practical subject and big ideas with a personal touch.
These Leaves Don’t Wilt (Reading)
I’ve set a modest reading goal of 75 books for 2024. I say modest because I make liberal use of audiobooks, which some reading snoots do not count as real reading. Currently, my read count sits at 43 (57% toward goal) of which only 7 (16% of reads) have been read in print.
In Q2 of 2024, I completed 24 books: 20 audio and 4 print. This list includes just two fiction titles: The Portrait of a Mirror and Stoner. Most of the titles were works of nonfiction focused on a particular issue: economic development over world history, the sociology of marriage in 21st century America, advances in generative AI technology, synthetic biology, Late Bronze Age collapse, etc.
There were a ton of great reads from this quarter but my top three recommendations are How the World Became Rich by
and Jared Rubin, Everything is Predictable by , and Late Admissions by . How the World Became Rick is an excellent addendum to Why Nations Fail, Guns, Germs, and Steel, A Farewell to Alms, and The WEIRDest People in the World. It provides a comprehensive perspective on the factors that drove economic prosperity across history and the differences among different regions. It avoids the TOTTEE (“That One Thing That Explain Everything”) trap quite deftly, while remaining a short read. Everything is Predictable is a great primer on Bayes’ Theorem, impressively illustrating what it can do to improve research science and its ubiquity in decision-making under uncertainty. Late Admission is Loury’s autobiography, which details his eventful and sometimes tumultuous journey from the Southside of Chicago to the ivy league and elite economic and political circles. With respect to the black experience in late 20th century America, Loury’s life is paradoxically both representative and distinct. He’s a singular figure. The book is an unflinchingly honest portrait, making innumerable confessions and disclosures against interest without adopting an entirely apologetic tone.Currently, I have three books that I am currently reading: Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Disunited Nations: Succeeding in a World Where No One Gets Along by Peter Zeihan, and Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies by Sarah Hrdy. I’d like to call attention to Hrdy’s Father Time, which is a new release and explores the evidence that fatherhood is a biological adaptation in the human species.
My reading notes on Father Time can be followed on Notes:
Chalk on the Sidewalk (Writing)
As confessed above, my written output on Substack has slowed a bit in Q2. I published six posts, which I’ve linked below. They’ve been a bit on the longer side and have focused more on scientific topics as opposed to literature or sociocultural trends.
Q2 Substack Posts (chronological order):
Narcissism in Reflection - Book review of The Portrait of a Mirror
Why Leukemia Risk is Higher in Hispanic/Latino Children - I cover a recent finding in Cell Genomics that helps explain ancestry-related risk for acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
The Battle for American Masculinity: Buchanan v. Gatsby - An essay on Fitzgerald’s ambivalence about male social hierarchy as expressed in The Great Gatsby
A Brief Genetic History of Europe - A book review of A Short History of Humanity recapping the ancient DNA discoveries about the history of Europeans
Hyper-Darwinian Wars - primer on what makes cancer hard to treat
All Bayes Everything - Book review of Everything is Predictable by Tom Chivers
In contrast with my Substack production, I have been consistent about putting out book reviews on what I’ve read even if just a paragraph or two. I reviewed 23 of my 24 completed reads. I have also reproduced a list of links to those reviews (if not published on Substack) at Goodreads.
Q2 Goodreads Reviews (chronological order):
Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will by Robert M. Sapolsky
Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There by Tali Sharot & Cass R. Sunstein
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth by Mark Koyama & Jared Rubin
The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology by Amy Webb & Andrew Hessel
The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is: A History, a Philosophy, a Warning by Justin E. H. Smith
Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home by Charlie Warzel & Anne Helen Petersen
The MAGA Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (And How I Got Out) by Tina Nguyen
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick
Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be by Timothy P. Carney
Taming Cancer: 21st Century Biology and the Future of Cancer Medicine by Dr. Drew N. Kelner Ph.D.
Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History by Nellie Bowles
Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization by Brad Wilcox
The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People by Neil Shubin
Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative by Glenn C. Loury
1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History, #1) by Eric H. Cline
Blasting It at the Block Party (Listening)
I underwent a bit of a transition with podcast consumption in the last quarter. This is because Google retired its podcast app. I switched over to Spotify, which I was already intermittently using because it was better at catching Substack published podcasts. In the transition, I’ve definitely seen some turnover to my subscription lists. I’d like to highlight some of the new shows I’ve picked up:
Risky Business with Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova
This is essentially a resurrected version of fivethirtyeight’s podcast that features Silver’s more unabashed opinions. In the post-COVID, post-racial reckoning era, Silver has moved somewhat rightward or at least become less guarded about certain heterodoxies. Konnikova provides gentle pushback being a more stereotypical left liberal. The content usually vacillates between U.S. politics and gambling (mostly poker).
Hosted by Jerusalem Demsas, an Atlantic columnist. This podcast is quite similar to Derek Thompson’s Plain English, which is a favorite of mine.
This is a mini-series in the vein of Serial that catalogs the rise of Matt Drudge and his influence on American politics. The show’s ultimate goal is to find what Drudge is doing today.
This is a Reason Magazine podcast that dives into contemporary social and political debates.
For When You’re Lounging in the Shade (Recommendations)
I usually use my recommendations section of my quarterly update to highlight pieces by other Substack writers. I’ve been doing some of this on Substack Notes so I urge readers to peruse my feed there to find some of those recommendations. Instead I’d like to recommend a recent film, “American Fiction” (2023). It was recently available through Prime streaming.
“American Fiction” stars Jeffrey Wright and is an adaptation of the 2001 novel Erasure by Percival Everett. It is an entertaining satire of the elite manners, especially the fetishization of a stereotyped view of black Americans.
Fireworks!
Last but definitely not least, my second daughter had her first birthday near the end of May. It was a great time. I hope people take the summer months and July 4th to enjoy time with their family (while reading Substack of course too).