Style: Non-fiction
The Climate Book
by
Curtis McHale
The Climate Book is a stark awakening on the climate crisis that we’re in. My biggest takeaway is how little the Global North (North American and Europe) are truly doing to make a dent in the climate crises. They’ve done a good job at making it look like they’re doing stuff, but mostly off-loaded emissions…
Scarcity
by
Curtis McHale
I continue to come back to this book as one that informs my thoughts about many scenarios, especially when I’m faulting someone for a decision I think is a bad one. Scarcity makes a great case, though not explicitly, for universal basic income, because if we can take away monetary scarcity from people they have…
Book Wars
by
Curtis McHale
John B Thompson covers the rise of the ebook and what it meant for publishing. From the dominance of Amazon, to the metoric rise, then slow dwindle of ebook readers…there is something here for anyone that is interested in the industry of writing and books. Read my longer review of Book Wars Purchase Book Wars…
Learn to Love Reading
by
Curtis McHale
When I heard about Alex Wieckowski I thought I had a kindred spirit in a reader, but after reading his book and following his newsletter it’s mostly fluff. This is nothing more than a bunch of quotes about reading, some of them from very questionable people, who were questionable long before Alex included them, like…
Why Don’t Students Like School?
by
Curtis McHale
Students don’t like school because of the range of difficulties that must be presented in class which means some students get the information right away and then are stuck repeating work that is boring, while others are struggling to keep up. They also aren’t that into school because of some of the technology that is…
Sideways – The City Google Couldn’t Buy
by
Curtis McHale
This is a book about the hubris of Google thinking that despite what all levels of government told them about the Toronto Waterfront project, they would not be able to simply assume their way into more land and more tracking of people. It’s a good look at how Big Tech companies get us to believe…
The Wild and Free Family
by
Curtis McHale
Ainsley Arment spends this book encouraging you to drop your family out of much of the rat-race of modern life to live a calm life that prioritizes your children having time to run free and play without structure. She also strongly emphasizes you dropping out of the rat-race so that you have more time to…
Antinet Zettelkasten
by
Curtis McHale
While there are some points I agree with the author on, overall Scott is reaching hard to create branded content that he can sell you in his newsletter. He spends so much time talking down on anyone that would use a digital note system that he eclipses any good ideas he has about how to…
Creating Innovators
by
Curtis McHale
I think the best summary of this book comes from the title of the blog post I wrote about it: “The Rich Person’s Guide to Creating an Innovative Child“. Wagner highlights how a bunch of families that could afford second homes and private schooling, or the time to homeschool, raised children that created what Wagner…
The Case for Books
by
Curtis McHale
In this book Robert Darnton tries to explore the impact of Google’s Project Gutenberg on the book industry. While we may have a different perspective on the impact of that project from our perspective years after it happened, Darnton does a good job of laying out the possible impacts if Google was successful with it.…