Up there with The Little Prince as one of the best books I’ve yet read. This was stunningly beautiful, and I get why people are so wild about it. I can also see why people have such diverging takeaways after reading the book; The Alchemist is so chock-full of analogies, proverbs and philosophical asides that each of those individual moments alone create outcomes for the reader far outside of the scope of the plot.
\nHere is my (personal and immediate) takeaway from the book. This is a book is a reminder that living life as a means to a given end really makes no sense; it is your classic “the journey is what matters” text. It is just delivered in such an imaginative, wandering and visual style that provides so many other roads for the reader to go down, that many too complexly try to decode Coelho’s work into more than it needs to be. The wealth that Santiago finally achieves at the end of the story is only made meaningful in reference to the roundabout journey that was required to achieve it, even though the “ends” were technically right there where he started the entire time.
\nA coincidence — I got through this book while spending a few hours in the Mojave Desert. While researching it after finishing, I saw that the author (after a sup-par reception to the book’s original publishing) spent 40 days in the Mojave to reflect, a process that led him to the book’s eventual success.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},"allBooks":[{"id":"cG9zdDo0Njc=","databaseId":467,"title":"How to Think About War","slug":"how-to-think-about-war","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/how-to-think-about-war/","date":"2020-10-23T03:34:44","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23024344/how-to-think-about-war-1.jpg","title":"how-to-think-about-war-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Thucydides (Translated by Johanna Hanink)","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-to-think-about-war-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23024344/how-to-think-about-war-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-to-think-about-war-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23025112/how-to-think-about-war-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-to-think-about-war-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23025129/how-to-think-about-war-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 276","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/s?k=how+to+think+about+war&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_2"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"As is probably apparent by now, I am quite hooked on this Princeton Press series of classics. This one was also a delight. The translator (Johanna Hanink) did an exceptional job of interpreting the topic that this volume aimed to achieve — to take and summarize Thucydides’ best writing across his canon and select and translate the elements most suited to a timeless discussion of the philosophy of conflict — into her own. Unlike many who fawn over Thucydides to the point of which nuance about the context in which he lives and the misfires of his ideology are not well represented, Hanink takes a unique approach here.
\nShe is more active than other translators in this series, pointing out that Athens often had the same problem as many societies (and people) — they were not great at taking the advice of their own. Thucydides was in many ways quite ahead of his time in that many of his ideas were simply ignored or not implemented, even hundreds of years after his death (and many would argue even today). She also provides very helpful contextual information on how many layers of translation and exchange occurred before Thucydides summarized a speech (think the Melian Dialogues), and what political (or otherwise) agenda he may have layered onto his telling.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0NzE=","databaseId":471,"title":"Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates","slug":"thomas-jefferson-and-the-tripoli-pirates","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/thomas-jefferson-and-the-tripoli-pirates/","date":"2020-10-23T03:17:02","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23031333/thomas-jefferson-and-the-tripoli-pirates-1.jpg","title":"thomas-jefferson-and-the-tripoli-pirates-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"thomas-jefferson-and-the-tripoli-pirates-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23031333/thomas-jefferson-and-the-tripoli-pirates-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"thomas-jefferson-and-the-tripoli-pirates-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23031409/thomas-jefferson-and-the-tripoli-pirates-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"thomas-jefferson-and-the-tripoli-pirates-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23031426/thomas-jefferson-and-the-tripoli-pirates-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 273","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-Tripoli-Pirates-Forgotten/dp/0143129430"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"The late 18th-Century conflict between a very young United States and the Tripolitans (known by us Americans as the Barbary Wars, but I suspect not enthusiastically by the receiving end of those being called Barbarians) was indeed a crucial point of American history that helped shape the early foreign policy positioning of the States and the image of America internationally as a growing naval power and respected military state. It is also true, as authors Kilmeade and Yeager note throughout the book and in the subtitle, that the Wars are more or less forgotten by Americans today. To best understand the War of 1812 and early American history, not knowing or understanding this conflict of serious detriment.
\nI will admit that I didn’t find this particular book, however fascinating it’s subject matter, to exactly be a work or literary genius. The authors are very enthusiastic and dramatic in their writing, which does help in getting the book out to a wider audience. But in its bombast, quite a lot of nuance is lost. The book’s story arc, which repeatedly simplifies the conflict into a story of religious turned naval battle between Islam (Tripolitans) vs Christians (the US), beyond being a bit of a reach to perhaps find parallels to middle eastern conflicts of today, is also in multiple areas just not factual. Jefferson is purported in the book, for example, to have only a cursory understanding of (and simplified dislike and rejection) of the Quran, when in reality Jefferson’s relationship and curiosity with the Quran and Islam, and how that shaped foundational American policy during this age, has entire volumes written about it (see “Thomas Jefferson’s Quran by Denise Spellberg. Jefferson absolutely held a net-negative view of Islam, shaped in part by Voltaire (and the story of why is fascinating), but this book breezes by the quite complex relationship he had with it, and it’s implications.
\nBeyond that, the Barbary Wars had a lot less to do with religion and a lot more to do with money. The Tripolian were making a killing off of bribing European and Western nations in other to give them safe trading passage — so much so that Sweden had already been in a prolonged war with them over this same issue, that the United States more or less joined, rather than beginning this war from scratch. It isn’t clear at all that, we’re America to be a non-Christian state at the time, Tripoli would have behaved in any different way. It is true, as the authors note, that the Tripolians frequently flouted diplomatic norms, didn’t abide by the conventions of war, and certainly behaved in a way justifying the US to engage with them (Tripoli also declared war on the US first). But I wish this book would have spent a bit more time on that, rather than pushing what ended up being a bit of a tiring religious narrative.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0Nzg=","databaseId":478,"title":"Napoleon","slug":"napoleon","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/napoleon/","date":"2020-10-23T03:28:06","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23032457/napoleon-1.jpg","title":"napoleon-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Andrew Roberts","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"napoleon-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23032457/napoleon-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"napoleon-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23032520/napoleon-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"napoleon-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23032537/napoleon-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"napoleon-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23032556/napoleon-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 1,058","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Life-Andrew-Roberts/dp/0143127853"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Wow. Be warned that there is no turning back once you dive into the incredibly complex, giant-in-scale and heavily controversial world of Napoleon, and modern Napoleon biographies. This one (the first I’ve ever read front to back) was written by Andrew Roberts, an unabashed proponent of Napoleon who says so immediately in the introduction, yet an author with a near disconcerting dedication to the facts and research. To call this book sweeping or complete would be an understatement, and to say that Roberts’ self-proclaimed pro-Napoleon bent in any way sabotages the book would be false. I do know, from a newfound fascination with the author, that there is a second, dueling contemporary Napoleon biography also out
\nby author Adam Zamoyski. Zamoyski and Roberts have an amazing 1+ hour debate online, hosted by Intelligence Squared, in which they disagree on the fundamental question of whether Napoleon can truly be considered “Napoleon the Great,” in the ilk of Alexander and others. I will stay away from that minefield in this note.
What you do garner from this near 1,000 page, encyclopedic view of the man, is that his life played such a fundamental and significant role that it emerged far past the context of just its present, and has truly changed history and human behavior, institutions, and culture ever since. In strictly the field of military affairs and strategy, I am hard pressed to see the argument that Napoleon was not a genius, not a systems thinker of prolific scale, and consistently over time. Beyond that, I feel I must hold my tongue and read more holistically of the man, and especially from Zamoyski and his other critics, before being able to form a larger and more concrete opinion.
\nThis book is vivid in its writing, doing justice to the insatiable mind of its subject and surely that of Roberts as well. It perhaps shines best in the exhaustively detailed lead-up to the infamous Russian scorched-earth campaign. You get so much detail of Napoleon’s long friendly diplomatic courtship of Alexander, the strain put on the relationship over time, and the fascinating reversal that led to on the the most important events in world history. Just as someone highly curious about the study of strategy, I quite appreciated the stride-by-stride descriptions of the Russian winter, the vivid burning of Moscow, the cinematic (and only partially-successful) demolition of the Kremlin, and the delectable amount of recovered mail correspondence Roberts compiled of so many of the major players in this portion of history. I am glad I also read this after War and Peace, as it helped concretize many details and plot lines I first missed or didn’t fully appreciate from Tolstoy.
\nMy advice is that this is well worth the effort. If you have the time, it is probably best to also read Zamoyski’s work, as I plan to do, and really give this period of history the time it deserves, as it has incredibly complex. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is many more years before I can feel fairly secure about my understanding of the period and its implications, using this as a first data point.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0ODM=","databaseId":483,"title":"How to Be a Leader","slug":"how-to-be-a-leader","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/how-to-be-a-leader/","date":"2020-10-23T03:33:36","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23032954/how-to-be-a-leader-1.jpg","title":"how-to-be-a-leader-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Plutarch","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-to-be-a-leader-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23032954/how-to-be-a-leader-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-to-be-a-leader-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23032955/how-to-be-a-leader-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-to-be-a-leader-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23032955/how-to-be-a-leader-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 384","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Leader-Ancient-Leadership/dp/0691192111#:~:text=In%20%22To%20an%20Uneducated%20Leader,points%20with%20memorable%20examples%20drawn"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I love this series of books from Princeton, which provide an accessible translation of passages from key works by Ancient Greek and Roman thinkers. In this case, there are three selections from Plutarch’s “Lives” and other writings: “To an Uneducated Leader” “How to Be a Good Leader” and “Should an Old Man Engage in Politics?”, along with an excellent introduction to each.
\nI have not yet read Plutarch’s Lives, but it is glaring at me in all its glory from the shelf. His profile of prolific individuals before him, from the Greek leaders to Alexander the Great, was written during the height of the Roman Empire. That is often not appreciated well enough by those who read Plutarch, and I didn’t fully understand its implications until after reading Mary Beard’s SPQR. Roman life during this time period was in some cases analogous to American life in the present (and I have to be careful about making too many comparisons, as Smil’s “Why America is Not the New Rome” correctly points out). It was, however, similar in that significant questions about the role of leadership in an empire at its peak of power began to take a more nuanced and critical lens. It was also a time in which it was beneficial to fabricate, positively or negatively, past events to fill a political agenda of the present. We see this with Nero, who was certainly not without his critical and vulgar faults, but we now know was in many ways over- exaggerated to score political points by his successors, compounded by generations and generations.
\nSo when reading this, take it that into account. Plutach certainty did not intend to be biased, but he wrote in the context of his age, and that matters.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0ODc=","databaseId":487,"title":"Surprise, Security, and the American Experience","slug":"surprise-security-and-the-american-experience","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/surprise-security-and-the-american-experience/","date":"2020-10-23T03:45:11","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23034301/surprise-security-and-the-american-experience-1.jpg","title":"surprise-security-and-the-american-experience-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"John Lewis Gaddis","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"surprise-security-and-the-american-experience-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23034301/surprise-security-and-the-american-experience-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"surprise-security-and-the-american-experience-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23034300/surprise-security-and-the-american-experience-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"surprise-security-and-the-american-experience-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23034302/surprise-security-and-the-american-experience-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 149","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Surprise-Security-Experience-Civilization-Government/dp/0674018362"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I am so grateful this book was recommended to me and that I read it at this particular juncture in American history. Gaddis published this in 2004. Only 3 years after the 9/11 attacks, he tasked himself with the challenge of writing a form of “history in the present” — contextualizing, while the attacks were still a main fixture in everyone’s mind, the position of the United States in the world. Reading it now gives the dual headed impression that A) Gaddis was incredibly prescient and the guy is incredibly smart, and B) the United States has continued to embark on the “very grand” strategy this book chronicles, a strategy not really partisan in nature, understandable when viewed in context of the attacks, but with significant flaws.
\nThis book hits quite a lot of subject matter in only ~150 pages. But two areas of particular focus are America’s relationship with unilateral foreign policy and America’s changing attitude about the spread of democratic ideals globally. Often, the 21st century’s drastic changes in speed of change make us assume that we are in unprecedented territory when it comes to the country’s geopolitical posture. Of any recent book I’ve read, this provides the right level of nuance to show where we are *actually* without precedent, and where we are forgetting that mirror-image decisions of John Quincy Adams, FDR and others are being emulated. I highly recommend this.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0OTE=","databaseId":491,"title":"Undaunted","slug":"undaunted","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/undaunted/","date":"2020-10-23T16:20:56","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23161737/undaunted-1.jpg","title":"undaunted-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"John Brennan","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"undaunted-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23161737/undaunted-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"undaunted-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23161738/undaunted-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"undaunted-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23161739/undaunted-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"undaunted-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23161740/undaunted-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 464","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Undaunted-Against-Americas-Enemies-Abroad/dp/1250241774"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"There has been an unorthodox, curious, and (to me) sad recent history of memoirs from career government officials that are really about the long, fascinating and distinguished careers of their authors, but are politically and topically known for their ending chapters on current affairs. I of course don’t fault discussion of those topics, but it saddens me to think that so many of both political parties will pick up this book solely to skip to its discussion of the Trump administration without reading the lion-share of its preceding chapters. For those that do give this a holistic and full read, they will be rewarded.
\nThis is a book about the improbable, winding journey of one of the central figures in 21st century American foreign policy and intelligence; a book about one of the most intense, forthright minds in the business. It was also a book with surprising honesty and directness concerning the complex history of the United States intelligence community, and about the IC’s tenuous relationship with its mission and the politics of its principal customer, across multiple administrations.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0OTY=","databaseId":496,"title":"The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe","slug":"the-voyage-of-sir-francis-drake-around-the-whole-globe","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-voyage-of-sir-francis-drake-around-the-whole-globe/","date":"2020-10-23T16:28:30","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23162425/the-voyage-of-sir-francis-drake-around-the-whole-globe-1.jpg","title":"the-voyage-of-sir-francis-drake-around-the-whole-globe-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Richard Hakluyt","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-voyage-of-sir-francis-drake-around-the-whole-globe-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23162425/the-voyage-of-sir-francis-drake-around-the-whole-globe-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-voyage-of-sir-francis-drake-around-the-whole-globe-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23162426/the-voyage-of-sir-francis-drake-around-the-whole-globe-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-voyage-of-sir-francis-drake-around-the-whole-globe-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23162427/the-voyage-of-sir-francis-drake-around-the-whole-globe-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 51","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Little-Classics-Voyage-Francis-Penguin/dp/0141398515"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I’ve kind of gotten used to these books that are essentially translated copy and pastes of in-ship journals for historical voyages. I read them most for their value of how these events were represented to European populations after they were over as public relations documents, rather than as believable primary sources. Hakluyt was known as the chief PR man of Elizabethan seafaring, during a time where spinning tales about the success of such voyages were paramount to continuing to receive the funding necessary from the throne. Obviously not much has changed in that regard.
\nParticularly of note here is how mundanely different events are described from one another. An accounting of the price of local goods or the state of the ship is written as manner-a-fact as murder and exile of local populations. It’s a bit disorienting — you do a double take halfway through the page when the subject changes so abruptly. The other noticeable theme was how accounting-like the journal was written. It was a reminder that above all, this was a political and corporate excursion, and the livelihoods and reputations of the crew, in part, depended on what was brought back, not just what was discovered.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1MDA=","databaseId":500,"title":"The Death of the Banker","slug":"the-death-of-the-banker","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-death-of-the-banker/","date":"2020-10-23T16:32:43","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23163029/the-death-of-the-banker-1.jpg","title":"the-death-of-the-banker-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Ron Chernow","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-death-of-the-banker-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23163029/the-death-of-the-banker-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-death-of-the-banker-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23163030/the-death-of-the-banker-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-death-of-the-banker-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23163031/the-death-of-the-banker-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-death-of-the-banker-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23163031/the-death-of-the-banker-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 212","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Death-Banker-Financial-Dynasties-Investor/dp/0375700374"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A very, very helpful book to understand American and global economic history, through the lens of financial intermediaries, from the late 18th century to present day. Chernow is in some position to write a book about this subject — his excellent biographies of JP Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, among others allowed him to write this from a position of holistic analysis.
\nThe biggest takeaway here is the widening relationship between finance and government from the American Revolution onward. Because of many factors, most of which centered around lack access to up to date financial information, financial services were almost inextricably linked to the foreign policy of nation states, necessitating a small number of centralized, high society leaders to facilitate transactions. These leaders were more diplomats than numbers men, and their shops were intensely private.
\nAs information access increased, so did the gradual meritocracy of the financial sector, thus increasing the number of viable players in the space, increasing regulation and eroding the exclusive club of power brokers we know as the Warburgs, Morgans, ect. Some evolved, some didn’t, but the result was a permanent and fundamental change in how the world did business. Chernow illustrates this, and more, fascinatingly and with his characteristic humor.
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\nHere is my (personal and immediate) takeaway from the book. This is a book is a reminder that living life as a means to a given end really makes no sense; it is your classic “the journey is what matters” text. It is just delivered in such an imaginative, wandering and visual style that provides so many other roads for the reader to go down, that many too complexly try to decode Coelho’s work into more than it needs to be. The wealth that Santiago finally achieves at the end of the story is only made meaningful in reference to the roundabout journey that was required to achieve it, even though the “ends” were technically right there where he started the entire time.
\nA coincidence — I got through this book while spending a few hours in the Mojave Desert. While researching it after finishing, I saw that the author (after a sup-par reception to the book’s original publishing) spent 40 days in the Mojave to reflect, a process that led him to the book’s eventual success.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1MTA=","databaseId":510,"title":"The Book of Eels","slug":"the-book-of-eels","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-book-of-eels/","date":"2020-10-23T17:11:13","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23170850/the-book-of-eels-1.jpg","title":"the-book-of-eels-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Patrik Svensson","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":"Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-book-of-eels-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23170850/the-book-of-eels-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":"Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-book-of-eels-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23170850/the-book-of-eels-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":"Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-book-of-eels-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23170851/the-book-of-eels-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 240","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Book-Eels-Enduring-Fascination-Mysterious/dp/0062968815"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Yes. This is a book about Eels. It is absolutely fantastic, and I will recommend it until I die. Svensson is an absolute artist — he writes of his own personal journey trying to understand this incredibly fascinating, mysterious, almost alien organism, juxtaposing it with the many great minds (Aristotle, Freud, and the like) who have gone down the same path.
\nEverything about the Eel; its incredibly confusing anatomy, a mating cycle that took thousands of years of scientific history to even scratch the surface of, and its ability to travel great distances (land or sea) with determination seemingly unmatched among peer animals (or honestly any other life on Earth), makes for a read that is up there with a mystery novel. This is exactly the book I didn’t know I needed, but am very glad I picked up and read.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1MTQ=","databaseId":514,"title":"This is Water","slug":"this-is-water","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/this-is-water/","date":"2020-10-23T17:14:31","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23171234/this-is-water-1.jpg","title":"this-is-water-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"David Foster Wallace","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"this-is-water-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23171234/this-is-water-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"this-is-water-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23171235/this-is-water-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"this-is-water-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23171236/this-is-water-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 138","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/This-Water-Delivered-Significant-Compassionate/dp/0316068225"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I still contend that this is one of the greatest speeches ever recorded; it is certainly one of my favorites. I have a (huge) soft spot for David Foster Wallace, and I am now halfway through his full body of work. With that disclaimer, (and I am sure this will not age well once I finish The Pale King and others) this is tied for the top spot with Consider the Lobster.
\nI am elated that this is in book form, and it should be read. But the real way to digest this in its best form is through listening, via the live recording. David Foster Wallace is able to communicate his message with his customary, almost impossible to describe but effortless to experience blend of colloquialism and incredible sophistication almost better verbally here, which is not the norm for him. His other recorded works, whether they be other speeches or long-form interviews are almost tragically hampered by his struggle with self-criticism and real-time verbal sabotage (the best example of this being his Charlie Rose interview). Yet somehow this speech stands alone as one of his greatest achievements, an honest distillation of the fear and perfectionism that daunted him, but turned on its head into a motivational and raw message that breaks through to the audience so incredibly clearly.
