It’s been quite the start to 2024. Domestically, things have been somewhat quiet apart from the usual college campus shenanigans and the (anticlimactic) primary season.1 News has yet to benefit from the assumed increased audience despite the looming presidential election, a geriatric grudge match. Economically, America has seen continued post-pandemic growth that has been stronger than peer nations, but the Fed has yet to hit inflation targets. Internationally, dysfunction and chaos appear to have become the norm. No resolutions seem imminent to any of the current conflicts and more trouble may be in the near future. Per usual, I have navigated the cacophony that is our discourse space with good books, Substack, and podcasts. These are my compass, sextant, and pelorus.
Hitting the Books
I plan to complete at least 75 books this year whether in audio, digital, or print format.2 To that end, I have finished 19 as of this writing, which is roughly a quarter of the way to go.3 I am kicking myself though because I have actually completed just three books in non-audio format: The Genius of Israel by Dan Senor & Saul Singer, Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life by Joseph Epstein, and Essays on Art and Science by Eric Kandel. However, I am close to finishing a fourth, a novel by Substacker
called The Portrait of a Mirror.Here’s a breakdown beyond the titles:
19 total books (~8000 pages)
17 nonfiction books (all but two were published before 2020)
3 memoirs/biographies
8 from history/politics/economics
6 from science
2 fiction books
both set in the UK by contemporary authors.
As is clear from this breakdown, I have a heavy bias toward recent nonfiction titles across a range of topics. However, the topics can be roughly split into a social science bucket and a natural science bucket. Compared to popular works in the behavioral and social sciences though, I have grown less enchanted with works of popular science. Part of this is a function of having a background in science, the low resolution coverage of a topic one knows or at least is familiar with tends to add little value. Additionally, it likely increases the number of grating inaccuracies or mischaracterizations one finds. Not all pop-sci books are this way. Some can still make for excellent reading, but it can be hard to know which is which without a thorough evaluation.
Surprisingly, of the books I’ve read this year, the absolute must reads are actually two memoirs. Rob Henderson’s Troubled and Joseph Epstein’s Never Say You've Had a Lucky Life. Despite having very different lives there are notable parallels between both memoirs and both are quite moving. Together they demonstrate the gravity of the decisions we make in life and the importance of building and maintaining supportive social niches. Both remind me of John Donne’s famous lines from Meditation XVII:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
Inklings
As part of my larger effort to get more from my reading, I try to assemble notes or a review for books I complete. This is a fun exercise that forces me to organize my thoughts and recall what I’ve read in detail.
Here are my “inklings”4 on the books I’ve completed in the first quarter of 2024:
The Closing of the American Mind (1987) by Allan Bloom
“The platonic conception of a polemic.”
The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World (2023) by Dan Senor & Saul Singer
This book, overshadowed by events, is a look at social institutions and customs within modern Israel. It contains a lot of interesting interviews and social commentary along with some economic and demographic data. The most interesting phenomenon is the rare nexus of high fertility and high income, which the authors point out cannot entirely be explained by religiosity.
My Review on Substack → The Struggle to be Solidarity Nation
High Fidelity (1995) by Nick Hornby
How Medicine Works and When It Doesn't: Learning Who to Trust to Get and Stay Healthy (2023) by F. Perry Wilson
African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals (2022) by David Hackett Fischer
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity (2023) by Peter Attia
Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel (2021) by Stephen Budiansky
Never Say You've Had a Lucky Life: Especially If You've Had a Lucky Life (2024) by Joseph Epstein
Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World (2018) by Adam Tooze
This is a comprehensive narrative history of the financials crises subsequent to the U.S. housing bubble in the late 2000s. The thesis here is that the global dollar system propagated an international decade-long disaster that was beyond political actors’ competencies and wills to manage. Tooze is a left-wing economic historian of British origins. With any narrative history, robust evidence to support causal claims is wanting.
The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America (2024) by Coleman Hughes
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023 edited by Carl Zimmer & Jaime Green
Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class (2024) by Rob Henderson
My Review on Substack → The Child is the Father of the Man
Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better (2022) by Woo-Kyoung Ahn
Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA (2020) by Neil Shubin
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012) by Daron Acemoğlu & James A. Robinson
Essays on Art and Science (2024) by Eric R. Kandel
The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People (2022) by Walter Russell Mead
I still plan to craft reviews for The Fraud (2023) by Zadie Smith and Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream (2023) by David Leonhardt.
I have also written several non-book review related pieces on Substack. Most of this has been on science topics, including my Cancer Genomes series.
Plugging In
My podcast addiction continues apace. The first quarter made for few new show discoveries, but I still have recommendations based on salience or because I have yet to recommend them:
This podcast has been indispensable for reporting on the current events in Israel and Palestine. The show comes from a point-of-view that generally favors Israel, but the guests run the gamut of different perspectives.
