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Nano Book Review

NanoBookReview@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 2 months ago

All books are audiobooks. I have CFS so bad I'm stuck in bed. Suggestions welcome. Low-excitement preferred.

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Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World (2014, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) 5 stars

There's Way More Science Out There Than You Know

5 stars

It's a book about material science that opens with the narrator getting stabbed! What more could you ask for‽

From the multiple crystal forms of chocolate to the chemical reactions that make cement, Mark combines a love of materials with excellent narrative and takes you through a small sampling of the amazing materials that make our everyday life possible. Stuff matters, indeed.

The Psychology of Money (Hardcover, 2020, Harriman House) 4 stars

Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. …

Pretty Decent, I suppose....

4 stars

Lots of solid advice, and yet somehow forgettable? I guess this is the essence of good finance: it's boring, it's obvious, it's uncontroversial. But you know what? Everyone needs a reminder every once in a while. If you haven't thought about your financial plans in a while, be it to pay off all your bills, or retire in luxury, maybe now is a good time to have another look.

The Secret Garden (Hardcover, 2008, Oxford University Press, USA) 2 stars

Ten-year-old orphan Mary Lennox is sent to live in a largely uninhabited mansion on the …

Started out good and then just went flat

2 stars

So, only after reading the whole thing did I learn that this is supposed to be a kid's book, but like...I dunno. It kinda sucks? The prose is very good, to the point where the first half of the book is excellent, but then everyone's problems are solved by the magical powers of the outdoors and positive thinking and then the book ends.

Around the World in 80 Days (2014) 4 stars

Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is …

The old style of adventure, entertaining, but not enthralling

4 stars

Mr. Fog goes on a romp around the world to prove a bet, that it can be done in less than 80 days. It comes down to the wire, as you would assume it just, and yet the ending still manages to exceed your expectations. It's a quick and easy read, but still decent fun.

How Jesus Became God (Hardcover, 2014, HarperOne) 5 stars

New York Times bestselling author and Bible expert Bart Ehrman reveals how Jesus’s divinity became …

Stuff They Didn't Teach You in Sunday School

5 stars

Jesus went around talking about how he was the Son of God, but also God Himself and also the Holy Spirit, right? Psh you THOUGHT.

Jesus went around talking about how the Son of Man was about to come and bring an end to the current era of evil. Everyone would be resurrected and judged for their deeds. This would happen in his lifetime.

Except that didn't happen. So how did Jesus become God?

Gonna hafta read and find out!

Angry White Men (2017, PublicAffairs) 4 stars

One of the headlines of the 2012 Presidential campaign was the demise of the white …

Too long, but is objective about things people often dismiss

4 stars

This book is about the kind of person who thinks white men are actually the most discriminated class. It's way too long and it spends a lot of time repeating itself. The problem is, it also has lots great insights into issues that I've never seen anyone else try to tackle objectively. It's good, just repetitive. Oh, and the introduction weirdly claims the march of progress is inevitable.

The innovator's dilemma (2000, HarperBusiness) 3 stars

In his book, The Innovator's Dilemma [3], Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School describes …

An Organization is Not the People It's Made From

4 stars

A quick read, this short book is all about why big organizations fail to adapt to changing markets and technology. The book is rather old, so the references are fairly dated, but the concepts are still salient. Organizations and people are not the same thing, and knowing which people to assign to a task is just as important as knowing what organization to put them in.

Possibility of Life (2023, Harlequin Enterprises ULC) 5 stars

Questions just raise more questions, in a good way

5 stars

Jamie thinks deeply on exactly what the title suggests. Are we alone? Are we special? What would an alien look like? Sound like? Think like? Pondering the big questions about aliens teaches us as much about ourselves as it does extraterrestrials. Even just thinking about the questions we bother to ask can be revealing. A book with no answers is sometimes the best kind of book.

Braiding Sweetgrass (AudiobookFormat, 2016, Tantor Audio) 5 stars

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with …

Scientific and Spiritual

5 stars

Robin writes of her life as an ecologist and a native American. Her appreciation for plants and animals blends scientific rigor with spiritual connection and stewardship. The book is a memoir of her attempts to reconcile science, capitalism, and her native understanding of our world. The other living beings around us have so much to teach, and we have a responsibility to learn.

Heaven’s River (Paperback, 2021, Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency) 4 stars

More than a hundred years ago, Bender set out for the stars and was never …

Winging it never seemed so easy

4 stars

For some weird reason Dennis forgot how to write for the first few chapters and the last few chapters, but the rest of this long book is just plain excellent. It's it fourth in the Bobiverse series, and the style is completely different, but it's still a good book anyway. If you wanted more of the same, you'll be disappointed, but the book is so well written you'll forget your were expecting something else.

All These Worlds (2017, Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency) 4 stars

"Being a sentient spaceship really should be more fun. But after spreading out through space …

Why Do I Have to Be God?

4 stars

The third book in the Bobiverse series, our heros deal with loss, love, and existential threat. Life is strange when you're an immortal computer simulation of a person. It's even stranger when you've got real people to look after, and a bloodthirsty alien civilization to protect them from. Sometimes being God isn't so great.

Pornography Wars (2022, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, Bloomsbury Publishing) 5 stars

About as Objective as You Can Get

5 stars

A look at America's history of porn–from lewd pictures littering civil war camps to the rise of OnlyFans–this book presents a balanced look at the people fighting over sex, culture, and our relationship to both. Kelsey does not aim to convince you that porn is bad or good, but merely to get you to understand why the people fighting have taken up their cause.

The Omnivore's Dilemma (Paperback, Penguin Books) 5 stars

Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only …

Look Closely at Your Food

5 stars

This book is about where your meals come from, and the options you have. Michael says that he often gets approached about this book, years after it came out. "Your book changed my life!" He says just how it changed their life is always different; some people go vegetarian, some add meat to their diet. For me? It answered a question I never knew I asked, many years ago.

Doing Harm (2019, HarperOne) 5 stars

"In this shocking, hard-hitting expose in the tradition of Naomi Klein and Barbara Ehrenreich, the …

Believe Women

5 stars

You might be familiar with some of the misogyny and injustice in the medical systems around the world, but I guarantee you this book will have stories that will leave you dumbfounded. Only in the last 30 years have women been able to fight back against a system that told them it was all in their heads, and like hell they're going to stop now. Do them a favor and read this book.