\nI think it took Infinite Jest, and Wallace’s other masterworks of great length and sophistication to fully explore the depths of his brain and flex his intellectual muscle. Once he had moved past that element of his writing, I’d posit that he became able to provide even more meaning in concise form, even purer, violent, more raw ideas to an audience/readership than he had before, but through a process other than intellectual contortion, one more subconscious. I come back to this speech incredibly often, and I hope you do too, and take from it for your own life.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1MTg=","databaseId":518,"title":"The President is Missing","slug":"the-president-is-missing","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-president-is-missing/","date":"2020-10-23T17:18:14","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23171626/the-president-is-missing-1.jpg","title":"the-president-is-missing-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Bill Clinton and James Patterson","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-president-is-missing-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23171626/the-president-is-missing-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-president-is-missing-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23171628/the-president-is-missing-2.png"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-president-is-missing-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23171629/the-president-is-missing-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 515","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/President-Missing-Novel-James-Patterson/dp/0316412694"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"To be honest, this was better than I thought it would be. This read like a big budget, 90’s presidential action film, and that is not going to be surprise considering the two authors. But — and this is a significant but — the underlying plot of the book was highly entertaining and at times even a bit surprising. I am sure that there were holes in the technical grasp of the cybersecurity elements (irrespective of the teams of advisors that must have worked on the book), but it was an imaginative concept that keeps you engaged and turning the page. Without too many spoilers, I’ll also note that even the ending had the right plot twists, and didn’t lull you to sleep as some of these political/spy fictions often do when the climax ends.
\n.
\nWith that said, this was still incredibly cheesy. It was just cheesy in a loveable way. It was clear that Clinton wrote the main character (the President of the United States) into a smorgasbord of every possible positive late 20th century stereotype of the great American president; tall, white, male, rugged good looks, broad shoulders, John McCain-esque war hero, agnostic to politics, moral and loyal to a fault, impossibly and unexpectedly smart and strategically minded even under complete stress, socially minded on all the right issues, and all the other greatest hits. But you know what — who cares. It is not every day you get to read a spy novel written by a former president, and the protagonist was so unrealistic, so incredibly foreign to almost any politician today, that it was a good fictional escape for a few hours from our daily political reality. If you are okay with not taking this book too seriously, you’re going to enjoy it.
I’ve been relatively slower in reading poetry than I’d like to be, so I’m getting a little more into it. This was excellent; Oliver writes beautifully, almost hauntingly throughout her body of work. Her best here is when she writes about time outdoors, and the relationship between humanity and the natural world, it’s fickle connection with time and our ego.
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\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1MzI=","databaseId":532,"title":"Superhuman","slug":"superhuman","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/superhuman/","date":"2020-10-23T17:28:45","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23172716/superhuman-1.jpg","title":"superhuman-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Rowan Hooper","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"superhuman-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23172716/superhuman-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"superhuman-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23172718/superhuman-2.png"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"superhuman-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23172719/superhuman-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 357","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Superhuman-Life-Extremes-Our-Capacity/dp/1501168711"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Such a fun read — one of the better books I’ve read about “human performance.” Usually, non-fiction that covers this subject is more of less an advertisement for a product the author offers, or some sort of self-help volume that reads as a resume. This was quite different. Hooper is an evolutionary biologist, and arrived at the idea to write this book after he realized that his long-held assumption that humans are virtually identical to apes and other primates needed to be examined from a new light.
\nHe sets out to profile and attempt to scientifically understand humans who perform at the highest level in the world across a multitude of attributes, ranging from intelligence, memory, multitasking, extreme distance running, singing, old age, bravery, and more. In doing so, he gives a helpful review of the scientific debate about why these individuals can do what they do. I had heard of the “10,000 hours” concept prior to this book, but didn’t fully appreciate its infamy; Hooper walks the reader through the theory’s fervent believers and detractors, and gives an especially telling background on the fact that the theory’s creator feels his work was too simplified in of itself. We also get into the science between genetic factors across each of these disciplines, with unsurprisingly nuanced results.
\nThe takeaway I got from this book is that most of us do have one (or multiple) areas in which we can be extraordinary. The trick, and what is in our control, is to engage in enough activities early enough in life that we end up lucky enough to find that area. Once we are lucky enough to have discovered it, significant discipline and practice is essential. Yes, genetics plays a significant role, and we learn in this book that it even plays a role in how good we are at practicing and generating motivation. But if we have already gotten lucky and found what we are genetically predisposed to succeed at, as a baseline, then we have already stacked the cards as heavily in our favor as they can be.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1MzY=","databaseId":536,"title":"Three Rings","slug":"three-rings","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/three-rings/","date":"2020-10-23T17:43:06","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174129/three-rings-1.jpeg","title":"three-rings-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Daniel Mendelsohn","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"three-rings-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174129/three-rings-1.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"three-rings-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174130/three-rings-2.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"three-rings-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174130/three-rings-3.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 110","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Three-Rings-Tale-Exile-Narrative/dp/081394466X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"If you can get away with describing a book, rather than a person, as “multi-hyphenate” — then this is it. Three Rings is not one thing — it is non-fiction, it is fiction, it is philology, it is historiography, it is a memoir, a philosophy work, societal commentary, and most of all a work about how we tell stories. If that last sentence was confusing but enticing to you, then you will want to read this. Very few and far between do you read a book in which you are actually experiencing a feeling of something “new.”
\nMendelsohn is also a hell of a writer. He is the definition of an author who doesn’t waste space. He is exceptionally, almost maddeningly well read, with a lateral sense of thinking that weaves together patterns across hundreds and thousands of years. Reading the book, even through it is quite short, is not the easiest task. Mendelsohn is one of those people that is so smart, so capable of seeing and interpreting the world in an entirely different, qualitative way that is indicative of a world-class philosopher, that it also will come off as a bit frustrating. You will need to read a few sections over and over before realizing that he has jumped you around through 5 or 6 topics in a single page.
\nI myself will have to probably return to this book many times over before really getting every reference, every concept. I can say, however, that at least one of the concrete take-aways that I got from this was a new way to look at Homer and the Odyssey. I am excited to re-read it with him in mind.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1NDA=","databaseId":540,"title":"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas","slug":"fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas/","date":"2020-10-23T17:46:49","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174447/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-1.jpeg","title":"fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Hunter S. Thompson","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174447/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-1.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174448/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-2.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174448/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-3.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174449/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-4.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 204","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Fear-Loathing-Las-Vegas-American/dp/0679785892"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I’ve seen (through the movie adaptations) and heard so much about Hunter S. Thompson, but have not up to this point read him. Yes, this was everything I’ve been told it would be — hallucinogenic, vulgar, deranged, incredibly political incorrect (to say the least) ect. But I also totally get it — why people love his writing. In his own way, it is almost as if this stream of altered conciseness is the necessary language to explaining a deep underlying truth about America. This is a quality that reminds me in some ways of the great comedic news and politics shows — in absurdity you are able to most directly communicate truth. Doing otherwise is to almost euphemize the actual state of reality that surrounds us.
\nYou finish this book, and what stays with you is a deeply profound critique of American society, and how what makes it great is also what degrades it.
\nWe are currently experiencing a reckoning about the very same issues — social, sexual, military, environmental, and so much more — that this book is in many ways about. It is about how these critical problems in American society were continuing to foment deeper and deeper during the 1970s, and while many were focused on addressing them, there was an even stronger pull towards escaping them via industry, bureaucracy, individualism, and austerity.
\nThere is perhaps one way to look at this today with a bit of silver lining; we at least now (mostly) agree that these problems actually exist. Whereas past eras ignored our crises, consciously or subconsciously, and it took writing like this to fight for exposure, we now are in the phase in which we have widespread discourse on them. That discourse is of course muddied with far more noise than signal, manipulated and toxic. But it does exist — I hope that it can be built upon.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1NDU=","databaseId":545,"title":"SQPR","slug":"sqpr","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/sqpr/","date":"2020-10-23T17:50:44","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174833/sqpr-1.jpg","title":"sqpr-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Mary Beard","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sqpr-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174833/sqpr-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sqpr-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174834/sqpr-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sqpr-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174835/sqpr-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sqpr-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23174835/sqpr-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 606","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/SPQR-History-Ancient-Mary-Beard/dp/1631492225"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I have fallen helplessly in love with Mary Beard’s writing. I couldn’t recommend this book enough — even to folks who aren’t particularly focused on or fascinated with ancient Rome. This is not your typical history book, and it is also not your typical Roman history book. Beard is right, it is certainly “a” history of Rome; she has a definite analytical focus, and part of that focus is her choice of what to omit, not just what to include.
\n(Relatively) omitted from SPQR is detailed coverage of Roman military affairs abroad. I found this to be a positive — I am absolutely drowning in books on that subject, and often times a history of Rome (or any ancient civilization) ends up just being an excuse to recite historical battle formations and strategies. I have loved books on those subjects, but a more complete view of Rome absent that has been elusive up to this point. Also de-prioritized in this book are fawning and detailed character portraits of individual leaders — we don’t see chapters of systematic trashing of Nero or new-age stoic worship of Aurelius. Beard does an excellent job of weaving them into the narrative, but does so with the right qualifications, and without getting stuck on the individual. She isn’t afraid to show where the “great person” theory of history falls short in the case of Rome, where disease, accident, or just boring explanations trump the sensational.
\nThe main character of this story, as much as Beard could make it, are the actual people of Rome. She does an excellent job (with such little data) of giving the reader a picture of how the average person lived, how they interacted with their families and neighbors, how (or if) they traveled, what they thought of Rome’s deity system, and whether or not they were affected by the current vicissitudes of leadership. She also focuses heavily on political systems — how Rome was governed and how, in many cases, it was not. She gives credit where it is due to the senatorial system, for Rome’s relative diversity of citizenship and acceptance of other cultures (relative to the day), but she also brings light to where myth trumps reality. My favorite section was her long introduction, her coverage of the histrionics of the Romulus and Remus story, the almost certainly mythical early Kings of Rome, and how the great thinkers and writers of the imperial Roman age and beyond so successfully spun their messaging web to preserve these myths into the modern day.
\nThis is not a short book — it is readable, but is not something you are going to get through in a day or two. At around 600 (thin) pages, the text isn’t huge, and I would recommend setting aside focus and time to really enjoy this. Because it should be enjoyed, and not treated as just another history book of facts and figures to throw in your brain and move on.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1NTk=","databaseId":559,"title":"V For Vendetta","slug":"v-for-vendetta","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/v-for-vendetta/","date":"2020-10-23T18:06:33","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23180433/v-for-vendetta-1.jpg","title":"v-for-vendetta-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Alan Moore and David Lloyd","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"v-for-vendetta-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23180433/v-for-vendetta-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"v-for-vendetta-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23180434/v-for-vendetta-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"v-for-vendetta-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23180435/v-for-vendetta-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"v-for-vendetta-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23180437/v-for-vendetta-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 292","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/V-Vendetta-New-ALAN-MOORE-ebook/dp/B0064W65UM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1AJ5CZ4J1LBN8&dchild=1&keywords=v+for+vendetta+graphic+novel&qid=1600206717&sprefix=V+for+ve%2Caps%2C194&sr=8-1"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This was an expanded collection of all 3 V for Vendetta chapters with some pretty cool essays from Alan Moore (written back in the 80s) as intros and outros. I was especially interested in the outro essay, which was a pretty fascinating behind the scenes of the creative process Moore and Lloyd took. It was satisfyingly honest — instead of a polished victory lap, Moore talks about the relationship between scriptwriting and putting strip images down, the hilarious names for the main character and book itself that were scrapped, and the fact that both Moore and Lloyd (without talking to one another) independently came up with the “Vendetta” name. It was also a window into just how long projects like this in the creative industries can take. Moore went for iterations of this concept many times, through many rejections, before finding the right match with Lloyd — and at that point, everything came together quite quickly.
\nOne of the things I picked up from the story itself (and this will sound a bit random) was the use of the Milgram Experiment by one of the characters, as a way to concretize the totalitarian world in which the story is set in. Ever since reading Humankind (book 233), which disproved so many of these psychological experiments that have become a part the zeitgeist, I often wonder how stories like V for Vendetta would (or wouldn’t) be changed if it was more widely known that such studies were not entirely true. They have become so entrenched into society as a way of justifying evil human behavior as the base norm that it has had a compounding effect. So many lives have probably been in some ways affected by this core concept — it is featured across so much literature. I don’t want to overstate the point — books like this were not created around concepts like the Milgram Experiment, and thus it wouldn’t invalidate the plot’s underlying philosophy — but it certainly plays a role. And I think that matters.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1NjQ=","databaseId":564,"title":"The Sirens of Mars","slug":"the-sirens-of-mars","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-sirens-of-mars/","date":"2020-10-23T18:09:43","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23180806/the-sirens-of-mars-1.jpg","title":"the-sirens-of-mars-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Sarah Stewart Johnson","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-sirens-of-mars-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23180806/the-sirens-of-mars-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-sirens-of-mars-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23180807/the-sirens-of-mars-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-sirens-of-mars-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23180808/the-sirens-of-mars-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-sirens-of-mars-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23180808/the-sirens-of-mars-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 266","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Sirens-Mars-Searching-Another-World-ebook/dp/B07Y7HL1RT"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Beautifully written — this was multiple books in one (and also, badass Sirens of Titan reference). Johnson gives a history of our history with Mars and the mystery of what it contains, from Galileo in the mid 17th century to present day, but also stops for some needed detours. The best of these asides was a gentle but accurate description of how important a role peer review, credentialism, government/military funding, and tenure politics in the academic community have derailed (or nearly derailed) many careers that were on the right track to study Mars. The most striking of these was the story of Carl Sagan, who was rejected for tenure from both Harvard and MIT because his undergraduate thesis advisor wrote scathing letters, behind his back, to both institutions. Sagan landed at Cornell, and of course enjoyed an amazingly productive career, but it was only after his collegiate advisor wrote a public letter apologizing for derailing his career that he knew why he was mysteriously rejected.
\nThe book really comes alive when the author, planetary scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson, comes into the story — and this is where it turns into a passionate autobiography or sorts. She writes beautifully about the responsibility of being one of the only female scientists at the highest levels of her profession, and of the heartbreak she and her advisors faced on multiple occasions when Mars probes broke or lost contact with Earth. I wouldn’t say that this is a highly technical work, and it is for the better that way. I haven’t really read, until this, a human story about our relationship with the red planet, and how multiple times so much of human society was so curious (at times convinced one way or another) about whether our neighbor harbors. Ironically, we still don’t know for sure, and that is perhaps why this book is so important today.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1NzQ=","databaseId":574,"title":"Ralph Lauren","slug":"ralph-lauren","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/ralph-lauren/","date":"2020-10-23T18:34:15","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183204/ralph-lauren-1.jpg","title":"ralph-lauren-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Ralph Lauren (Forward: Audrey Hepburn)","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ralph-lauren-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183204/ralph-lauren-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ralph-lauren-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183205/ralph-lauren-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ralph-lauren-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183206/ralph-lauren-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ralph-lauren-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183207/ralph-lauren-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 521","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.potterybarn.com/products/ralph-lauren-book/?catalogId=84&sku=8868544&cm_ven=PLA&cm_cat=Google&cm_pla=Pillows%20%26%20Decor%20%3E%20Coffee%20Table%20Books&cm_ite=8868544&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIssvr2Pne6wIVA9bACh2QWgR4EAQYASABEgJzn_D_BwE"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Loved this. Lauren has had such a multi-stage career, has re-invented created so many new product lines and new ideas of fashion, and done so while also maintaining virtually the same underlying aesthetic. This book was a (quite detailed and long) journey through that career, from his start creating wide-body ties under the name Polo in a “closet” office inside the Empire State Building during the 70s.
\nThere of course is never a truly overnight success story, but his career took of faster than I would have assumed. Every year or so, RL developed a new category that at the time was seen as quite a risk, and did so with impressive execution, from sports to evening-wear. He is able to keep that continuity of design throughout, something timeless and not tied to the fads of the day; this led him to avoid a lot of the quick 90s trends that tanked and dated many other designers.
\nHe also seems to have been a bit ahead of his time on philanthropy as well. Fashion is a space in which the already-light CSR field can be quite un-impactful, and Lauren bucked the trend with his work in fighting breast cancer, even before starting his foundation and impact investing arm (which we’ve come across a few times through Helena and have been impressed with).
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1Nzk=","databaseId":579,"title":"Brave New Arctic","slug":"brave-new-arctic","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/brave-new-arctic/","date":"2020-10-23T18:37:19","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183540/brave-new-arctic-1.jpg","title":"brave-new-arctic-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Marc C. Serreze","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"brave-new-arctic-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183540/brave-new-arctic-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"brave-new-arctic-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183541/brave-new-arctic-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"brave-new-arctic-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183542/brave-new-arctic-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"brave-new-arctic-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183542/brave-new-arctic-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 255","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-Arctic-Melting-Essentials/dp/0691173990/ref=asc_df_0691173990/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312165853622&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10051024401551504071&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9029719&hvtargid=pla-525574759916&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=60258872297&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312165853622&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10051024401551504071&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9029719&hvtargid=pla-525574759916"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This was a great book to read — but a tad different than I assumed. It is a fascinating tour of the last few decades of the academic research community’s work in the Arctic, and weaves in the individual story of the author. The biggest area that this book showed me was how complex and nuanced the topic of climate change really is. There are so many pieces to the puzzle that do not fit clean, simple soundbites and political speeches, and there is still so much more to study. This is not at all in conflict, to be sure, with the fact that climate change is an existential (defined slightly loosely) and critical threat to the future of humanity on planet Earth. And the fact that both of these things can be true is unfortunately also part of the problem.
\nSerreze does a great job of walking the reader through this. We see that isolated parts of the North (and the rest of the world) can slightly or significantly cool, and the fact that they are warming is a cog of supporting evidence for overall global warming. We see that volcanic eruptions during the early 1990s led to a few years of global cooling (barely), an exogenous effect having nothing to do with human emissions and anthropomorphic climate change. It gets at the problem with information in the 21st century — the scientific process makes room for nuance, and the media unfortunately (in the large part) does not. Books like this are critical to understanding the full picture of what we truly know, what we still need to know, and how all of these facts weave into the right course of action to respond to this seminal threat of our time.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1ODQ=","databaseId":584,"title":"The Quantum Spy","slug":"the-quantum-spy","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-quantum-spy/","date":"2020-10-23T18:40:11","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183851/the-quantum-spy-1.jpg","title":"the-quantum-spy-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"David Ignatius","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-quantum-spy-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183851/the-quantum-spy-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-quantum-spy-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183853/the-quantum-spy-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-quantum-spy-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23183852/the-quantum-spy-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 323","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Spy-Thriller-David-Ignatius/dp/0393254151"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"The second David Ignatius spy novel I’ve read now. This one centered around a technological arms race between a compartmentalized group of players at the top of the US and China’s respective intelligence systems. As much as a fan of Igantius’ writing as I am, this is a spy novel, and you are always going to be liable to find a few cheesy parts here and there. Yet overall, I think what separates him as an author, and what gravitates me a bit more towards his books (considering that I don’t usually read much contemporary political fiction), is Ignatius’ dual role as a real-life IC/political journalist and a novelist.
\nBecause he has a birds-eye view of issues like quantum computing and its implications on geopolitics from his day job, it makes books like this a little more believable and practical. It can be a good reprieve from more technical non-fiction to use fiction to better understand issues like this.
\nHere, Ignatius explores topics like the relationship between China’s PLA intelligence arm and other internal, rival intelligence services like the Ministry of State Security, and how that friction can often catalyze inefficiencies and expose bureaucratic weakness. The US, of course, is also not immune to such problems. The book has a particular focus on how internal IC turf wars, especially between the funding arms of the defense department and that of CIA programs can come into conflict, as well as how the academic community walks a fine line between wanting/needing government capital, but resenting the secrecy and classification on their work that comes with it.
\nThis comes to the fore when American academic institutions make the valid point that the inherent openness of American culture attracts the top international researchers to their universities; it is counterproductive to then turn around and seek to classify the resulting research. We also see discussion about how foreign intelligence agencies often use ethnic identities of American intelligence officers as a way to attempt to turn them, playing the card that they are not “really” American for spying on their ancestral nations. All in all, I think this book did it’s job, and I’m excited to read more from Ignatius.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1ODg=","databaseId":588,"title":"Genesis","slug":"genesis","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/genesis/","date":"2020-10-23T19:10:16","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23184145/genesis-1.jpg","title":"genesis-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Edward O. Wilson","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"genesis-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23184145/genesis-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"genesis-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23184146/genesis-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"genesis-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23184147/genesis-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"genesis-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23184147/genesis-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 154","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Origin-Societies-Edward-Wilson/dp/1631495542#:~:text=Genesis%3A%20The%20Deep%20Origin%20of%20Societies%20Hardcover%20%E2%80%93%20March%2019%2C%202019&text=Find%20all%20the%20books%2C%20read%20about%20the%20author%2C%20and%20more.&text=Forming%20a%20twenty%2Dfirst%2Dcentury,of%20scientific%20thought%20and%20synthesis."}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"It was not at all coincidental, but both this book and the last that I read (Tribe by Sebastian Junger) are in a lot of ways about the same topic: the most fundamental and natural state of how human societies function. I am a huge fan of EO Wilson, and really regret missing him speak when I was at Yale for the first two years of undergrad and he came by. I also bought his latest book, Tales From the Ant World, which I am excited to read soon.