After leaving Fox News and then CBS, Kelly has run a successful podcast venture. I am recommending her show because she provided the most thorough coverage of the Fani Willis disqualification hearing in Fulton county Georgia. This was a huge news story that was super easy to follow without cable news or a subscription to a major news outlet. Kelly’s coverage was timely and thorough.
This podcast is hosted by Louise Perry, author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, who is at the vanguard of the merger of feminism and biorealism. Perry interviews guests from across the ideological spectrum on topics related to contemporary sexual politics.
This is another podcast about online discourse like Blocked and Reported or The Computer Room. It is hosted by Noam Blum (CTO of Tablet Magazine) and Jen Monroe and has a Xennial tone.
Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway follow the business and financial headlines while interviewing industry leaders. I believe this is one of the top finance podcast.
Beyond these broad show-level recommendations, I also wanted to highlight some individual episodes from other shows that I listened to this quarter and think are worth a listen:
Chris Stringer: Human Evolution in 2024
Geneticist Razib Khan interview paleoanthropologist on exciting new developments in the science of human evolution.
Political writer Jonah Goldberg interviews
on “luxury beliefs” and his memoir.
Interview with Kevin Mitchell on Agency and Evolution
Decoding the Gurus, a show critical of online self-help and lifestyle influencers, interviews a professor of neuroscience on free will.
Taylor Swift Derangement Syndrome
Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell, leftist commentators, discuss the politicization of Taylor Swift in public discourse.
The episode form Mendelspod is a little technical but is a great listen if you are familiar with the nuts and bolts of DNA sequencing.
A Lively Debate on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Journalist
and economist discuss Israel-Palestine from contrasting positions.
The World According to Jordan Castro
Two political commentators of the heterodox left,
and , interview a rising author on his novel and life struggles.
‘Tokyo Vice’ Journalist On Japan’s Criminal Underworld
Reporter Jake Adelstein is interview about his experiences as an expat working for a Japanese newspaper and his investigation of the Yakuza. His memoir Tokyo Vice has been adapted into an HBO Max series starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe.
The Bombshell Case that Will Transform the Housing Market
NYT’s The Daily covers a landmark legal settlement between the National Association of Realtors and American home buyers. The standard 6% sales commission has been upended.
5 Myths about Israel and the War in Gaza
New atheist and podcast legend Sam Harris delivers an audio essay on one of the most controversial topics in politics.
The Trouble with Meta-analysis
Science writers
and cover what meta-analysis can and can’t do.
Birthrates Are Plummeting Worldwide. Why?
NYT opinion columnist Ezra Klein interviews political scientist Jennifer D. Sciubba on recent trends in fertility across the globe, trying to understand why two-thirds of the world is below replacement levels of fertility.
How Hollywood’s Hit Formula Flopped —and What Could Come Next
The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson talks what is going on at the Box Office with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw.
Substack Recommendations
I may have already overwhelmed you with various links and recommendations, but I am going to continue anyway. Here are some thought-provoking pieces on Substack that I recommend:
Appearances
I have appeared on a couple podcasts published in the first quarter of 2024. Hopefully I pop up on a few more in the future. Here are the links:
Thank you for reading. That’s all for now!
Perhaps the most attention-grabbing domestic news story of the first quarter was the disqualification hearing for Fani Willis. The story hasn’t quite resolved despite a Solomonic ruling from the presiding judge. I omitted from the list here because it felt too granular and tabloidal.
I’m aware some reading purists refuse to consider audiobooks as actual reading. While I appreciate the snootiness that animates such sentiments, I grew up a fan of audiobooks and think I get a lot out of them.
This also of course excludes the reading I do with my children, which has actually been good practice for refining my delivery when reading aloud. Also, it teaches one to navigate incessantly interjected interrogatories.
The Inklings are also a famous 20th century literary collective that included the likes of C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.
For an author with a rich vocabulary, it interesting you chose the phrase “geriatric grudge match” to minimize the momentous 2024 US Presidential election that will determine our nation’s fate. It is true that one candidate has geriatric medical problems-recurrent falls, memory lapses and wandering around confused. The other candidate just doubled his net worth in one day while campaigning across the country putting in 18 hour days, winning a recent golf club championship and making time today to pay his respects to NYPD Officer Diller’s who was murdered in the line of duty. Today the other candidate will also be in Manhattan with Obama and Clinton watching Lizzo perform at a campaign fundraiser; this is quite the visual contrast- a metaphor for what the country is facing.
Certainly a generous compendium of your reading and engagement with literature-perhaps an escape from the harsh realities of what our country is facing?