\nGenesis is classic Wilson — short in page length, but incredibly deep and nuanced in the ground it is able to cover. You feel by the end of it that you have read something closer to a 500 page book; obviously not surprising for someone who is on his 32nd book and has mastered his craft. Here he makes a bold argument to synthesize social darwinism, taking into account the newest 21st century developments but also fitting in a more “standard model” that fights against traditional held beliefs held in religion.
\nHis guide word here is eusociality — the concept of in-groups collaborating and coordinating with one another for group/society wide development. His declaration that humans are eusocial is the main thrust of the book: that from examples like clear divisions of labor in early to modern human civilizations, groups of eusocial humans develop as a unit, which each constituent part playing their part (but crucially different parts). This is in part how human “intelligence” developed, (defined in the modern context in which cooperative intelligence is prized more than first-principle problem solving in isolation, as thinkers from Aristotle to Douglas Hofstadter have shown). Humans are not unique in this classification: here Wilson brings in his famous studies on ant behavior, wild dogs, and many others. It is a fascinating book and a great read.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1OTM=","databaseId":593,"title":"Tribe","slug":"tribe","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/tribe/","date":"2020-10-23T19:10:16","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23184509/tribe-1.jpg","title":"tribe-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Sebastian Junger","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"tribe-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23184509/tribe-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"tribe-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23184510/tribe-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"tribe-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23184511/tribe-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"tribe-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23184512/tribe-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 168","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian-Junger/dp/1455566381"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"‘Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.’
\n"},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Format: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page-count: 290","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Sun-Also-Rises-Hemingway-Library/dp/1501121960"}}],"recommendedBy":[{"title":"Will Jack","slug":"will-jack","contentType":{"node":{"uri":"/team/"}}}]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Hemingway’s first book, a (the) classic of the Lost Generation/Jazz Age literary era. I’ve really begun a Hemingway rabbit hole at this point, and am really looking forward to reading the rest of his canon.
\nThis has had mixed reactions from friends who have read it. One of the biggest points of contention is the character of Brett Ashley, who many liken to Fitzgerald’s Daisy Buchanan. I see similarities, but I would say it would be more accurate to say that Brett is almost a rough combination of Gatsby AND Daisy. Even when she isn’t in scene, she commands the book front to back. Her agency and freedom of choice also drives both the choices and physical locations of the entire book, even when many of those characters don’t know it, or won’t admit it.
\nThis has been commented often, but I was also pretty struck by the role of alcohol in the book. It is so constant, so egregious, so present that I almost refuse to believe that Hemingway simply placed it into the book as a casual remark of salon era Paris. Drinking is, rather, a character itself in the story.
\nIt is almost a leading or supporting role — nearly every meaningful scene takes place in some sort of setting in which the consumption of alcohol is centralized. It makes sense; one could argue that the undertone of the entire book is “unrealized” love and search for meaning amongst friends in a post WW1 western world, in which social elites constantly need a drink in order to prevent themselves from thinking “too hard.” We see this in Jake Barnes, who is a hopeless romantic arguably only when sober, becoming dismissive whenever he is around Brett (and coincidentally drunk).
\nAnd then there is bullfighting — we see here in Hemingway’s first novel a fascination with it. In so many of his other works, we see this as a theme, as an analog for human nature and (again) the human search for meaning through glory and violence at a distance. His sparse style shines best when he writes about it.
\nA final thing on Hemingway as I begin to scratch the surface on him: after reading Hemingway, it is hard to transition to other writers, even exceptional ones, if they aren’t minimalist. Foucault, or Durant, or others I am reading right now almost come off as sesquipedalian in nature. Hemingway does more than rebel against his particular era of largess with his writing style — it is more timeless than that. He is able to not only find the right (often short) words for the occasion, but almost weaponize the short sentence. It reminds me of the negative note in music, or the negative space in minimalist art.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo1OTk=","databaseId":599,"title":"Broken Bananah","slug":"broken-bananah","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/broken-bananah/","date":"2020-10-23T19:10:16","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23190701/broken-bananah-1.jpg","title":"broken-bananah-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Ross Asdourian","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"broken-bananah-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23190701/broken-bananah-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"broken-bananah-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23190702/broken-bananah-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"broken-bananah-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23190703/broken-bananah-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"broken-bananah-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23190704/broken-bananah-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 191","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Bananah-Life-Without-Penis/dp/1986742814/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=broken+bananah&qid=1598931168&s=books&sr=1-1"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Yes, this was about as funny and painful to read as you would imagine it. Comedian (and friend of mine) Ross Asdourian had quite the injury (yes, that type of injury), and wrote a fascinating book about it. I actually met Ross at a Sundance film festival dinner (I believe on the tour for this book), and, like so many detailed in this book, refused to believe him for the first hour or so.
\nThis book is about the act itself, the preceding context leading up to it, New York City relationships among the creative types in the late 2010s and how Ross navigated the incredibly complex and (not surprisingly) awkward family, romantic, and social relationships in his life. It’s written with the kind of wit and linguistic gymnastics you would come to expect if you know Ross or have seen his work. And with that, I’ve leave the cliffhanger for those who read the book.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2MDQ=","databaseId":604,"title":"Scenes Along the River During the Qingming Festival","slug":"scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival/","date":"2020-10-23T19:18:27","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23191638/scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival-1.jpg","title":"scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Zhang Zeduan","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23191638/scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23191639/scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23191639/scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23191640/scenes-along-the-river-during-the-qingming-festival-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: Continuous Scroll","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Scenes-along-during-Qingming-Festival/dp/1602200033/ref=asc_df_1602200033/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=247176327042&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2202376871923032268&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031022&hvtargid=pla-456950043815&psc=1"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This was a brilliant walkthrough of one of the most important pieces of art in Chinese history — Qingming Shang He Tu (Scenes along the River during the Quingming Festival), depicting the cityscape and waterways of 12th century Bianjing, which was at the time the capital the Northern Song Dynasty. This book is constructed in traditional Chinese language format (reading right to left), and gives an incredibly detailed breakdown of every minute detail in the 500+ meter panorama. I really, really, enjoyed looking through the art piece and stretching the entire thing out right to left to take it all in.
\nThere are so many hidden secrets embedded into the piece. Zhang Zeduan is Da Vinci-like in his attention to detail (it is stunning and something to be constantly reminded of that this is a painting in the 1100s). From the facial expressions of waiters, hotel guests, soft drink stands, wealthy travelers to the architectural depictions of large and small building structures and incredibly intricate boats, the panorama is also drawn with accurate visual perspective, which is almost unheard of in art of this time period. This is also a reminder of the economic and political development of Chinese civilization during a time in which the rest of the world was far, far behind. This is an image that would seem accurate were it to be depicting the Mississippi River Delta in the late 18th century, not something 700 years prior.
\nOne of the most fascinating parts of the work is what is written on the backside of the panorama’s scroll — meters and meters of notes and poems from the successive scholars and art collectors who owned this work over the centuries. You become engrossed in the politics of how individuals and institutions got a hold of this painting, how they lost it, and what their analysis of Zhang Zeduan was, even after hundreds of years. To see that on the back of the piece itself is stunningly impressive.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2MDk=","databaseId":609,"title":"The Future of Humanity","slug":"the-future-of-humanity","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-future-of-humanity/","date":"2020-10-23T19:22:00","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192008/the-future-of-humanity-1.jpg","title":"the-future-of-humanity-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Michio Kaku","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-humanity-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192008/the-future-of-humanity-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-humanity-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192008/the-future-of-humanity-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-humanity-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192009/the-future-of-humanity-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-humanity-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192010/the-future-of-humanity-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 339","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Future-Humanity-Terraforming-Interstellar-Immortality/dp/0385542763"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Michio Kaku has been fascinating to me; I’ve been reading up on his work regarding string field theory for awhile now. In addition, a reading the Three Body Problem Trilogy, I’ve really been bitten by the futurism bug, and that led me to finally pick up this book, which has been on my shelf for awhile. I’ve recently made a bit of a transition in my thinking about the field of futurism (if you can call it that). I used to see it as a fun topic to speculate on, but not one with the kind of actionable, present-day implications that one might think. The more I have gotten into the study of how society progresses technological change, the unpredictable speed of that change, and the need to make decisions today that will create chain reactions extending far into the future, however, the more I have realized just how important (and misunderstood) this field of study is.
\nThis book was helpful — it gives Kaku’s overview of the most important movements and technologies he sees that will come about during the remainder of the 21st century, and speculates on those that will take until the 22nd century to come to completion. Both of these sections are given equal rigor and treatment. He begins with a pre-history that provides a great reminder of how quickly past innovations have subsumed society, from the central governor and rail systems to air-flight, propulsion, rocketry and our early forays into space. That transitions into a great review of the physics, economic and political challenges ahead of us in our explorations and inhabitations of the moon, mars, and beyond during the 21st century, as well as a prediction of some of the existential risks we can counter by venturing to space.
\nIt is in the fields of extending human life, biological engineering and general artificial intelligence where Kaku is more speculative (as he should be given the variance of outcomes and timelines we can expect in these fields). Perhaps the most startling assertion I found in the book is that of our future dealings with intelligent extraterrestrial life. Kaku does seem to be bold in his belief that we will encounter and potentially communicate with (or at least receive communication from) extraterrestrial life during the 21st century. He even cites a college who believes that this might happen before 2025 (this book was published in 2018). I do think, irrespective of whether that will occur, the constant ridicule of organizations focusing on such a potential outcome is counterintuitive, and Kaku is right to make that charge. The fact that there is no (public) agreed upon intergovernmental plan for dealing with that arguably likely future (even if it happens much in the future) helps no one.
\nI enjoyed this introduction to Kaku’s writing, and plan to read and buy the rest of his works. I think the next book of his that I will try is Hyperspace.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2MTQ=","databaseId":614,"title":"Managing Oneself","slug":"managing-oneself","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/managing-oneself/","date":"2020-10-23T19:24:59","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192329/managing-oneself-1.jpg","title":"managing-oneself-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Peter Drucker","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"managing-oneself-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192329/managing-oneself-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"managing-oneself-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192330/managing-oneself-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"managing-oneself-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192331/managing-oneself-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 60","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Oneself-Harvard-Business-Classics/dp/142212312X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I’ve heard people sing Peter Drucker’s praises, but up until this point haven’t read any of his works. I saw one similar to this on a friend’s table, and thought this would be a good time to read something short of his. I liked it quite a lot. Drucker has the kind of writing that I like; he doesn’t speak in the jargon of the modern self-help guru or business journalist. I think he probably predates that. He draws on his experiences as an asset manager in London in the 1930s, but also on his wide ranging and diverse analysis of the leadership styles of presidents, military figures, hospital CEOs, family businesses, and much more.
\nMore so, I can see why people love the simplicity of his argumentation. He can break down concepts that are often on the tip of one’s tongue, and present them in succinct and humorous tone that ends up sticking in memory well. Buffett does this quite well too, and I can see why they are often linked together intellectually (as well as why they overlapped professionally in some ways too). This book’s best moments are in Drucker’s description of learning styles: understanding whether you are a reader, hearer, talker, or notetaker, and why that is key to development.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2MTg=","databaseId":618,"title":"Death’s End","slug":"deaths-end","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/deaths-end/","date":"2020-10-23T19:29:04","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192649/deaths-end-1.jpg","title":"deaths-end-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Cixin Liu","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"deaths-end-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192649/deaths-end-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"deaths-end-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192650/deaths-end-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"deaths-end-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192651/deaths-end-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"deaths-end-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23192652/deaths-end-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 623","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Deaths-End-Remembrance-Earths-Past/dp/0765377101"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I became so entranced with this book that it got to the point where yesterday afternoon, evening and night became an 8+ hour blur in which I could barely get up from my chair, reading through the final 300 pages of this book in one sitting. This series is that enthralling, it is that good.
\nI heard from a friend who has also finished the series (this is the 3rd book in the Three Body Problem trilogy) that Deaths End, was underwhelming compared to the first and second. I disagree, although I concede the genius of the Dark Forest nature of the universe that the second book ushered in was perhaps the coolest part of the series.
\nAll 3 books manipulate long stretches of time as the theatre of its storytelling, but Death’s End uses it far more than Three Body Problem and The Dark Forest. Death’s end also comes up with (as it needs to in order to fit this timeline) many more advanced projections about the universal laws of physics, which to me was endlessly fascinating to read. I could imagine why a world class physicist or cosmologist might disagree with Cixin Liu’s interpretations and therefore may be slightly annoyed with the book, but to someone like me, far under that level of knowledge, I am cloaked enough by my own ignorance to have fully enjoyed this without an asterisk.
\nI just finished this book a few hours ago, but it is already clear that reading this series permanently changes you (even just a tiny bit). It forces you to think about the context of your life and decisions from the original position, and across timescales, dimensions, and physical space that you most likely have never seriously put your attention to.
\nThat is its real genius — we have all thought fleetingly about these topics, but our regular, mundane life usually intercedes and distracts us after only a few moments. Here, you are forced to confront all of it over the course of dozens of hours and a few thousand pages. Doing so really changes your frame of reference, and it exposes you to deeply fascinating (and at times terrifying) ideas.
\nFinishing this series now is giving me a renewed craving to dive back into reading human history from ancient times to the present, and have a fuller picture of our species from the beginning of recorded time. I think it is because the massive, multi-million year time scale hosted in the trilogy oddly gives you a renewed joy of living in our own minuscule slice of space-time, and a need to better understand it. It also gets me excited to dive a bit deeper into futurism (I’m looking forward to reading some Michio Kaku soon) to hear what some of the best minds have to say about timescales this big. I’m very excited for my friends to discover this series and have a similar experience to what I had reading it.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2MjM=","databaseId":623,"title":"Never Let Me Go","slug":"never-let-me-go","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/never-let-me-go/","date":"2020-10-23T19:32:42","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23193114/never-let-me-go-1.jpg","title":"never-let-me-go-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Kazuo Ishiguro","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"never-let-me-go-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23193114/never-let-me-go-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"never-let-me-go-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23193115/never-let-me-go-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"never-let-me-go-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23193116/never-let-me-go-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 291","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Never-Let-Me-Kazuo-Ishiguro/dp/1400078776"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This is one of those novels that reviewing in earnest would require me divulge an extreme spoiler that is an undercurrent of the entire book (one that I didn’t know until around halfway in, and swept the ground out from under me). So I won’t be able to really say much about the plot of this book without ruining it.
\nWith that said, this absolutely deserves it’s reputation as one of, if not the best, novels of the last few decades. Ishiguro is heartbreaking; he creates an entire world inside of just a few isolated characters.
\nTo me, this captures the transition in everyone’s childhood from innocence to the mounting understanding of the outside world, and the repression of the power of that outside world (both positive and negative) better than anything I’ve yet read. He is absolutely deserving of his 2017 Nobel Prize, which I believe he won in part because of this book.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2MzY=","databaseId":636,"title":"Tao Te Ching","slug":"tao-te-ching","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/tao-te-ching/","date":"2020-10-23T20:48:21","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23204621/tao-te-ching-1.jpg","title":"tao-te-ching-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Lao Tzu","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"tao-te-ching-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23204621/tao-te-ching-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"tao-te-ching-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23204622/tao-te-ching-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"tao-te-ching-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23204622/tao-te-ching-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"tao-te-ching-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23204623/tao-te-ching-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 81","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Lao-Tzu/dp/1690029994/ref=pd_lpo_14_img_1/140-6919911-3643423?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1690029994&pd_rd_r=87d9b8a7-198f-48d5-84f0-083614bac3f3&pd_rd_w=RSjLK&pd_rd_wg=upbSG&pf_rd_p=7b36d496-f366-4631-94d3-61b87b52511b&pf_rd_r=Y33ECR3J7FA6V4X0D2EV&psc=1&refRID=Y33ECR3J7FA6V4X0D2EV"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"It isn’t really possible to “review” something like Tao Te Ching; rather it is more just that this will be the first time (or impression) of reading it, and I’ll have to come back to it many times in the future, as well as read it in reference to the many works that are inspired by it.
\nWith that said, one concept throughout the Tao that I found extremely powerful was that of the relationship between a “perfect” or “complete” idea, and the inevitable deterioration or incompleteness of that idea when it is translated from thought into language. This is what Lao Tzu cautions throughout, that “words have an ancestor — a preceding idea,” and to conflate, ridicule or be confused by words is not quite to have real judgment on the idea that those words imperfectly aim to capture. The more I read (and the more I accumulate life experiences, for that matter) this concept has become a through-line.
\nI’m reminded of one of the many iterations of it in the present, when I think about the relationship between the rule of law and law itself, and the relationship between societal/moral ideals and their application. This concept of deterioration occurring during translation of something holistic to something applied was once an idea that I shrugged at, but now am fascinated by, and see manifested in so many ideas. It is in Plato (the Platonic ideal and form), Jefferson in his complex meditation on factions and political parties, and in Wittgenstein in his discussions on the relationship between object and subject as it pertains to the divine in art and poetry.
\nThe Tao Te Ching obviously has many more instances of this, and I’m excited to keep it around as they come up organically.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2NDE=","databaseId":641,"title":"The Paladin","slug":"the-paladin","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-paladin/","date":"2020-10-23T20:53:31","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23205133/the-paladin-1.jpg","title":"the-paladin-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"David Ignatius","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-paladin-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23205133/the-paladin-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-paladin-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23205134/the-paladin-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-paladin-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23205135/the-paladin-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-paladin-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23205136/the-paladin-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 311","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Paladin-Spy-Novel-David-Ignatius/dp/0393254178"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This started as a guilty pleasure read (who doesn’t like a good spy novel), but turned into something that was also helpful for my understanding of some of the more disruptive modern technologies that will play an important role in geopolitics during our time, especially deepfake technology.
\nIgnatius really did his homework for this book, visiting (or living in) each of the plot’s locations, crediting folks who work directly in the fields of question for his research, and of course drawing on his own deep reservoir of knowledge from his day job reporting for the Washington Post.
\nThis is a great book for a weekend read — it sucks you in early, is a page turner, and changes pace quite often. But for a practitioner in technology, intelligence, or just someone curious about some of the real implication of narrow AI available now, it is also up to snuff. Would happily recommend.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2NDY=","databaseId":646,"title":"The Origin of Financial Crises","slug":"the-origin-of-financial-crises","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-origin-of-financial-crises/","date":"2020-10-23T21:14:35","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23211256/the-origin-of-financial-crises-1.jpg","title":"the-origin-of-financial-crises-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"George Cooper","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-origin-of-financial-crises-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23211256/the-origin-of-financial-crises-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-origin-of-financial-crises-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23211256/the-origin-of-financial-crises-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-origin-of-financial-crises-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23211257/the-origin-of-financial-crises-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-origin-of-financial-crises-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23211258/the-origin-of-financial-crises-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 204","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Financial-Crises-Central-Efficient/dp/0307473457/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=George+Cooper%3A+The+Origin+of+Financial+Crises%3A+Central+Banks%2C+Credit+Bubbles+and+the+Efficient+Market+Fallacy&qid=1597020498&s=books&sr=1-1"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A masterclass covering quite a lot of material in the form of intuitive logic statements. Cooper begins with a surprisingly complete history of money itself from the beginning of human society to the present, showing how the superstructure of the modern macroeconomy we inhabit today was built.
\nIt is from this base that he launches his argument — a fierce attack on the academic community’s perpetuation of efficient market theory that Cooper believes continues to win over major players and institutions the world over, was the core cause of the 2008 financial crisis (which happened as he was writing this book) and will continue to plague the American and global economies until it is addressed.
\nIt is a plea for a deeper understanding, consensus and embrace of the fact that markets are inherently unstable (that not all economic crises can be attributed to exogenous shocks, and many are in fact due to internal conditions) that drives Cooper throughout the book. He elegantly introduces and details the concept of central banks and the fact that they are dangerously misunderstood (or in some cases not understood at all) by politicians, the general public, and even some of the people working for them. After, he provides what reads to me as an eminently reasonable and nuanced endorsement of the central banking system, with the right caveats.
\nThe best part of this book besides its ability to explain such a complex and misunderstood subject in a short amount of time is Cooper’s inclusion of William Edward Maxwell’s governor theory, and how it applies to the correct management of central banking policy.
\nEven among other brilliant authors I have read, who have been able to take disperse topics and apply them to a field I have not considered yet, Cooper’s example here was especially brilliant. He introduces Maxwell’s governor theory through the example of the breakthrough mechanical construction of 21st century self-balancing European fighter jets, which correct from their inherently unstable base with minute adjustments that happen quicker than the human intuition, and applies the same reasoning to how we should consider governing central banks in the 21st century. And I promise the book itself does a far better job than my summary here makes it seem!
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2NTE=","databaseId":651,"title":"Let the People Pick the President","slug":"let-the-people-pick-the-president","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/let-the-people-pick-the-president/","date":"2020-10-23T21:17:48","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23211627/let-the-people-pick-the-president-1.jpg","title":"let-the-people-pick-the-president-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Jesse Wegman","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"let-the-people-pick-the-president-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23211627/let-the-people-pick-the-president-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"let-the-people-pick-the-president-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23211627/let-the-people-pick-the-president-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"let-the-people-pick-the-president-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23211628/let-the-people-pick-the-president-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"let-the-people-pick-the-president-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23211629/let-the-people-pick-the-president-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 304","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Let-People-Pick-President-Abolishing/dp/1250221978"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I’m beginning a bit of a personal deep dive into the history of the electoral college, and the fascinating and complex debate that has surrounded its existence and construction since the inception of the United States. This was a great introduction to the argument against the college, or at the very least as an expose of the winner-take-all provisions of electors by state.
\nWegman, a member of the New York Times editorial board, is pleasantly surprising in his ability to self-diagnose inside of his own argumentation and provide rational of the other side. Even so, I am looking for other books that take up the other mantle, defending the college and its construction. (If anyone reading this has a good book that does that, please let me know).
\nThis book also serves as a quite well written constitutional social history of the United States from the vantage point of the electoral college debate. I thought I knew at least a bit about the relationship between the college and slavery, Jim Crow laws and the post 1860 resurgence of anti-black governance structures in the south, but Wegman gives a far deeper and more explosive summary of it than I have heard.
\nIt is in structural governance issues like the electoral college that I fear many who seek positive social change are under-versed, and it’s a shame. We should all better understand the intricacies of how we are governed and the context behind how those structures were created in our hope to improve them. Yet even given the subject at hand, Wegman still marvel at the genius and foresight of the constitution, as do I.
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\nWhat most struck me from reading this book was how variable the potential outcomes are when it comes to predicting the end of the universe (at least from our vantage point). One of the biggest culprits of this, unsurprisingly, is the (quasi) mystery of dark matter and its role as the protagonist in the saga of our universe.
The other element (also not too surprising) is the role of complexity science in all of this. Tiny deviations or changes in our understandings of the universe, as they are discovered, can so dramatically alter the scientific community’s resulting hypotheses about core issues that is causes us to re-write theory after theory and often start from scratch.
\nMack also shows the reader a few wild card cases, almost all of which run diametrically counter to our own (or at least my own) logical basis of understanding, which themselves in turn change underlying assumptions. My favorite of these in the book is the fact that in many cases, cosmic objects (like planets, stars, ect.) appear larger the farther they are from the observer, which quite delights astrophysicists in many cases, but caused me to re-read the passage a few times in a row to make sure I wasn’t catching a typo. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t. Just another example of how I remain (very) far on the periphery of understanding really any advanced theory in this space.
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\nAre we to read some of the most consequential articles and amendments in the context of their time, waiting to be updated for the present, or is there a sacred underpinning to each that should not be changed or tampered with, because they hold fundamental truths of good governance that transcend time? We’ve obviously chosen the former in some cases in the subsequent history of America, but we have surprisingly, for the most part, held steady to this document in a way no other nation or prior civilization has. I am still struck with how short, yet seemingly encompassing, the document is. To look at single sentences in the present, and be struck with how many lives, how many years or judicial, social, military, and/or political history have subsequently been affected and guided by those few words, is baffling.
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\nWhile undertaking the swim, Edgley took copious notes of his mental state, how he was able to intellectually and emotionally justify the journey during the toughest parts of the swim, and what he learned about the mind’s relationship to physical human capacity. Those notes, edited and formatted back on land, make up the core of the book. It makes the work refreshingly different. Instead of a piece of braggadocio after the fact, the reader is instead treated to the unvarnished “feed” of intrinsic dialog Edgley was having with himself. I really enjoy reading stuff like this.
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\nThe book takes on all of the counterarguments that might immediately jump into your head upon hearing the author’s assertion: showing that the Stanford Prison Experiment was at best scientifically void and at worst outright fraudulent, re-casting the true history of Easter Island, showcasing the actions of everyday Brits and Germans during the bombing raids of WW2, debunking the Milgram shock machine experiment, and much much more. In doing so, Bregman is happy to take on some of the world’s most famous psychologists, philosophers and public intellectuals, which makes for an engaging and aggressive argumentation that glues you to the page.
\nBregman is the first to admit that he is emotionally motivated to prove that our world is one in which people are inherently kind, and that can bleed through into his argumentation at times. But this book is not meant to be a dry, fully dispassionate scientific analysis (although he does go out of his way to employ deep rigor to each and every one of his assertions).
\nMore so, this is a book about a “dangerous” and revolutionary idea. Bregman is right that the collective assumption that humans are inherently evil serves as a reverse placebo (a nocebo) which in turn self-fulfills, creating a reality in which many in turn do act in evil ways, out of mistrust, or due to the institutions that benefit from them. He takes on Hollywood, even fiction classics like The Lord of the Flies for their inaccuracy and perpetuation of Hobbesian thinking. Beyond all else, it is clear from cover to cover that Bregman is truly thinking for himself, pushing forward an idea that faces deep resistance, but is a key to solving many of the systemic issues plaguing society. Bravo.
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Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-master-algorithm-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23215637/the-master-algorithm-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 330","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Master-Algorithm-Ultimate-Learning-Machine-ebook/dp/B012271YB2"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A helpful book more on the introductory/educational side rather than the analytical side of machine learning. Walter Isaacson’s front page quip is correct: this is a good book for those who still need to have machine learning “demystified” for them (I am certainly someone who still benefits from a refresher on even the most basic components of the subject).
\nThis book unmistakably, though, has the optimistic viewpoint of the early 2010’s, and precedes the “tech-lash” that we are now experiencing in 2020. It is a bit light on the significant moral conundrums we face even with basic applications of narrow artificial intelligence (let alone its AGI analogs), and strikes a tone that some today might find presumptuous about the world AI will create. But then again, that wasn’t Domingos’ core goal.
\nThis book delivers on laying the basic groundwork, to a non-technical audience, of machine learning’s developmental history, its present applications, how the FANG companies and the startup landscape is sequentially adopting those applications, and the elusive hunt for a general artificial intelligence.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2OTM=","databaseId":693,"title":"Beethoven","slug":"beethoven","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/beethoven/","date":"2020-10-23T22:02:05","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23220015/beethoven-reading-list-1.jpg","title":"beethoven-reading-list-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"John Clubbe","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"beethoven-reading-list-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23220015/beethoven-reading-list-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"beethoven-reading-list-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23220016/beethoven-reading-list-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"beethoven-reading-list-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23220016/beethoven-reading-list-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"beethoven-reading-list-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23220017/beethoven-reading-list-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 505","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-The-Relentless-Revolutionary/dp/0393242552"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A different biography than I anticipated, but in a good way. Clubbe paints a vivid picture of the social context Beethoven existed in, in the near police-state of Vienna, then Paris, then back to Vienna, and how it often frustrated the liberal and revolutionary young genius. Unlike contrarian literary and playwright figures, Beethoven was able in the most part to evade one of the most stifling forces against creativity: the censors.
\nWhile no one could quite pin it, he was able to use music as a medium for deeply passionate, foundational political and philosophical statement, and do so while simultaneously living as a celebrity amongst a literati and landed class he often disagreed with.
\nOne thing I was very surprised to learn from this book: it is remarkable how much of Beethoven’s career, music, personal life, and politics were influenced by Napoleon, his campaigns, and his cult of personality, even though the two barely interacted. Beethoven’s relationship with Napoleon was both as a sort of muse, but also as a recurring nightmare. We have the oscillations between those two extreme states partly to thank for his musical genius, but also for his emotional tribulation. While Napoleon faced physical exile on St. Helena, Beethoven almost simultaneously faced his own exile in the form of his deafness. They even died close together, and propagated similar post-mortality myths.
\nThis was quite a long book, and did take me a bit of time to get through it. I also underestimated the frustration of reading a meaty biography of a musician, because of how much it requires the reader to stop and listen to the relevant compositions while reading. I wouldn’t jump to recommend this to someone unless they are interested in both Beethoven’s musical creations but also have at least a cursory interest in cultural live and politics of this era.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo2OTg=","databaseId":698,"title":"Why Don’t We Learn From History?","slug":"why-dont-we-learn-from-history","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/why-dont-we-learn-from-history/","date":"2020-10-23T22:07:30","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23220600/why-dont-we-learn-from-history-1.jpg","title":"why-dont-we-learn-from-history-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"B.H. Liddell Hart","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"why-dont-we-learn-from-history-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23220600/why-dont-we-learn-from-history-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"why-dont-we-learn-from-history-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23220601/why-dont-we-learn-from-history-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"why-dont-we-learn-from-history-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23220601/why-dont-we-learn-from-history-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"why-dont-we-learn-from-history-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23220602/why-dont-we-learn-from-history-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 126","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Why-Dont-We-Learn-History/dp/B00IC5APJQ/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr="}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This was my first actual Liddell Hart book, although he has been a topic of discussion in past works I’ve read on geopolitics, history, strategy and war (and not always in a positive light). This topic, though, about why patterns of history, even if they are understood, are over and over not learned from or acted upon, is a fascinating and pertinent one.
\nHart’s answer is, in short, emotion. That while logical thinking and action has risen in its comparative share of collective the human mind with the forces of scientific development, dispassionate analysis still plays second fiddle to emotional thinking. And thus, we do not learn from history because we fundamentally don’t care to pay attention to it in the first place. Even when we do, it is as a data set to cherry pick from, a world that is accessed from the vantage point of selfishness and close-mindedness.
\nIt doesn’t matter that Sun Tzu correctly deduced more than 2,500 years ago that a critical path to de-escalation is to leave the enemy a point of retreat: generations upon generations have not, at least in the majority, are persuaded by heart rather than brain, and thus they make the mistake of Napoleon more often than the wise course of Wellington. And were Hart to be alive today (this is a book written in the late 1960s), he would not be shocked by our present situation.
\nThis of course begs the question of whether humanity is doomed to think from the “rat brain,” poisoned by the well of self-interest, short-term revenge fantasy or distraction. Whether we as a species are genetically predisposed to this critical weakness. My hope is that we are not, and that the consistent human project of rational thinking, scientific endeavor, and the hard work of making sense of an ethical framework (a pursuit that will never yield a perfect result) will at some point win out over the negative forces of emotion. Or better yet, that we will merge emotion with rationalism, and find more spiritual motivation to pursue fact rather than twist it for our own purposes.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo3MDM=","databaseId":703,"title":"Mr. Putin","slug":"mr-putin","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/mr-putin/","date":"2020-10-23T22:13:25","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23221211/mr-putin-1.jpg","title":"mr-putin-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Fiona Hill and Clifford C. Gaddy","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"mr-putin-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23221211/mr-putin-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"mr-putin-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23221212/mr-putin-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"mr-putin-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23221213/mr-putin-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 533","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Putin-Operative-Kremlin-Geopolitics/dp/0815726171"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"An extremely well researched, dense physiological biography of Vladimir Putin, written by esteemed American foreign affairs figure and diplomat Fiona Hill, as well as her co-author, economist Clifford Gaddy, both of the Brookings Institution. This is not your typical biography; it is written more as a long intelligence brief that blends in-depth research, historical knowledge, anecdotal experience from the authors and expert analysis into a blend that is incredibly insightful.
\nA lot of this book is about dispelling the force-field of PR that Putin has formed around himself to reveal who he actually is, how he actually thinks, and what his north-star strategy actually is. Even with those layers peeled away, a highly multifaceted figure persists; a man with many faces, the “survivalist”, the “statist”, the “outsider”, the “historian”, and much more. Putin needs each of these elements strategically, but also in some way embodies them.
\nWe see from his early KGB experience in Dresden to his dissatisfaction with the Yeltsin regime, to his millennium message upon taking the Russian Presidency, to his orchestration of the dual-leadership role as Prime Minister with Dimitri Medvedev, to his conflict engagements across Eastern Europe that Putin is a sophisticated leader, but one that is far different from the (successfully orchestrated) image most Americans consume.
\nThe biggest learning from this book is an obvious one, but one that I, and most others, do not take into consideration. Putin, unlike other leaders of his ilk, did not attend western schools and did not ever live or spend extended time in America or the “west.” He also does not maintain many trusting relationships with “westerners.” Thus, for an American to make snap judgements about his decision making or strategy, one’s frame of references is immediately culturally misplaced. A fascinating book that I can only imagine needs a sequel given the events of the last 5 years after this was published.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo3MDc=","databaseId":707,"title":"The Accidental Universe","slug":"the-accidental-universe","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-accidental-universe/","date":"2020-10-23T22:21:58","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23222042/the-accidental-universe-1.jpg","title":"the-accidental-universe-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Alan Lightman","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-accidental-universe-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23222042/the-accidental-universe-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-accidental-universe-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23222043/the-accidental-universe-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-accidental-universe-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23222044/the-accidental-universe-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 167","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Universe-World-Thought-Knew/dp/034580595X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"In typical Lightman fashion, a deeply elegant and concise book that covers a span of material of which others would need a multitude more pages. Here, he explores multiverse theory as an explanation for animate life — or rather, why life exists on this plant, in this universe, here and now.
\nMultiverse theory, supported by newer Nobel-winning breakthroughs beginning to identify the role of dark matter in the rate of universe’s expansion, and how this pertains to the atomic conditions that can give rise to life, gives room for the explanation that we currently simply to exist in one of the few universes that supports life, amongst the effectively infinite total universes, the vast majority of which do not. As for why we just so happen to exist in the universe that supports life, on a planet that supports carbon-based beings such as us, Lightman challenges the frame of the question itself; were we to not, we wouldn’t exist in the first place to report back on our standing in a “rare” life-sensitive planet in a life-facilitating universe.
\nOf course, an exploration of this topic immediately touches religion, a topic that Lightman weaves into the rest of the book with care, and in a surprisingly inclusive manner. He invokes the philosophies of those like Francis Collins, head of the human genome project, award winning geneticist, director of the National Institutes of Health, and devout Christian. While Lightman is an atheist, he sees appropriate space between questions of religion and science — in other words, many important questions of meaning fall outside of the scientific method, (while of course some fall within it). What someone does in the realm of the former, so long as it doesn’t violate the scientific process, can be comparable with a life spent in the sciences.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo3MTE=","databaseId":711,"title":"The Last Unknowns","slug":"the-last-unknowns","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-last-unknowns/","date":"2020-10-23T22:25:00","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23222338/the-last-unknowns-1.jpg","title":"the-last-unknowns-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Multiple Authors","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-last-unknowns-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23222338/the-last-unknowns-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-last-unknowns-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23222339/the-last-unknowns-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-last-unknowns-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23222340/the-last-unknowns-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-last-unknowns-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/23222341/the-last-unknowns-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 332","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Last-Unknowns-Unanswered-Questions-Civilization/dp/0062897942"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I would not recommend reading this book right before you go to sleep. You will either get addicted to turning each page to the next, unable to stop at the last “question”, or will find yourself stuck on the implications of an individual point, keeping you up. In my case, I feel victim to both, but it was well worth it. I’m a huge fan of Edge, who complied this book of unanswered last questions — “hypotheses that people are working with that are rescued into some type of very simple single question with no explanation, hopefully, that’s important to them in their won evolution of knowledge.”
\nThe book features a diversity of thinkers (all at least tangentially in the sciences) who put forth their “last questions,” ranging from “what might the last fully biological human’s statement be at their last supper” to “does religious engagement promote or impede morality, altruism, and human flourishing?” I find myself most attracted to inquiries related to genetic engineering, artificial general intelligence, and whether a future world including both is viable, desirable, or even certain.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDI3","databaseId":1027,"title":"The Dark Forest","slug":"the-dark-forest","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-dark-forest/","date":"2020-10-29T02:20:24","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29021751/the-dark-forest-1.jpg","title":"the-dark-forest-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Cixin Liu","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-dark-forest-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29021751/the-dark-forest-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-dark-forest-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29021749/the-dark-forest-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-dark-forest-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29021747/the-dark-forest-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":" Lorem Ipsum","mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-dark-forest-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29021745/the-dark-forest-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 513","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Forest-Remembrance-Earths-Past/dp/0765386690"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I don’t think I’ve ever read (or even watched for that matter) a sequel so much better than the first of a series. And the first of this series — “The Three Body Problem” — was itself damn good. The Dark Forest, from start to finish, leads me to make the heretical proclamation that Cixin Liu outperformed even Asimov in quality of thinking in a science fiction work, at least for me.
\nMore so than in the Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest contains not just engaging storytelling, character development and the like, but incredibly thought out scientific and strategic theory that would make it worth it for even those that don’t care for fiction in the first place. The Dark Forest theory (or super-predator interpretation of the Fermi Paradox), which you will reach at the end of the book, is so well put together that it sticks in your mind, dominating your thinking, even hours and days after reading it.
\nI’ve gotten so into this series that I’ve by now highly annoyed my friends, many of whom are quite serious readers but haven’t yet discovered Cixin Liu or other Chinese science fiction authors. The best analogy I can come up with to entice those considering trying this series is this: this has the type of technological complexity and rigor of Westworld, but on a Tolstoy-esque scale that doesn’t ever feel overdone, even though it takes place across light-years. And finally, it contains the kind of attention to detail in strategic and military thinking that you would find in a geopolitical thriller. I can’t recommend it enough, and hope friends can discover and enjoy this series as much as I have.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDMy","databaseId":1032,"title":"Can’t Hurt Me","slug":"cant-hurt-me","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/cant-hurt-me/","date":"2020-10-29T03:00:04","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29025215/cant-hurt-me-1.jpg","title":"cant-hurt-me-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"David Goggins","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"cant-hurt-me-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29025215/cant-hurt-me-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"cant-hurt-me-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29025213/cant-hurt-me-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"cant-hurt-me-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29025731/cant-hurt-me-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"cant-hurt-me-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29025215/cant-hurt-me-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 364","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Hurt-Me-Master-Your/dp/1544512287"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This is a story about someone who, more than most anyone I’ve ever met or read about, has achieved mastery of mind over body. It’s an incredibly inspiring and useful book.
\nGoggins came from a background as rough as you can imagine it; physical abuse from his father, poverty, constant racism, and a whole lot more. He developed habits in early adulthood that led him to unhealthiness, obesity, and a sense of being (understandably) stuck.
\nImmediately, and without the help of a third party, Goggins changed his life. He subjected himself to sadistic physical training in preparation for entering the military, went through BUD/S training three times due to debilitating injury, became an elite member of the navy seal team, then completed Army Ranger school and nearly making the Delta Force program, while in parallel becoming one of the world’s most celebrated endurance athletes, completing and almost winning the infamous Badwater 135-mile ultramarathon twice, as well as breaking the record for pull-ups in a 24 hour period — all before realizing that had lived since birth with a large hole in his heat (Atrial Septal Defect). After multiple surgeries, he was back stronger.
\nScanning the book’s description and seeing Goggins depicted in media throughout the years, one might fall victim to pegging him as a symbol of exercise masochism rather than a multi-dimensional figure beyond athletics to learn from. That would be a grave mistake. Behind the veneer of Goggins’ cult following is a man who has undertaken an exploration of the limits of the human mind few can conceive of, let alone follow through with. He is a human edge-case analysis of what is possible when life’s many distractions are made subordinate to a goal (provided that goal is of benefit to society).
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDUx","databaseId":1051,"title":"An Autobiography","slug":"an-autobiography","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/an-autobiography/","date":"2020-10-29T03:08:21","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29030633/an-autobiography-1.jpg","title":"an-autobiography-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Richard Avedon","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"an-autobiography-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29030633/an-autobiography-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"an-autobiography-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29030634/an-autobiography-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"an-autobiography-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29030635/an-autobiography-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"an-autobiography-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29030635/an-autobiography-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 250","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.google.com/search?q=richard+avedon+an+autobiography&oq=richar&aqs=chrome.0.69i59l3j69i57j46j69i60l3.632j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"An amazing collection of Avedon’s best work spanning his entire career. For this book, Avendon and his team recovered and redeveloped every single negative he has taken, then winnowed down his best from that selection. This contains images from his “In the American West” series, haunting photos from the catacombs of Italy, beautiful blurred images of the streets of New York City, a series from the mental word of a Louisiana hospital, and portraits of some of the great power-brokers of the 60’s and 70’s, presumably from his time at Harpers Bazaar and Vogue.
\nThis is a self-described review of Avedon’s life, but it is not at all linear. That is on purpose; “I haven’t lived chronologically. No one does.” There is, however, a clear thematic thread through each image — Avedon’s ability to capture eyes, and the stories behind and within them, like no one else, and his treatment of a cattle rancher or truck driver equally as complex and immaculate as that of a Maclom X, Monroe, Nureyev, Kissinger or Joplin portrait.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDYy","databaseId":1062,"title":"Why America is Not a New Rome","slug":"why-america-is-not-a-new-rome","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/why-america-is-not-a-new-rome/","date":"2020-10-29T03:12:21","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29031039/why-america-is-not-a-new-rome-1.jpg","title":"why-america-is-not-a-new-rome-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Vaclav Smil","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"why-america-is-not-a-new-rome-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29031039/why-america-is-not-a-new-rome-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"why-america-is-not-a-new-rome-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29031038/why-america-is-not-a-new-rome-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"why-america-is-not-a-new-rome-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29031038/why-america-is-not-a-new-rome-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 226","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Why-America-Not-New-Rome/dp/0262195933"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"It has been an intellectual tradition for at least the last few decades to liken America to that of Ancient Rome: to state that they are both empires, that their composition, institutions and structures are strikingly similar. These comparisons often end in a statement about the “fall” of Rome; that America, Rome’s sister society, holds the same unique properties, and thus is beginning to crumble and fail from the same playbook.
\nVaclav Smil, an interdisciplinary thinker across biology, energy and environment, as well as a classically trained expert on Rome and ancient civilization, was so clearly bothered by the prevalence of these comparisons that he dedicated an entire book on dismantling them. The short version of my impressions after reading it is that he is absolutely correct.
\nSmil pulls no punches and does his best to work without emotional bias (although he has his slip-ups). His most devastating blows to the theory come in an unexpected way: minimizing the actual power of both Rome and America at their peak. It is clear, Smil writes, that Rome was an Empire, but it was an Empire that didn’t necessarily stand alone, even in its own time (see the Han dynasty’s similar size, population and GDP). Even harsher treatment is given to the notion that America is a modern day “empire” — Smil shows that the better word is “hegemon”, and a weak one at that.
\nA decent portion of this book is fascinating, but also of weaker service to Smil’s argument. The author goes into depth on the orders of magnitude of difference in daily life of the average Roman versus American across multiple metrics including life expectancy, public health, energy production, living conditions, and mobility. He does so partly to accentuate the differences between both societies, but the argument is a bit too obvious (any present day civilization compared to a 2,000+ year predecessor will have such relative differences) and it feels like Smil is more indulging himself with his favorite fields of study with these sections than progressing the argument. I’m not complaining — even these parts of the book are valuable for general understanding.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDY5","databaseId":1069,"title":"Skin in The Game","slug":"skin-in-the-game","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/skin-in-the-game/","date":"2020-10-29T03:19:18","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29031447/skin-in-the-game-1.jpg","title":"skin-in-the-game-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Nassim Nicholas Taleb","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"skin-in-the-game-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29031447/skin-in-the-game-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"skin-in-the-game-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29031446/skin-in-the-game-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"skin-in-the-game-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29031445/skin-in-the-game-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 279","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"http://amazon.com/Skin-Game-Hidden-Asymmetries-Daily/dp/042528462X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"It is hard to overstate the need (especially now) for thinkers like Taleb in modern society. His is unapologetic, gripping, disagreeable, hilarious, and most importantly completely willing to present the rawest version of truth he believes in, even if it means targeting and challenging the most basic tenants of “how things are done.” This, one of Taleb’s more recent book (and therefore one in which it is evident there is even less editing and oversight, if there even was any in the past), focuses in on the concept of “skin in the game.”
\nOne of the biggest asymmetries present in society is that so many individuals and systems in power stay that way because they are not incentivized to directly participate in risk, good or bad. Taleb’s argument (which hits you in a way that feels deeply, practically obvious rather than theoretical) pulls no punches; academics, bankers, charities, politicians, consultants and many others can all thrive by “rent seeking” rather than actually accepting risk as a fundamental part of their roles in society. His heroes are those that do: the entrepreneurs who rise and fall with their ventures, gaining wealth from equity (not fees) if successfully, and falling flat and Darwinistically selecting out from the pool if not. The ancient-era military generals who fight in the battles they select rather than the desk-bound analysts adding up the numbers but never facing the emotion and loss of war directly.
\nTaleb (as he has in his other works) exposes a deep and awkward truth. His humor and bluntness are certainly assets in getting that truth out to the reader.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDc4","databaseId":1078,"title":"Stamped From the Beginning","slug":"stamped-from-the-beginning","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/stamped-from-the-beginning/","date":"2020-10-29T03:23:40","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032136/stamped-from-the-beginning-1.jpg","title":"stamped-from-the-beginning-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Ibram X. Kendi","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"stamped-from-the-beginning-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032136/stamped-from-the-beginning-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"stamped-from-the-beginning-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032136/stamped-from-the-beginning-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"stamped-from-the-beginning-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032135/stamped-from-the-beginning-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"stamped-from-the-beginning-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032134/stamped-from-the-beginning-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 583","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Stamped-Beginning-Definitive-History-National/dp/1568585985"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I haven’t read anything recently so deeply profound, and as The Washington Post writes, relentless in its ability to show the vast depth of racism’s roots, and the insidious development of it from beyond an idea, into an institutional structure fortified by centuries, not just in America, but far far before it. Kendi writes that: “my definition of a racist idea is a simple one: it is any concept that regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group in any way.” From this basis he reaches deep into antiquity, beginning not with slavery, not with economics, but rather fundamental structures of western thought.
\nIt was Aristotle who developed and popularized one of the original lies — the “climate” theory of racism, that initiated a virus stretching throughout Greek and Roman society, survived through the dark ages, was greatly amplified during the rise of Europe (through and among countless others, the tragic story of Leo Africanus and Voltare’s playmaking), and washed onto the shores of colonial America. This concept not only served ever-present in the construction of Western governmental, economic and educational systems, but it also nearly erased knowledge of the eclectic histories of peer societies (in many cases more robust and powerful).
\nEven with limited space, it is worth quoting Kendi here: “Ghana, Mali and Songhay developed empires that could rival in size, power, scholarship and wealth any in the world. Intellectuals at universities in Timbuktu and Jenne pumped out scholarship and pumped in students from around West Africa. The world’s greatest globe-trotter of the fourteenth century (Ibn Battuta) …. decided to see Mali for himself” writing “‘There is complete security in their county. Neither traveler nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence.”
\nIt is the unconscionable historical depth of racist ideas (as well as the presence of anti-racism as a active but unfortunately always less powerful counterforce) that Kendi shows so empirically in this book, across examples like this from ancient history to present day. It is so much deeper (and cannot be seen as distinct) from the evils of today’s events. It is why we study volumes on Rome but not Niani. It is why the achievements across millennia of non-white civilization are not placed into the western dominated historical cannon, and rather minimized or erased in service of the continuance of a structure that doesn’t serve all equally.
\nAnyone who enters this book (as Kendi notes, with an open mind) will confront the dark history of modern society that is often left out of the simplified history of our Franklins, Lincolns (yes, even the Lincolns) and Jeffersons, and emerge with a much needed and far more balanced understanding of history. But it should just be a start. This is one of a series of books I plan to read — yes, inspired by the current events in our country of police brutality, but not as a short term bout of performative instagram activism. The act of reading — really reading — the histories of a deeply vast and complex set of cultures, the experiences of generations of marginalized people and of the often entrenched racist ideas underpinning today’s world and the necessary work to remedy this, and doing so as a permanent fixture of one’s learning, not during a blimp of time to signal something externally, is something I am committed to, and hopefully changes not only my mind and understanding but that of others around me.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDg4","databaseId":1088,"title":"Is American Democracy in Crisis?","slug":"is-american-democracy-in-crisis","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/is-american-democracy-in-crisis/","date":"2020-10-29T03:27:38","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032607/is-american-democracy-in-crisis-1.jpg","title":"is-american-democracy-in-crisis-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"E.J. Dionne Jr., Andrew Sullivan, Newt Gingrich and Kimberley Strassel","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"is-american-democracy-in-crisis-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032607/is-american-democracy-in-crisis-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"is-american-democracy-in-crisis-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032606/is-american-democracy-in-crisis-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"is-american-democracy-in-crisis-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032605/is-american-democracy-in-crisis-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"is-american-democracy-in-crisis-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032604/is-american-democracy-in-crisis-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 132","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/American-Democracy-Crisis-Munk-Debates/dp/1487004516"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A fitting book to read amidst the backdrop of today’s current events; the mass protesting across the United States after the killing of George Floyd. This book is a transcript, with interviews before and after, of a 2017 debate on whether or not United States is undergoing a fundamental crisis in its democratic system, argued between E.J. Dionne Jr., Andrew Sullivan (pros) and Newt Gingrich and Kimberley Strassel (cons).
\nReading this only 2.5/3 years after it was published is almost like (ironically) reading ancient history. The major questions and scandals of the day (that President Trump vowed to revoke NBC’s broadcasting license, and the Warsaw speech) are merely footnotes of footnotes compared to what has happened since, and compared to the national mood.
\nCritical topics of systemic racial inequality, unlawful use of police force, and America’s international reputation are covered, yes, but covered in what now reads as naiveté. It is a picture of 2020 that a debate topic like this, were it to be held now, would almost be met with a laugh and not treated seriously.
\nThat the core underpinnings of democracy around the world are so obviously under threat, the divisions so deep, that the exercising of discussing their existence would be almost futile. Of course there are points of optimism and of course there are ways forward. But reading this book was just another reminder of the negative track we continue to slide down.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDk2","databaseId":1096,"title":"Sea Power","slug":"sea-power","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/sea-power/","date":"2020-10-29T03:31:20","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032930/sea-power-1.jpg","title":"sea-power-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Adm. James G. Stavridis","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sea-power-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032930/sea-power-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sea-power-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032932/sea-power-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sea-power-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032931/sea-power-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sea-power-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29032931/sea-power-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 386","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Sea-Power-History-Geopolitics-Worlds/dp/073522059X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Half a historical volume on the role of each of the world’s oceans in military combat and geopolitical posturing between powers, and half a memoir of Stavridis’ own time in each of worlds’ major waterways. Stavridis is an exceptional writer — he doesn’t have much of staccato prose you find with most military leaders turned authors, and is clearly at home jumping between dense historical analysis and his own experiences.
\nThere are two main takeaways that I got from the book. First, the role ocean politics across transportation, economics, immigration and mass displacement of peoples due to climate change and warfare will be a dominant factor throughout the 21st century. It would be a grave mistake to assume that because transportation from the air and into space has proliferated, that the oceans are somehow less important. Ocean transportation is not old news.
\nThe second is the role of the oceans on the world’s energy and infrastructure needs. So few understand the amount of latent ocean resources, good and bad, that are only now becoming technologically feasible to access. Probably the biggest battleground here is the Arctic, where unthinkable stores of rare Earth materials, oil and other resources exist, previously untouched and now being contested by the United States, Russia, UK, and Scandinavian nations (including Greenland via Denmark). The policy surrounding this area, who acts first, and what military measures may be taken on on it, could affect much of our everyday lives during the coming decades.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTAx","databaseId":1101,"title":"The Elements of Style","slug":"the-elements-of-style","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-elements-of-style/","date":"2020-10-29T03:36:27","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29033450/the-elements-of-style-1.jpg","title":"the-elements-of-style-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"William Strunk Jr. and Virginia Cambell","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-elements-of-style-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29033450/the-elements-of-style-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-elements-of-style-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29033452/the-elements-of-style-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-elements-of-style-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29033451/the-elements-of-style-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 80","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This was a quick, helpful grammar manual recommenced to me by a friend, considering that my normal writing is far from perfect. I realized (or rather was informed) immediately upon buying the book, however, that it is not the original version of Strunk’s 1918 Cornell book, and I was in a sense cheating by reading this amended and simple version.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTA3","databaseId":1107,"title":"The Power Broker","slug":"the-power-broker","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-power-broker/","date":"2020-10-29T04:31:02","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29042900/the-power-broker-1.jpg","title":"the-power-broker-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Robert A. Caro","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-power-broker-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29042900/the-power-broker-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-power-broker-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29042902/the-power-broker-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-power-broker-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29042904/the-power-broker-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-power-broker-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29042905/the-power-broker-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 1,336","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Power-Broker-Robert-Moses-Fall/dp/0394720245"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A colossus, in every way. A colossus achievement of reporting and writing, over the course of almost 10 years, 522 interviews, and untold research by Caro and his wife/research assistant Ira Caro. A colossus book physically, at a thousand and change pages — and one that deserves that length, with every word of every page engrossing and almost psychopathically well researched. And most of all, a colossus personality and figure in Robert Moses, someone whose personal “output” — the imprint that he was able to make onto the city of New York, in the words of Moses, can’t be adequately compared to other individual humans, and rather finds itself in the league of autocratic nation-states.
\nThe reader, at the end of (at least for me) the multi-week journey of getting through “The Power Broker”, is left with the unshakeable impression that Moses is some sort of manifestation of what would happen if someone dedicated every waking moment of their life to personify Machiavelli’s “The Prince.” In his own words, Caro is a biographer not of people but of the acquisition and utilization of power, and that is what he found in human form with Moses (and similarly so with LBJ).
\nMoses did everything to acquire power as an end, almost irrespective of the means. It is of course the irony of the book that what he left in his wake, a New York City that by GDP and qualitative infrastructural stature the greatest city in the world, was made so at the cost of countless displaced communities, race-based structural segregation, the destruction of his own family and his own brother, and the treatment of law as if a cobweb to be swatted away. You never really root for Moses, like you sometimes catch yourself doing with Caro’s LBJ. He isn’t the antihero figure, but he also isn’t the quintessential villain — he is just perhaps the cooly efficient, world-builder of dark “progress” that 20th century America created and relied upon to cement itself as the global superpower. Books like these show the moral cost and complicated ethics of that progress that we often take for granted.
\nThe irony of course, is that time melts a way a lot of that nuance. We are surrounded by sober reminders of how details are forgotten. Making breakfast yesterday morning, and watching Gov. Cuomo speaking on New York’s response to the COVID pandemic, he cited Moses’s Jones Beach as evidence that New Yorkers can do anything they set their mind to, painting it as a binary, a great flagship achievement that defines the city’s dominance. There was no room in the soundbite for the asterisk.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTEy","databaseId":1112,"title":"Zero","slug":"zero","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/zero/","date":"2020-10-29T04:36:54","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29043337/zero-1.jpg","title":"zero-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Charles Correa","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"zero-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29043337/zero-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"zero-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29043336/zero-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"zero-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29043334/zero-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 53","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Correra shows how the concept of nothingness in Vedic philosophy has played a central role in his legendary architectural projects, walking through each of his most prominent of (some of the most impressive of which are the least funded and smaller scale).
\nIn each of the examples, Correa mirrors his physical interpretation of zero (sometimes through the construction of giant mandalas, sometimes through the use of courtyards as a central feature) with that of a study of the universe and solar system, which he feels are parallel ideas and structures.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTIx","databaseId":1121,"title":"Consider the Lobster","slug":"consider-the-lobster","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/consider-the-lobster/","date":"2020-10-29T04:43:05","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29044103/consider-the-lobster-1.jpg","title":"consider-the-lobster-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"David Foster Wallace","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"consider-the-lobster-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29044103/consider-the-lobster-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"consider-the-lobster-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29044106/consider-the-lobster-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"consider-the-lobster-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29044105/consider-the-lobster-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"consider-the-lobster-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29044104/consider-the-lobster-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 383","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Consider-Lobster-Essays-Foster-Wallace/dp/0316013323"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I’m so glad I had the chance to return to David Foster Wallace with this. It rekindled the same obsession/immersion of his writing and point of view that I had with Infinite Jest, but then quite a lot more. (I would advise, if you haven’t read either, reading this before Infinite Jest. It gives you a more introductory sense into the brilliance of DFW that I imagine would only deepen comprehension when you actually take on the commitment that is IJ).
\nI’ve heard so many people emerge from Consider the Lobster with so many often highly differing experiences. For me, it was (as Wallace talks about in his famous “This is Water” speech) what one chooses to think about, rather than how well one thinks. Each of the book’s essays are Wallace immersed in an environment in which he is a pedestrian figure, not in any way affecting or manipulating context, and quietly analyzing that environment in a deeply profound and divergent way.
\nThe AVN Awards as an environment more human, complex and vibrant than the Oscars, a usage dictionary as a battleground for an epochal war of linguistics that shapes all of our lives, Kafka’s reception of college studies as an opening into the obtuseness and lack of richness of American humor, Tracy Austin’s impenetrably bad autobiography as realization of the stoic, simple genius of the professional athlete, the camera technicians at the back of a 2000 presidential campaign bus as political commentators par excellence, and on and on.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTI2","databaseId":1126,"title":"Candide","slug":"candide","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/candide/","date":"2020-10-29T04:53:02","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29044533/candide-1.jpg","title":"candide-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Voltaire","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"candide-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29044533/candide-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"candide-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29044532/candide-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"candide-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29044531/candide-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 104","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Candide-Voltaire/dp/1503253791"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"An especially fitting book to read today. At end, this book (arguably Voltaire’s magnum opus) is an assault on underserved, naive optimism, (especially the philosophical concept of optimism posed by Leibniz in his “doctrine of best of possible worlds.”) It is a parody that still transcends time; an equal opportunity roast of different cultures, viewpoints and half-baked, romantic assumptions of good nature.
\nIt is also worth noting how hilarious Voltaire was after the controversial, anonymous publishing of the book during a time in which such content was heretical and punishable by death, writing: “people must have lost their senses to attribute to me that pack of nonsense. I have, thank God, better occupations.”
\nYou can probably count me the kind of person Voltaire would include in his black humor, especially for how I interpret Candide. But I don’t read it as a total rejection of the concept of optimism, or as nihilistic — only as a needed reality check for optimism embodied lazily and inside a blanket of privilege. It is a reminder of the world that exists, of base human violence that can erupt, that can be returned to when society does not work to solve its own issues with compassion.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTM2","databaseId":1136,"title":"Surprise, Kill, Vanish","slug":"surprise-kill-vanish","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/surprise-kill-vanish/","date":"2020-10-29T04:58:31","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29045612/surprise-kill-vanish-1.jpg","title":"surprise-kill-vanish-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Annie Jacobsen","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"surprise-kill-vanish-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29045612/surprise-kill-vanish-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"surprise-kill-vanish-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29045611/surprise-kill-vanish-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"surprise-kill-vanish-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29045610/surprise-kill-vanish-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"surprise-kill-vanish-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29045609/surprise-kill-vanish-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 545","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 545","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Surprise-Kill-Vanish-Paramilitary-Operators/dp/0316441430"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A detailed, lengthy, and researched history of covert, direct actions, especially hidden hand operations, from the American intelligence community, spanning from the OSS to the present. There is so much detail here, and so much to cover — especially given the amount of attention Jacobsen gives to merging not only the facts of what, and how, operations took place, but also an extensive amount of first-hand retelling from her many sources, most of which were named in the book.
\nI was struck by two main themes, though. The first was a reminder of the dumbfounding complexity and nuance inherent in each of the operations profiled. The reader has almost no place, across the book, to make black and white judgements on either side, even with historical hindsight. Both those who vehemently oppose, or offer blanket support for, many of the actions taken by the US military during the 20th and 21st centuries will leave this book with certain ideological frustration. And that is the point — Jacobsen aims to focus the scope here, and show an un-politicized reality that is ugly, complicated and hard to paint with a broad brush.
\nThe second is the lack of moral equivalence between direct human to human action (special forces on the ground conducting an operation) and indirect action (drone and missile strikes on a target without forces on the ground, ect.). If there is a historical pattern in the book, it is that of US government leaders choosing to utilize the latter, rather than the former, often due to political and optics considerations rather than moral. As Jacobsen notes, eliminating an enemy personally at close range is ugly and “ungentlemanly”, leading US leaders time and time again to opt for often less accurate, impersonal military strikes that often lead to misfires, collateral injury and death of innocent people. In hindsight, the “ugly” operation can be the one that leads to far less suffering.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTQ2","databaseId":1146,"title":"Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital","slug":"technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital/","date":"2020-10-29T05:03:25","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050157/technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital-1.jpg","title":"technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Carlota Perez","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050157/technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050156/technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050155/technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050154/technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 198","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Revolutions-Financial-Capital-Dynamics/dp/1843763311"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Wow. This was an incredibly instructive and important book. And of the longest and most challenging works I’ve read thus far that has such a small page count. Carlota Perez, a powerhouse Venezuelan economist, puts forth a fascinating model, beginning with case studies in the 18th century and extending to today, of how technological developments spur multi-decade revolutions in more or less systematic cycles, from the “Big Bang” moment of the discovery of groupings of new technological tools to the frenzy phase of their implementation, to a “wake-up” moment of overextension usually characterized as a economic recession or depression, to a synergy phase and maturity phase, before the start of the next technological revolution cycle.
\nThere are so many implications of this book and Perez’s model, but two stand out to me most. The first is the relationship between “financial capital” and “production capital”; how the former dominates the early, speculative rise of a new technological paradigm, but inevitably overruns, creating a major disparity between paper wealth and real wealth — then, following a correction, how production capital comes into play during the synergy and maturation phase, getting in sync with financial capital, and allowing more of the economy to participate in growth.
\nThe second is the more macro, temporal implications of the model. One is struck, reading in hindsight, about just how long each of these technological revolutions have taken place, and how, when one is experiencing them, it seems like one is experiencing an unprecedented precent phenomena that cannot, or could not have, been predicted by past trends. It beckons questions of free will and agency as well — are we capable of understanding the long arc of these trends when we are in the midst of them, and make decisions to alleviate them in the moment, and thus prevent the “predictable” recessions and depressions mid-cycle? Or are those permanent, unchanging and necessary components of the societal implementation of new technologies? Perez, for her part, is nuanced in her answer to this question (it is a “yes and no.”
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTU3","databaseId":1157,"title":"Manual on the Art of Living","slug":"manual-on-the-art-of-living","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/manual-on-the-art-of-living/","date":"2020-10-29T05:26:19","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050638/manual-on-the-art-of-living-1.jpg","title":"manual-on-the-art-of-living-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Epictetus","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"manual-on-the-art-of-living-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050638/manual-on-the-art-of-living-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"manual-on-the-art-of-living-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050637/manual-on-the-art-of-living-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"manual-on-the-art-of-living-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050636/manual-on-the-art-of-living-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 107","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Epictetus-Manual-Art-Living-bilingual/dp/6185048701"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A nice quiet book to read on my birthday, to take a little break from a few really dense and longer ones I’ve been struggling through during the last week.
\nI think that the recent popular craze around Stoicism is merited, although (not surprisingly) the vast majority of people that say they are stoics aren’t actually following the teachings of Epictetus, Chrysippus, or other shapers of the philosophy. This makes quite a lot of sense, since Epictetus writes from the vantage point of a slave (for many years he was one).
\nThis background, and the context of his time, creates an underpinning, core ethical framework that very few of your contemporary “stoics” would want to follow. These include viewing exercise and achieving physical health as activities not to be prioritized, and to consider the following advice regarding death: “If you kiss your child or your wife, say to yourself that you are kissing a human being, for then if death strikes it you will not be disturbed.”
\nWith that said, more liberal interpretations of stoicism (like more liberal interpretations of other philosophies) do very much have their value. The ideas of removing emotion from critical decision making, and from thinking twice about indulging in destructive addictions, are sorely needed in modern society, and to say it lightly, modern business and political leadership.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTc1","databaseId":1175,"title":"Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now","slug":"ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now/","date":"2020-10-29T05:30:25","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29052827/ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now-1.jpg","title":"ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Jaron Lanier","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29052827/ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29052826/ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29052825/ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29052824/ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 146","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Arguments-Deleting-Social-Media-Accounts/dp/125019668X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I’ve been scared of this book for awhile, and for that reason haven’t read it. That is probably for the same reason as most — I spent way too much time on social media. That statement is true, even though I probably still spend less time on it than most: I’ve deleted my Facebook., I barely tweet, and I don’t spend much time on LinkedIn and other platforms. But I still am entrapped and addicted to platforms far too much for my liking, and it doesn’t help that many Helena members I’ve worked with, (i.e. Tristan Harris to Renee Direstra) have played central roles in exposing some of the ways it has been exploited for significant societal harm.
\nI met Jaron Lanier in passing a few times, and had brief conversations with him about his work, and his book kept coming up. I immediately bought it, and then left it on my shelf, terrified to read what I already mostly knew was true. He, of course, is brutally correct in a lot of the book’s argumentation, and we do face a fundamental and (in the long-term) potentially existential incentive issue when it comes to the business models of major social media platforms. (The irony of posting this onto instagram is of course also not lost to me).
\nPerhaps the best part of the book is the simple analogy Jaron makes about the why cat videos perform so well on social media. Something in our subconscious likes watching an animal who is a free will — not controlled by the forces around it. We want to be cats on social media, and we don’t want to be dogs, as much as we love them. It was such a simple idea that Lanier places at the front of the first chapter, but it permeated his whole argument, and dominated my day after finishing the book.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTg1","databaseId":1185,"title":"The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge","slug":"the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge/","date":"2020-10-29T05:40:10","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29053813/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge-1.jpg","title":"the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Abraham Flexner and Robbert Dijkgraaf","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29053813/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29053812/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29053811/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29053811/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 97","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.ias.edu/about/usefulness-useless-knowledge"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"One of the best books I’ve read recently, and unexpectedly so. I hadn’t heard of Abraham Flexner before, although his influence is behind so many of the modern household names in scientific history. Flexner was the founder of Princeton’s legendary Institute for Advanced Study, which attracted the talents of not only Einstein, but some of the 20th century’s greatest minds, fostering a bout of achievement that has fundamentally reshaped modern science, technology and geopolitics, possibly forever (in the case of nuclear weapons).
\nFlexner, in a 1910’s essay written for the board of the Rockefeller foundation’s education unit, wrote this paper, introduced here by current IAS head Robbert Dijkgraaf. It provides an elegant and retrospectively obvious proof on why unstructured environments of learning and scientific curiosity create outsized returns invaluable to humanity’s develpoment. Of course, the shame is that we increasingly disincentive such places. Government funding, essential for such progress, is increasingly minimized, and what’s left of it is focused on defense applications. Private sector funding, never a major source of patronizing unstructured thought, demands shorter and shorter timelines for its returns (think 10 year venture capital and private equity fund lockouts).
\nThis reality, that even our greatest “practical” inventions are merely incremental improvements upon the shoulders of cyclical, theoretical, and often unstructured scientific tinkering, is unpleasant to hear for those policymakers and businesspeople who desire a clean and simple forumla for progress. But it doesn’t make it less true. Flexner’s ideas are even more relevant, and needed, today.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTk5","databaseId":1199,"title":"The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings","slug":"the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings/","date":"2020-10-29T05:48:16","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29054231/the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings-1.jpg","title":"the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Marc Kushner","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29054231/the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29054230/the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29054229/the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29054228/the-future-of-architecture-in-100-buildings-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 152","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Future-Architecture-100-Buildings-Books/dp/1476784922"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This was an excellent book to read while stuck in quarantine — even though it is not brand new (published in 2015), it brings you a lot of hope about the physical spaces of our future. The biggest takeaway I see her is that architecture, in a lot of ways, is an enduring, multi-thousand year collective human project to figure out how to marry human development with the far more advanced structures and technologies evolution has already created for us.
\nThat is what I see as one of the through-lines in this book; more efficient collective spaces, uses for spare parking garages when cars aren’t using them, flood-able soccer fields, public pools in the Hudson River that filter the water, invisible treehouses in Scandinavia that blend into the forest, but warn birds away from flying into them. The biggest thing this book reminds you of is cost — a lot of these projects provide beautiful solutions to architectural problems that are fractions of the price of current construction.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMjE0","databaseId":1214,"title":"The Three Body Problem","slug":"the-three-body-problem","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-three-body-problem/","date":"2020-10-29T05:54:10","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29055239/the-three-body-problem-1.jpg","title":"the-three-body-problem-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Cixin Liu","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-three-body-problem-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29055239/the-three-body-problem-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-three-body-problem-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29055238/the-three-body-problem-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-three-body-problem-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29055235/the-three-body-problem-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-three-body-problem-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29055234/the-three-body-problem-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 416","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/0765382032"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This book was unique to me in two primary ways. First, Cixin Liu took (and more broadly, embodies) a tract that is not often the goal of a science fiction author — not basing the book on the “reality” of current societal conditions, but rather writing about a fully separate and parallel universe. He of course admits that it is not possible to do this without subconsciously returning to lived reality, but hearing this from the author after reading The Three-Body Problem is surprising, considering the deep historical and political allusions it makes throughout.
\nBut when you really pay close attention, it is true — Liu writes a fiction that I could only describe as truly (at least for myself) “new.” The storyline is brilliant, expansive across vast amounts of time, across modalities of science, dimensionally itself, and covering topics ranging from the Chinese cultural revolution to the underpinnings of civilization itself. It is hard to summarize the scope of the book in just a few paragraphs, other than to just state that this book is highly worth reading.
\nThe second unique quality was the strength of the translation. It is so damn good. Ken Liu that his goal is not to make the book read as if it was “originally written in English” but rather arranged “in such a way that the reader sees a glimpse of another culture’s patterns of thinking, hears an echo of another languages’ rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another peoples’ gestures and movements.” He didn’t need to state this, of course — his success in achieving this level of translation bleeds through every page. In a small way, reading this as an American gives a small portal into an alternate way of thinking.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMjIz","databaseId":1223,"title":"War Plan Red","slug":"war-plan-red","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/war-plan-red/","date":"2020-10-29T05:58:18","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29055646/war-plan-red-1.jpg","title":"war-plan-red-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Kevin Lippert","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"war-plan-red-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29055646/war-plan-red-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"war-plan-red-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29055645/war-plan-red-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"war-plan-red-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29055644/war-plan-red-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"war-plan-red-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29055643/war-plan-red-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 144","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/War-Plan-Red-United-Canadas/dp/1616893524"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I actually learned a lot from this book, contrary to what you might think by its cover or slightly joking tone. Lippert (who is a book publisher and first time author) begins with a pre-history of US / Canada relations, beginning with the War of 1812, before getting into the infamous “War Plan Red” — the original documents of which are printed at the end of the book.
\nThe reminder here is that the United States wasn’t really after Canada itself in their plans to invade — they were after Britain, which in the late 19th and early 20th century was still inextricably linked to Canada, and was of course in a far different relative power position than the United States. The United States’ plans were a peace-time simulation of a potential 1930’s engagement with the United Kingdom, fought via Canada, and for that reason the book title is slightly misleading, if you assumed this was some sort of newly declassified cold-war era plan.
\nThe best part of the book, though, is actually the author’s discussion of the George W. Bush era, post 9/11 NORAD treaties, and how closely they intertwine the economies and militaries of both countries. The grand irony, for those who must have drafted War Plan Red nearly 100 years ago, is that it was economic and cultural factors (think Hollywood’s relationship with Canada) that finally achieved many of the stated aims of an invasion, rather than military might. Who knows what the next 100 years will bring.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMjI5","databaseId":1229,"title":"Men Without Women","slug":"men-without-women","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/men-without-women/","date":"2020-10-29T06:02:36","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29060018/men-without-women-1.jpg","title":"men-without-women-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Ernest Hemingway","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"men-without-women-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29060018/men-without-women-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"men-without-women-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29060018/men-without-women-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"men-without-women-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29060016/men-without-women-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 132","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Without-Original-English-Version-Hardcover/dp/7544755215"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Classic, beautiful Hemingway. This is a set of fourteen short stories he wrote, all profiles of masculinity of different types (of his age) — bullfighting and prize fighting in stories like “Fifty Grand” and topics like divorce, war, injury, murder and loss, abortion and divorce, all from the perspective of the male. It’s akin to the power of the silent note in music — the absence of the feminine throughout the book is so striking that it looms over every paragraph, and is therefore itself emergent as the book’s main character. It’s dark, uncomfortable, abrasively funny at times, “language sheered to the bone,” as the New York Times summarized it.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMjQw","databaseId":1240,"title":"The Future of Strategy","slug":"the-future-of-strategy","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-future-of-strategy/","date":"2020-10-29T06:08:54","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29060621/the-future-of-strategy-1.jpg","title":"the-future-of-strategy-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Colin S. Gray","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-strategy-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29060621/the-future-of-strategy-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-strategy-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29060620/the-future-of-strategy-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-future-of-strategy-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29060619/the-future-of-strategy-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 150","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Future-Strategy-Colin-S-Gray/dp/0745687946"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A helpful read from the very distinguished scholar Colin S. Gray, who I learned after reading this book just passed a few months ago. The Future of Strategy is not necessarily what you might assume it would be judging the book by its cover, its title and its length — this is not a case-study filled “big think” book made for a wider audience. It is rather more conservative, meandering and academic, and abashedly geared towards the military and political community. In short, this is not necessarily a book for a general audience hoping to wet their appetite with bullet points on how one should position oneself to optimize for the 21st century. It is rather a book for someone immensely curious to hear Colin Gray philosophize on grand strategic theory.
\nI say that without any intended factiousness, as Gray is exactly the kind of thinker increasingly becoming an “endangered species.” Dense in thinking, wry and biting, he could not care less whether his book sells, especially if it meant shortening or compromising on core ideas. He is well eulogized by colleague Frank Hoffman when Hoffman writes: “ He was insufferable to the unprepared and the ill-informed, yet invaluable to the curious student willing to work hard and answer his incessant challenge, “So what?”.
\nThis particular book fit that theme well. After nearly 75 pages of qualifications and definition-setting on what “strategy” actually is, Gray finally gets to the topic. And it doesn’t disappoint — here you can find a brilliantly contrarian analysis of the historical continuity of strategy as a near unconscious human behavior, and a great argument as to why we should not leap to the assumption that the fundamental rules of the 21st century will pan out any different than centuries before. In some ways, I actually don’t agree with this, but as such it is even more valuable to hear such a brilliant counterpoint.
\nGray does open a few qualifications to his argument that others (principally Toby Orb) would endorse — namely in how the advent of nuclear weapons could potentially fundamentally change human strategic behavior, since these weapons provide little to no way for humans to learn from mistaken use. For the first time in our species’ history, we have no margin for error.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMjUw","databaseId":1250,"title":"Trillion Dollar Coach","slug":"trillion-dollar-coach","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/trillion-dollar-coach/","date":"2020-10-29T06:13:19","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29061126/trillion-dollar-coach-1.jpg","title":"trillion-dollar-coach-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"trillion-dollar-coach-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29061126/trillion-dollar-coach-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"trillion-dollar-coach-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29061125/trillion-dollar-coach-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"trillion-dollar-coach-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29061124/trillion-dollar-coach-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 218","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Trillion-Dollar-Coach-Leadership-Playbook/dp/0062839268"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This book is less of a profile, eulogy or biography, but rather an “open-sourcing” compilation of one person’s wisdom, as told by those he most affected. Bill Campbell was an integral, “x” factor part of the height of Silicon Valley’s development between the 1980s and 2000s, playing a fundamental role at Apple, Google, and many other household name companies during their rise, both as an executive and later as a “coach.”
\nCambell’s life was fascinating — he was a star footballer at Colombia University, brining them to their (still) only Ive League title, then one of the country’s preeminent college football coaches, then within 5 years a senior executive at Apple as it became a Fortune 500 company. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, SVP Jonathan Rosenberg and head of Communications Alan Eagle all co-wrote the book, and were each some of the most affected “coachees” of Cambell’s.
\nCambell’s style is fascinating, and one wonders whether/how he would integrate into the world today and during this coming decade. A combination of brash, brutally honest, yet simultaneously kind and magnanimous, it’s clear he had a gift that extended far beyond raw personality and deep into the underbelly of how communication internally at a business leads to things getting done, and done efficiently. The part of his career, that this book explains well but is still dumbfounding, is that Cambell would provide breakthough and penetrative advice to people running businesses that he did not understand. Campbell was highly intelligent, but was not a polymath intellectual.
\nIt was his EQ that allowed him to see into the operations of individual people key in a company, even when that company’s technology was obtuse or unintelligible to Cambell. The book doesn’t touch on this that heavily, given that it is a tangential topic, but I see Cambell as great evidence of just how impactful the “generalist” can be in a world of specialization. It is unfortunately becoming a lost art, and its one we as a society continue to sorely need.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMjY3","databaseId":1267,"title":"The Precipice","slug":"the-precipice","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-precipice/","date":"2020-10-29T06:19:07","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29061735/the-precipice-1.jpg","title":"the-precipice-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Toby Ord","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-precipice-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29061735/the-precipice-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-precipice-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29061734/the-precipice-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-precipice-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29061733/the-precipice-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-precipice-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29061732/the-precipice-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 469","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Precipice-Existential-Risk-Future-Humanity/dp/0316484911"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A brilliant and urgently necessary work that I would recommend to anyone, especially anyone outside of the field of existential risk. The title word “Precipice” refers to the period of time humanity now finds itself in — a period of which there is a strong argument (that I believe) is the most consequential in human history, from the vantage point of decisions that will affect the future of our species.
\n.
\nThis is finally a book, and an author, that has the self-confidence to address the issue of exponential risk — the study of risks that could terminate humanity itself — and do so with real numbers behind it. Ord of course tempers these projections with the necessary qualifiers, but I deeply respect him for forging ahead and not writing an equivocating academic text that dances around core issues. He covers nuclear risks, engineered and anthropomorphic pandemics (especially timely today), misaligned artificial intelligence, climate change and the inherent risks with some forms of geo-engineering, and much more.
Most importantly, though, he eloquently covers the statistical errors many make, both with underestimating or misunderstanding the difference between a 1 in 100 risk versus a 1 in 1 million risk (for example), and the vast underinvestment in projects that save future lives rather than current lives. My only slight with this book is that it is not longer, doesn’t cover more topics, and spends a good deal of time simply convincing the reading that existential risks exist and should be attended to, rather than on the solutions. These are less a testament to Ord’s authorial weakness and more to the state of the world and its lack of focus on existential risk, of course.
\nI’m obviously biased in that this topic is very aligned with Helena, and therefore something I have quite a lot of interest in. But I can’t wait for this field of writing to break more into the mainstream, and wish there to be many more books like Ord’s that hit the shelves in the future and can get attention.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMjc2","databaseId":1276,"title":"Effective Enterprise Leadership","slug":"effective-enterprise-leadership","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/effective-enterprise-leadership/","date":"2020-10-29T06:21:49","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29062039/effective-enterprise-leadership-1.jpg","title":"effective-enterprise-leadership-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Douglas Haynes","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"effective-enterprise-leadership-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29062039/effective-enterprise-leadership-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"effective-enterprise-leadership-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29062038/effective-enterprise-leadership-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"effective-enterprise-leadership-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29062037/effective-enterprise-leadership-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 139","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":null,"link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This was a really special opportunity — I recently had the pleasure of meeting Douglas Haynes recently, who has had an incredible career across government, McKinsey, in the investment sphere, and in the Fortune 500 community. Haynes, as a project to better encapsulate his learning, and share it with others, set aside time to extensively interview some of the world’s most prolific CEOs, mostly in the “enterprise” space of large, public companies, and try to understand their common themes are learnings.
\nHe never published the ideas commercially (I think it absolutely qualifies), and instead bound it into a few copies and sent it to friends. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy, and really benefitted from it. The ideas are simple, some contrarian, eloquent, don’t name names, and stick to substance.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTIz","databaseId":1523,"title":"MBS","slug":"mbs","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/mbs/","date":"2020-10-29T19:33:13","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193128/mbs-1.jpg","title":"mbs-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Ben Hubbard","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"mbs-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193128/mbs-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"mbs-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193127/mbs-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"mbs-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193127/mbs-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"mbs-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193126/mbs-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 394","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/books/review/mbs-the-rise-to-power-of-mohammed-bin-salman-by-ben-hubbard-an-excerpt.html"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I saw an excerpt from author Ben Hubbard in last week’s New York Times, and after swearing to myself I needed to focus instead on the 4-5 mammoth books I have already taken on, I was just too fascinated by the topic to not try this out. I read it straight through in just a few days — it was really really gripping.
\nThis topic is obviously a sensitive one, and it is challenging to understand fact from fiction on any side, given the secrecy of the Kingdom and how much precaution is taken to uphold it. Many Americans are so confused and exhausted by the labyrinthine politics of Saudi Arabia that they discount it. That is a grave mistake: the region is just too important, both in resources and in it’s geographic geographic position, to ignore.
\nI was present in Saudi Arabia during some of the critical events and timelines recounted in this book, and it was interesting to see how Hubbard covered them from that vantage point. This is still very much a story in progress, and part of me continues to hold out some semblance of cautious hope that the country will still chart the philosophical path of equality and liberalization that it preached a few years ago. We will see.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTI4","databaseId":1528,"title":"We Should All Be Feminists","slug":"we-should-all-be-feminists","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/we-should-all-be-feminists/","date":"2020-10-29T19:36:36","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193458/we-should-all-be-feminists-1.jpg","title":"we-should-all-be-feminists-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"we-should-all-be-feminists-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193458/we-should-all-be-feminists-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"we-should-all-be-feminists-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193457/we-should-all-be-feminists-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"we-should-all-be-feminists-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193456/we-should-all-be-feminists-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 65","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/We-Should-All-Be-Feminists/dp/110191176X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"As I start to settle more into the process of quarantining due to the COVID-19 virus, it’s been a bit hard to read, surprisingly. I felt initially restless, but have now started to get over those challenges and have phased back into naturally reading for awhile at a time.
\nThis was a brilliant short book by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who is able to break down core philosophies of gender equality through her eloquent retelling of her own experiences. It is strikingly simple and readable.
\nThe book itself is an extended and edited transcript of a talk she gave in 2017 (which itself is quite good), and it shows; the book flows conversationally, as a loose argumentation of how sexual politics, globally, is often masked, diverted, or subverted by entrenched systems of power that must continue to be addressed.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTMy","databaseId":1532,"title":"Sensemaking","slug":"sensemaking","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/sensemaking/","date":"2020-10-29T19:39:25","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193804/sensemaking-1.jpg","title":"sensemaking-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Christian Madsjberg","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sensemaking-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193804/sensemaking-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sensemaking-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193802/sensemaking-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"sensemaking-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29193800/sensemaking-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 280","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Sensemaking-Power-Humanities-Age-Algorithm/dp/031639324X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"One of the best books of the year so far for me. Madsjberg really thread the needle here; this is technically a business book, but it has almost none of the often un-useful tropes is a business book.
\nThat is because of its scope: a highly intellectual and at times contrarian argument for why we dangerously over-rely on quantitative data, continue to under-rely on experiential, philosophical and contextual experience, and why this matters. . He makes a clear distinction between the two: “thin data” – viewing animals in a zoo, and quantifying them as numbers in an algorithm, and “thick data” – spending months with the lions in the wild.
\nThe best route forward is to be a combinatory master of both. Madsjberg invokes Aristotle’s concept of “Phronesis” — a “synthesis” of knowledge and experience. It’s when a practitioner of a craft works as hard as possible to compile and make use of the quantitative data available, while simultaneously “living” the craft. . The examples he included, from winemakers to hedgefunders to architects and corporate CEOs, all fit that thread of phronesis. . Really excited for friends to read this, and would highly recommend.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTM2","databaseId":1536,"title":"Facebook: The Inside Story","slug":"facebook-the-inside-story","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/facebook-the-inside-story/","date":"2020-10-29T19:42:34","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29194114/facebook-the-inside-story-1.jpg","title":"facebook-the-inside-story-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Steven Levy ","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"facebook-the-inside-story-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29194114/facebook-the-inside-story-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"facebook-the-inside-story-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29194113/facebook-the-inside-story-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"facebook-the-inside-story-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29194112/facebook-the-inside-story-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"facebook-the-inside-story-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29194111/facebook-the-inside-story-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 615","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Inside-Story-Steven-Levy/dp/0735213151"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"An all-encompassing, accessed and overall considerably nuanced history of Facebook, from Zuckerberg’s upbringing, high school and Harvard days to the present election security and privacy challenges of present. This is long — it’s over 600 pages, but it flies by.
\nLevy is the right author for a book like this — he has known and interviewed Zuckerberg since the beginnings of Facebook, traveled extensively with executives around the world, and has a one-foot-in, one-foot-out grasp that understands and in some cases sympathizes with the complexities facing the company from the inside, while understanding from the outside the colossal societal impact the company has, and where there have been irrecoverable mistakes.
\nI wouldn’t say this book is about humanizing Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Parker, Cox, Boz, et al. It does that, yes, but it’s purpose is more Rawlsian — to take the reader outside their own experience with Facebook, and show the sweep of how an idea so small (and in some ways unintentional) can have virus like spread across society in our technical age, and the implications of that exponential spread over such a short amount of time.
\nI’d really recommend this book. Most everyone alive is affected by Facebook and it’s constituent social mores; this is a more considered look at the company than most of the incomplete and bite-sized clippings we are used to across the media, and on bookshelves
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\nHannibal’s mindset — to hate Rome as a guiding principle — was drilled into him since birth, just due to the historical context he found himself in, and the placement of his family as a military family in wartime, coming off a humiliating treaty. It is fascinating to see how it shaped every aspect of his decision making throughout his life — his relative stoicism compared to other contemporaries, his Odyssesian willingness to use deception at a time where it was less in vogue, and his embrace of religious omens and animal sacrifice as a military and physiological strategy even while he most likely non-religious.
\nI am sensing that I am beginning to develop a bit of a niche historical interest, from reading about Hannibal, Mithridates and others, in learning about those who most successfully challenged Rome at periods of its greatest strength. There is much to learn from those who have had success against much better financed and more powerful forces. I think I’ll take on a few other books in different subjects next, but I hope to return to this general period of history soon with some reading on Roman generals like Scipio Africanus to better juxtapose.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTQ2","databaseId":1546,"title":"What It Takes","slug":"what-it-takes","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/what-it-takes/","date":"2020-10-29T19:50:08","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29194706/what-it-takes-1.jpg","title":"what-it-takes-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Stephen A. Schwarzman","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"what-it-takes-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29194706/what-it-takes-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"what-it-takes-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29194705/what-it-takes-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"what-it-takes-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29194704/what-it-takes-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"what-it-takes-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29194704/what-it-takes-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 378","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/What-Takes-Lessons-Pursuit-Excellence/dp/1501158147"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I’ve always been interested by what Blackstone has done and continues to do on the global stage, so it was valuable to read Schwarzman’s biographical account. There is a lot in this book, from his time working for others on Wall St., and quietly figuring out for himself where the inefficiencies were both in the culture and operating practices of companies, but also in the macro trends of finance, to Schwarzman and Pete Peterson’s creation of Blackstone and their trouble raising their first fund.
\nOne thing that also differentiates Schwarzman from others at the helm of large financial institutions is how much of a role he plays in global affairs and economic policy. Hearing how he has approached working with, and in, China at the government level, as well as how he delegates much of his time as an ad-hoc, unofficial advisor for heads of state, was helpful here
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTUx","databaseId":1551,"title":"Why We Sleep","slug":"why-we-sleep","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/why-we-sleep/","date":"2020-10-29T19:53:18","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29195145/why-we-sleep-1.jpg","title":"why-we-sleep-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Matthew Walker","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"why-we-sleep-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29195145/why-we-sleep-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"why-we-sleep-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29195144/why-we-sleep-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"why-we-sleep-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29195144/why-we-sleep-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 323","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144316"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A really impactful book for me. I’ve always had a very direct relationship with sleep; I was never the kind of person who could get by on low sleep, and I envied those who did. I also felt that there was something deeply wrong and frankly foolish about the mentality of forgoing sleep to work “harder” that is pervasive in business and entrepreneurial society.
\nThis book helped me match these intuitions to the science. Sleep is the best medicine the human body can have, and it is free and available all the time. The idea of sleep’s function partially being “file transfer” and the downloading into memory of experiences, and the concept of sleep as a needed regenerative function clicked for me from my own experience. Sleep and it’s relationship to aging, to muscle growth, to skin and hair health, and so much more is fleshed out here in significant detail.
\nThere is also a healthy discussion of what we still don’t know about sleep here. We still don’t know whether sleep came first, before consciousness, or whether the reverse is true. We also still don’t know why some people are able to not sleep as much as others, and function seemingly well.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTU1","databaseId":1555,"title":"Decoded","slug":"decoded","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/decoded/","date":"2020-10-29T19:56:27","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29195506/decoded-1.jpg","title":"decoded-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Jay-Z","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"decoded-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29195506/decoded-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"decoded-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29195505/decoded-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"decoded-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29195504/decoded-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"decoded-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29195503/decoded-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 352","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.google.com/search?q=jay+z+decoded&oq=jay+z+decoded&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.1905j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"An immersive visual, lyrical and autobiographic look at Jay-Z’s discography. This was such a great compliment to the Michael Eric Dyson biography (Book 177); hearing a lot of the same content, but from the source, and juxtaposing both, was fascinating. This book is accompanied by a “mood board” of sorts, tagging individual ideas or locations to the lyrics.
\nThere is an unspoken depth to so much of Carter’s work that even goes undisclosed in forums like this, or in long-form interviews, that is evident. It’s a distance he, almost alone amongst artists in his space, puts between himself and the audience that puzzles but draws you in simultaneously.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo5NzE=","databaseId":971,"title":"Animal Farm","slug":"animal-farm","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/animal-farm/","date":"2020-10-29T00:08:45","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29000251/animal-farm-1.jpg","title":"animal-farm-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"George Orwell","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"animal-farm-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29000251/animal-farm-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"animal-farm-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29000252/animal-farm-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"animal-farm-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29000253/animal-farm-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 101","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Animal-Farm-George-Orwell/dp/0451526341"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"The last time I read animal farm was, I believe, 8th grade. It’s certainly something important to assign at that age, but returning to it when older, and especially at this time in history, was very valuable to me.
\nIn such a short work, Orwell is able to show the sweeping decline into totalitarian regimes we’ve seen again and again in history; the promises of equality, the gradual mistruths turning into justifications for violence and theft against the populous, and above all the incredible irony strongman leaders rely upon for control.
\nThis copy began with two helpful mini-biographies of Orwell and his own journey and the word conditions that coincided with his two most known works, Animal Farm and 1984. Among the many reminders they served, one was how unpopular criticism of the Soviet Union was in WW2 America; Orwell wasn’t initially able to find a publisher willing to back Animal Farm because of these mores.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo5NzU=","databaseId":975,"title":"Foundation","slug":"foundation","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/foundation/","date":"2020-10-29T00:24:50","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29002158/foundation-1.jpg","title":"foundation-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Isaac Asimov","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"foundation-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29002158/foundation-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"foundation-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29002157/foundation-2.png"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"foundation-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29002155/foundation-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 320","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Foundation-Isaac-Asimov/dp/0553293354/ref=pd_sbs_14_img_0/130-3850525-5651011?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0553293354&pd_rd_r=1efa416d-575f-4555-bba4-dbac13497acd&pd_rd_w=D2198&pd_rd_wg=EhS0S&pf_rd_p=5cfcfe89-300f-47d2-b1ad-a4e27203a02a&pf_rd_r=G0QWZQJ9ZNJ7DXADZDV2&psc=1&refRID=G0QWZQJ9ZNJ7DXADZDV2"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"The Foundation series has been staring me down now for awhile on my shelf, and I finally decided to commit to it. The trilogy is regarded as one of, if not the, best science fiction works of all time, and an inspiration for Star Wars and other films. And it is still incredible to think about how long ago, and with what foresight, Asimov was able to churn these out.
\nBefore reading the story itself, I really benefitted from reading a history of Asimov’s career and the foundation novels, indexed by the real-life events that coincided with their creation and publishing. Asimov was obsessed with Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, and pitched his publisher on a galactic-scale future version, set across an epochal timescale. What began as a short story became the Foundation Trilogy (as well as some accessory novels afterward).
\n“Foundation” begins Asimov’s universe-building brilliantly — it is itself a collection of short magazine stories published in succession. Psychohistory, the futuristic concept of future prediction based upon the amalgamation of, and interpretation of, mass physiological data, is set as a backdrop technology across the series, and is well introduced here through the character of Hari Seldon (the 21st-century reader might see some parallels with what some scientists think the far future of complexity science could bring).
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo5Nzk=","databaseId":979,"title":"On The Nature of Things","slug":"on-the-nature-of-things","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/on-the-nature-of-things/","date":"2020-10-29T00:28:30","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29002658/on-the-nature-of-things-1.jpeg","title":"on-the-nature-of-things-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Lucretius","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"on-the-nature-of-things-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29002658/on-the-nature-of-things-1.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"on-the-nature-of-things-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29002700/on-the-nature-of-things-2.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"on-the-nature-of-things-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29002701/on-the-nature-of-things-3.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"on-the-nature-of-things-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29002702/on-the-nature-of-things-4.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 178","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Things-Lucretius/dp/0872205878"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"One of the great great classics that I’ve been meaning to read for awhile. This was unique to me among many of the philosophical texts from this era that I’ve read in its elegant and direct practicality; in most of his prose, Lucretius is simply describing the world around him a priori. It is incredibly profound in some areas, and highly specific in others (why people are wrong to think fire exists inside of wood, wind’s role in seafaring).
\nThe discussion of “atoms” and the “void” in the poem is of course amazing considering its accuracy relative to the scientific knowledge available at the time, and the depressing fact that much of this knowledge was subsequently forgotten by most of the world for ages after. Upon its return in the 15th century, after a thousand years of suppression, the text re-introduced fundamental ideas, often antithetical to religion, that caused seismic change.
\nCopley’s translation is great. This book is a bit of a commitment — it is a continuous poem in matter of fact, but still dense prose.
\nSo many of my friends have read and recommended this book, and I’m glad I read it.
\nThe biggest concept that I derived and shifted my thinking from the book is how one looks at identity. The author notes that the entomology of the word means “being, repeatedly.” The operative word here is “repeatedly”, and that is established by consistent action.
\nIf you want your identity to be “fit”, each individual time in the gym is a “vote” of sorts that fitness is in fact your identity. Like an election, you don’t need a unanimous vote, and you often might “vote” against an action you want to embody. But if you err to the majority, your identity becomes further solidified and a habit is built.
\nYes, this is obvious in retrospect, but it’s something we often forget — the “atomically” small increments of action that form the habits that we currently consist of. It is a wake-up call book, but one that delivers its message in an optimistic and achievable tone. It doesn’t hurt that the author’s own unbelievable story of overcoming the odds reinforces the narrative as well.
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\nIt’s a narrative look at a subject that often seems far too technical to be accessible to those not in the field. It is also a great case study of how open source systems can allow geographically disparate researchers to work together to solve very complex problems. This is such an essential subject, and one that is only beginning to pervade society as one of the most persistent threats. So books like this are an excellent way to be introduced.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo5OTM=","databaseId":993,"title":"Call Sign Chaos","slug":"call-sign-chaos","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/call-sign-chaos/","date":"2020-10-29T00:45:11","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29004334/call-sign-chaos-1.jpeg","title":"call-sign-chaos-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Jim Mattis and Bing West","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"call-sign-chaos-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29004334/call-sign-chaos-1.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"call-sign-chaos-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29004336/call-sign-chaos-2.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"call-sign-chaos-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29004337/call-sign-chaos-3.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"call-sign-chaos-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29004339/call-sign-chaos-4.jpeg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 336","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Alone-Wall-Alex-Honnold/dp/0393353176"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I think this book diverged enough outside from the trite military memoir that doesn’t really say anything “new” for it to be worth the time investment. Mattis is one of the figures in the last two decades of military history I am most interested in one a personality level, given his directness, how he has challenged some of the ill-fated decisions made during the post 9/11 period, and how closely he has operated with troops.
\nHe is also perhaps the biggest reader, or at least is publicized as such, in the US military, which is highly apparently in his writing, as he cites a quite diverse array of concepts and historical figures each time he makes a decision. He is a precedent guy, and it’s clear how his significant bank of historical knowledge has allowed him to prevent himself and others from making mistakes that have been made before, even if it was thousands of years prior.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDo5OTk=","databaseId":999,"title":"Alone on The Wall","slug":"alone-on-the-wall","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/alone-on-the-wall/","date":"2020-10-29T00:50:19","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29004901/alone-on-the-wall-1.jpg","title":"alone-on-the-wall-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Alex Honnold","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"alone-on-the-wall-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29004901/alone-on-the-wall-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"alone-on-the-wall-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29004901/alone-on-the-wall-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"alone-on-the-wall-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29004903/alone-on-the-wall-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"alone-on-the-wall-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29004904/alone-on-the-wall-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 228","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Alone-Wall-Alex-Honnold/dp/0393353176"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I was fascinated by Honnold after watching him as the subject of the “Free Solo” documentary, and having the pleasure of meeting him after only spiked my interest about the kind of mental makeup he has, how he thinks and processes fear, and how he sees and rationalizes the outside world.
\nThis book does a great job of answering those questions; it is not only Honnold’s own voice and writing, but also intersperses commentary from friends, family, and onlookers that Honnold is forced to comment on, which shows discrepancies not in truth but in interpretation. Yes, Honnold’s profession could be interpreted as a death wish (one mistake in a free solo and you die), but his own analysis of it makes better sense. He sees life as something worth living as long and healthily as anyone else, but not at the expense of not doing the activities one truly loves, even if they could cut life short.
\nOne skill that Honnold sees to have at a world-class level is sustained mental focus. You can see this manifest throughout the book, not just in his multi-hour climbs, but also in his incessant need to be “doing” something productive at each moment. To give an example close to my heart — while on an off-day of camping, Honnold allegedly read Daniel Yergin’s 900+ page “The Prize” cover to cover. This is an intellectual human quality whose value can’t be overstated and I found highly unique in an athlete.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDA0","databaseId":1004,"title":"Love in the Snow","slug":"love-in-the-snow","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/love-in-the-snow/","date":"2020-10-29T00:53:55","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005216/love-in-the-snow-1.jpg","title":"love-in-the-snow-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Alexandros Papaniamantis","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"love-in-the-snow-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005216/love-in-the-snow-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"love-in-the-snow-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005218/love-in-the-snow-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"love-in-the-snow-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005219/love-in-the-snow-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 31","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Love-Snow-Agapes-Sta-Hionia/dp/9603531022"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A sad short prose on the end of the life of an elder Greek man in the late 19th century. This was one of the few books I got this book at the incredible Atlantis bookstore in Santorini. The character deals with the perils and wanderings of loneliness, a deteriorating mind and body, all under the backdrop of slowly falling slow, and its metaphorical relationship to the end of life and new beginnings.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDEx","databaseId":1011,"title":"Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A.","slug":"hollywoods-eve-eve-babitz-and-the-secret-history-of-l-a","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/hollywoods-eve-eve-babitz-and-the-secret-history-of-l-a/","date":"2020-10-29T00:56:38","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005519/hollywoods-eve-1.jpg","title":"hollywoods-eve-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Lili Anolik","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"hollywoods-eve-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005519/hollywoods-eve-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"hollywoods-eve-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005520/hollywoods-eve-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"hollywoods-eve-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005522/hollywoods-eve-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 278","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Hollywoods-Eve-Babitz-History-L/dp/1501125796"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Anolik profiles, over a 6 and a half year period, one of the most fascinating figures I’ve ever come across: Eve Babitz. Babitz was an indelible part of the golden era of Hollywood and Los Angeles (the 50s – 70s); brilliant and cunning author, socialite, seductress, artist, and much more.
\nAs the book unravels, the author herself becomes an essential piece of the story, trying to find the reclusive and skeptical Eve in her older age, prying unbelievable anecdotes and connections from her often challenging personality, and often hearing absurd and unbelievable stories from Eve, only to later find them vindicated by others.
\nThe book does center around Eve, or at least the idea of what she was. But it’s meat is in who she interfaced with and how uniquely she lived in such a unique time in history. It immerses you, colloquially, into an almost alien world, one that both the reader and the author seem to be experiencing at the same time.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMDE2","databaseId":1016,"title":"The Fifth Risk","slug":"the-fifth-risk","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-fifth-risk/","date":"2020-10-29T00:59:26","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005754/the-fifth-risk-1.jpg","title":"the-fifth-risk-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Michael Lewis","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-fifth-risk-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005754/the-fifth-risk-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-fifth-risk-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005756/the-fifth-risk-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-fifth-risk-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29005757/the-fifth-risk-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 221","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Risk-Michael-Lewis/dp/1324002646"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A fascinating but depressing look at the often misunderstood (or not understood) role of the United States federal government in nearly every aspect of our lives, and how it’s mismanagement (especially from political appointees) constitutes a fundamental threat.
\nThe “Fifth Risk” name comes from a list of existential risks given to the author by a governmental risk officer. Next to risks like North Korean or Iranian nuclear proliferation, electrical grid collapse, and epidemic, the officer lists “project management” as one of the most vulnerable threats to the country.
\nProject management is code for the execution of the everyday, essential tasks our government does, from proving accurate weather prediction to communities about to be ravaged by hurricanes, to financing pell grants and food stamps for those who can’t sustain themselves, to overseeing that warheads in our nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal do not accidentally explode (as they almost have).
\nLewis, who also wrote The Big Short, systematically goes through government department by department, “box” by “box”, sharing the fascinating anecdotes of what the government actually does, and its value. The book is of course written with the backdrop of the Trump transition and administration, chock full with anecdotes. I think, though, the value of this book extends far beyond just this presidency and showcases the underlying problem: that we don’t understand our government and its relationship to us, and constantly undermine it (and as a result, ourselves), as a result.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTE4","databaseId":1518,"title":"The Collected What If?","slug":"the-collected-what-if","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-collected-what-if/","date":"2020-10-29T09:24:45","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29092341/the-collected-what-if-1.jpg","title":"the-collected-what-if-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Robert Cowley and Caleb Carr, John Lukacs, John Keegan, James Bradley, Stephen E. Ambrose, and Others","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-collected-what-if-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29092341/the-collected-what-if-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-collected-what-if-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29092341/the-collected-what-if-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-collected-what-if-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29092342/the-collected-what-if-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-collected-what-if-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29092343/the-collected-what-if-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Eminent-Historians-Imagine-Might/dp/0399152385"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 826","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"The most informative and engrossing book I’ve read all year. I can’t remember a time in which I’ve been so interested in continuing to read through a book, especially of this length. It’s the kind of book you immediately want to tell your friends about, and is hard to get through even a few pages without taking notes or a photo of something.
\n“What If?” deals in the murky realm of the historical counterfactual: i.e., what would have unfolded if a battle had been lost instead of won, if a person had made a different decision, or if weather had been different on a particular day? This volume is actually two separate books mashed into one, which accounts for its significant page count. Each chapter is a completely separate counterfactual essay, by a different author, all compiled and introduced by editor Robert Crowley.
\nThe topic choices are incredible. Book 1 was originally written as a military history counterfactual, but it’s success led to a broadening to many more topics covered in book 2. What if weather had not cleared up right in time for the D-Day invasion? What if the bad weather cloaking George Washington’s retreat from New York had indeed cleared up? What if Robert E. Lee had not accidentally dropped his war plans, to be picked up and taken full advantage of by Union forces? What if Cleopatra and Marc Antony had not fallen in love? What if Pizarro had not discovered Peruvian potatoes? What if the Mongols had not turned back, if Pontus Pilate hadn’t crucified Jesus, if Hitler had not committed suicide in the bunker, if the Assyrians had not died from illness outside Judea?
\nThe book has its faults: a lack of diverse authors, too much focus on military history, and surprisingly numerous editing issues. But overall this was the one best bang for your buck choices in really wrestling with history, from 2,000 B.C. to present day, that I’ve yet read. It’s a beast, but it’s worth the time investment.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTE0","databaseId":1514,"title":"The Order of Time","slug":"the-order-of-time","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-order-of-time/","date":"2020-10-29T09:21:51","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29092050/the-order-of-time-1.jpg","title":"the-order-of-time-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Carlo Rovelli","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-order-of-time-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29092050/the-order-of-time-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-order-of-time-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29092051/the-order-of-time-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-order-of-time-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29092052/the-order-of-time-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Order-Time-Carlo-Rovelli/dp/073521610X"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 230","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I think this was the best yet of Rovelli’s books, and that is saying something (although I admit I’m a bit biased because of my interest level in the study of time).
\nIt’s hard to come up with any more praise of Rovelli than has been said before, but how clearly and elegantly he condenses such challenging topics (especially to the non-scientist reader) still astounds me after 3 books.
\nHere, he is able simplify why, for example, the question: “what is happening ‘now’ on a faraway planet” isn’t a legitimate question at all, how the underpinnings of the entropic relationship between heat and time, and provide more clarity on quantum states, black holes, and their own couplings with, and ownership of, localized time.
\nI was able to get through this in a day; that should serve as reason enough for someone still anxious about reading a book of this subject.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTEw","databaseId":1510,"title":"Jay-Z: Made In America","slug":"jay-z-made-in-america","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/jay-z-made-in-america/","date":"2020-10-29T09:19:32","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29091834/jay-z-made-in-america-1.jpg","title":"jay-z-made-in-america-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Michael Eric Dyson","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"jay-z-made-in-america-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29091834/jay-z-made-in-america-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"jay-z-made-in-america-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29091835/jay-z-made-in-america-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"jay-z-made-in-america-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29091836/jay-z-made-in-america-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/JAY-Z-America-Michael-Eric-Dyson/dp/1250750229"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 226","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Really enjoyed it. This was what Jay-Z’s life and artistic canon deserved, but to date hasn’t gotten; a public intellectual of the caliber of Dyson recognizing its significance in American culture, political and social development from the late 90s to present day, and analyzing it with real nuance. Dyson touches so many corners of Carter’s journey, from his evolution sonically to his navigation of the business of music, to his corporate activism, philanthropy from criminal justice reform to Katrina and 9/11, to the complex relationships he had and has with rap predecessors and contemporaries.
\nFor those looking for an actual biography, though, this isn’t it. And it might be fruitful to read more biographical literature of the man (though there is precious little that is objective and helpful) before getting into Dyson’s analysis.
\nI admit that over the last two and a half weeks (since a bit before early December), I’ve faced a my first “rut” since really focusing on reading nearly 2 years ago. I chalk it up to two things: a combination of work//social stress and the choice to take on a few very long and challenging books in parallel. There is a bit of malaise that comes after reading for many hours, yet seemingly advancing little in a book that I thought I had control of, but came back to bite me.
\n.
\nThis was one of those books. I originally picked it up while in Hong Kong, and was fascinated by the premise. Morris, with a background in archeology, takes on the extremely ambitious task of writing a world history of both the “east” and the “west” (even defining those terms, as Morris notes, is challenging), then comparing the two as they converge.
Most of the book focuses on ancient history, and begins to speed up around 1400. Morris spends so much time in the far past because he feels that much of the systemic underpinnings of development occurred then, and were not necessarily human-decided but rather geologic. The book’s real value is there, in Morris’ exhaustive exploration of ancient crop yields, natural climate trends and its relationship to human migration, and the spread of religion through trade routes.
\nIt is, therefore, a quite refreshing angle on a topic that dominates most of contemporary political discourse. I wouldn’t recommend the book to someone who is not highly interested in the topic, mostly due its depth. But if you really want to develop an opinion on modern geopolitics, this is the type of book that will provide some of the painstaking background analysis you need.
\nI made the not so wise decision about two weeks ago to choose two extremely dense and long historical books to read next, and while each are fascinating, they have both really slowed me down, especially during the holidays. To supplement that, I halted the other two books and read this. It was an exceptional third book to read, not just due to my respect for the author, but also because of its contemporary importance.
\nI think the most significant thing I got out of this book was a far deeper appreciation for the role of complexity and non-traditional behavior in today’s geopolitical world. Haass so clearly juxtaposes the (relatively) more clear cut Westphalian system to many aspects of the present. It reminds me somewhat of Clausewitz’s concept of “friction” — I.E. the set of unpredictable elements that transpire in an event such as war that cannot be placed onto a map or into a linear strategy.
\nOne aspect of this Haass talks about well in the book is the supply chain of nuclear weaponry and other future arms threats; the decentralized world of today allows for materials to change hands so easily, and at such speed, that it simply does not compute to assume other States can be put under control.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNDk2","databaseId":1496,"title":"The Pearl","slug":"the-pearl","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-pearl/","date":"2020-10-29T09:10:30","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090920/the-pearl-1.jpg","title":"the-pearl-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"John Steinbeck","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-pearl-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090920/the-pearl-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-pearl-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090921/the-pearl-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-pearl-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090922/the-pearl-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Pearl-John-Steinbeck/dp/014017737X"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 112","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"One of the great novels — really glad I read it.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNDkx","databaseId":1491,"title":"The Craft of Intelligence","slug":"the-craft-of-intelligence","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-craft-of-intelligence/","date":"2020-10-29T09:08:02","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090703/the-craft-of-intelligence-1.jpg","title":"the-craft-of-intelligence-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Allen W. Dulles","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-craft-of-intelligence-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090703/the-craft-of-intelligence-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-craft-of-intelligence-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090704/the-craft-of-intelligence-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-craft-of-intelligence-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090704/the-craft-of-intelligence-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-craft-of-intelligence-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090705/the-craft-of-intelligence-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Craft-Intelligence-Legendary-Fundamentals-Gathering/dp/1493018795/ref=sr_1_1?crid=DORW1GI80MFQ&keywords=the+craft+of+intelligence&qid=1574038609&s=books&sprefix=the+carft+of+intel%2Cstripbooks%2C187&sr=1-1"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 301","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNDg3","databaseId":1487,"title":"What You Do is Who You Are","slug":"what-you-do-is-who-you-are","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/what-you-do-is-who-you-are/","date":"2020-10-29T09:05:44","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090446/what-you-do-is-who-you-are-1.jpg","title":"what-you-do-is-who-you-are-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Ben Horowitz","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"what-you-do-is-who-you-are-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090446/what-you-do-is-who-you-are-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"what-you-do-is-who-you-are-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090447/what-you-do-is-who-you-are-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"what-you-do-is-who-you-are-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29090448/what-you-do-is-who-you-are-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062871331/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 274","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I have a soft spot for Horowitz’s writing — I love his fascination with often abnormal (at least for “business” books) historical examples. This was no different; he draws from samurai culture, Toussaint Louverture of the Haitian slave revolt, Shaka Senghor, and Genghis Khan, in the pursuit of applying a far broader swath of examples for business culture. Critics of the book argue that Horowitz was far too relaxed with generalizations from his examples and too heavily romanticized the idea of likening business culture to war — and there was some truth to that here. But even so, there is quite a lot of substance here, and Horowitz comes off as refreshingly transparent.
\nQuite glad I read this. This was another case of me staying away from a book in part due to the “lore” in the media it has, out of the assumption that it might be too reliant on pre-existing tropes and not focused enough on nuance. There were certainly some instances of that offense here (I thought that some of the examples Newport used didn’t fully map to his overall thesis), but the majority of the book was very helpful.
\nThe core insight I got from this is just how harmful “pattern-switching” of attention is; the act of sitting down with the intention of focusing on one task, then being taken control of by the demons of new emails, social media notifications, or other far less important distractions. This is so ubiquitous and engrained into our daily lives, and it is unfortunately incentivized by a lot of the culture of business today (open floor plans, ect.). Newport does provide concrete and implementable ideas on how to stimulate deep work for cognitively challenging tasks into one’s life to combat this.
\nThis book compiles and comments on many different models of how a person, or a group, can make a decision. For me, while there was a lot of value in some of the individual models, I thought the greatest outcome of reading this was rather understanding further, on a second-order basis, what models others rely on to make decisions.
\nEven if you disagree with the use of a particular model, for example, Choice Overload Theory, it is nonetheless quite helpful to know its history and its prevalence, because you can then spot others when they are in the process of relying on it in their own practice.
\nVery different than I originally thought going into the book. Odell writes this as a work of highly intelligent social criticism and analysis of not just the “attention economy,” but also many tangential topics not limited to distraction, freedom of the individual, labor, zen and consciousness.
\nI admit to judging this book by its cover prior to reading, and assuming it would be a lighter and more simple prescription on how to disassociate with the pressures of social media and other addictions of the technological age. This book was a lot of things, but it certainly wasn’t that. It’s dense, at times quite academic (no surprise given the author’s background), at times dark, and nonlinear.
\nIt is valuable, however. You certainly cannot say that Odell isn’t ideologically committed. She puts forth a withering critique not only of the driving forces, companies, and faces behind the technologically addictive, but does not hold back against some of the more popular movements fighting against them, which she still sees as perpetuating and benefitting from the consumerist mindset that she feels fuels their opponents. I don’t agree with a good deal of her viewpoints, but that doesn’t matter. Where I feel she does hit the mark, Odell does so quite saliently.
\nWith impeachment proceedings beginning and political discourse being dominated by the topic today, I thought it might be interesting to refresh myself on the topic and get a more complete understanding of how impeachment works, its origins, and its critical interpretation over time.
\nSunstein’s book was great; he gives a helpful historical review of impeachment’s (or its precursors) pre-American role in other societies such as monarchical Britain, then spends a good deal of time discussing the many debates and interpretations on impeachment of the Founding Fathers before, during and after the constitutional drafting process.
\nThe takeaway here is just how arbitrary the language is about what constitutes an impeachable offense; even those like James Madison, who had strong opinions one way, often flipped to another interpretation after a matter of months. Then there is the often forgotten component of, operationally, how impeachment is actually carried out, and by what bodies.
\nIt’s probable, Sunstein notes, that impeachment’s true value is as a Sword of Damocles. Thus, we lack precedent to give us any confidence about what could happen in an impeachment proceeding, or rather, how should happen. I’d recommend this book for anyone who really wants to understand the varying sides of the process, so they can come to their own emergent interpretation and feel most informed.
\nThis was absolutely brilliant. McChrystal takes a needed contrarian view at the qualities of leadership through contrasting, paired case studies. He models the book off of Plutarch’s “Lives”, using an incredibly diverse array of modern examples from Robert E. Lee to Coco Chanel, Walt Disney, Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr., Robespierre, Abu Al-Zarqawi and many more.
\nMcChrystal and his co-authors display an (I admit surprisingly) good range of writing that is unique among books I have read of this kind. It is not easy to write a fluid military historical analysis of the civil war and modern terrorism, then effortlessly transition into 1920’s Parisian high fashion, then even-handedly draw useful conclusions from their juxtaposition. This book is certainly one of my favorites from this year.
\nAlthough there obviously isn’t a reliable way to understand the validity of individual facts in the book, the narrative is certainly heart-wrenching and very hard to put down. This is a memoir chronicling Fox’s early life, her recruitment to CIA clandestine service from Oxford, and her subsequent, incredibly dangerous work undercover and overseas to prevent the spread of loose nuclear material in the Middle East and elsewhere. The most visceral part of the book was the author’s experience of giving birth in the field, then conducting work with her newborn baby in toe. It was one of many examples the book shows that adds haunting complexity to the intelligence world.
\nSo much to say about this. First of all, the book is truly mammoth. It was a true project to read it fully; Chernow is encyclopedic in his detail, which is of course the appropriate treatment that should be given to Hamilton, who embodied exhaustive, borderline superfluous linguistic output. It took me about a month and a half to get through it fully (with some interruptions).
\nThe folklore this book has engendered, with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton,” has given it quite a positive reputation. That is of course deserved, but it is worth nothing that Chernow’s other biographies are also similarly good.
\nOf the many takeaways I got from the biography, I think there are two worthy enough to share. The first is just how viciously the “popular” media attacked major political figures of the day, and how viciously political figures of the day attacked each other. I had not fully appreciated this, and Hamilton’s biography is good grounding for those who might overstate the current nature of our politics today (although granted we are in a more mature democracy that should be higher standards).
\nThe second is the extent of the tragedy of Hamilton’s life being cut so short. The raw human output that he exhibited in such a short lifespan, net, surpassed many of the most well regarded founding fathers who lived until their 80s or beyond. Were Hamilton to have lived on, there is a chance that he could have surpassed Franklin in contribution, albeit in different fields.
\nThis compendium covers some of Camus’ writings and speeches in Sweden after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. It’s brilliant, and mostly covers the role of the artist (or creative, or intellectual) in the modern era.
\nCamus is best here when he diagnoses the modern media age’s inclination towards speed (I’d guess Camus would use a word like “virality” were it to be available to him) and sensationalism as a highly negative influence on the creation of worthwhile expression.
\nHe hopes for a new type of public intelligence; one that is backed by courage rather than duplicity and targeted misinformation, as the path forward.
\nThis 1898 book by Russian populist and Marxist George Valentinovich Plekhanov is one of the more fascinating analyses on the “great man” theory of history. Beyond the value of just reading a book from this age and from an author like Plekhanov’s, I thought there was a lot of value to glean from his line of argumentation itself.
\nThe author takes a measured middle-road opinion that is often forgotten from contemporary debate on this issue: that the social conditions of a given time in history imbue certain individuals with institutional power that then allows them to make decisions which change history. “Hence, it is the relation of social forces which, in the last analysis explains the fact that Louis XV’s character, and the caprices of his favorite, could have such a deplorable influence on the fate of France. Had it not been the King SHO had had a weakness for the fair sex, but the King cook or groom, it would not have had any historical significance.” This doesn’t necessarily prove finally one way or another the role of the individual as the essential catalyst of historical events, but it rather adds a needed nuance to show the inseparable relationship between social structure and the individual who sits atop it.
\nA great translation; I haven’t read Epictetus and have been meaning to.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNDM2","databaseId":1436,"title":"Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands","slug":"pocket-atlas-of-remote-islands","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/pocket-atlas-of-remote-islands/","date":"2020-10-29T08:35:01","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29083401/pocket-atlas-of-remote-islands-1.jpg","title":"pocket-atlas-of-remote-islands-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Judith Schalansky","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"pocket-atlas-of-remote-islands-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29083401/pocket-atlas-of-remote-islands-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"pocket-atlas-of-remote-islands-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29083402/pocket-atlas-of-remote-islands-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"pocket-atlas-of-remote-islands-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29083403/pocket-atlas-of-remote-islands-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Atlas-Remote-Islands-Visited/dp/1846143497/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=pocket+atlas+of+remote+islands&qid=1571326580&s=books&sr=1-1"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 239","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I’ve been searching for a book like this; Schalansky, utilizing rare books, travel logs and other forgotten primary sources, researched and wrote about 50 of the most remote islands in the world and their often horrific and complex histories.
\nThe author herself was partially inspired to write this book, which is more of a set of prose than an actual atlas, while stuck immobile in East Germany during the war. It was that intellectual wanderlust that led her to want to explore the world through books rather than physically travel.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNDMy","databaseId":1432,"title":"The Fall of Icarus","slug":"the-fall-of-icarus","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-fall-of-icarus/","date":"2020-10-29T08:32:13","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29083103/the-fall-of-icarus-1.jpg","title":"the-fall-of-icarus-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Ovid","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-fall-of-icarus-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29083103/the-fall-of-icarus-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-fall-of-icarus-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29083104/the-fall-of-icarus-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-fall-of-icarus-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29083105/the-fall-of-icarus-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Fall_of_Icarus.html?id=SnGKBgAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 56","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"As with many of the other Penguin Classics, the contents of the selection here extend far outside of just the tale of Icarus flying too close to the sun (people often forget that Ovid dedicates maybe 2-3 paragraphs total to it). Instead this is a great selection of Ovid themes around the personified wrath of the Gods and their relationship to justice and ethics. I thought it was great and worth the quick read.
\nAnother book that caused a breakthrough and fundamental conceptual shift. I’ve previously heard of the delineation between finite and infinite games verbally from a few Helena members but had not read the “source text” of where the concept derives.
\nThis 1986 book by James P. Carse is truly special; it hits on a deeply intuitive idea that most everything we do in our lives, if we don’t catch ourselves doing it, falls within a closed system-like, finite game, while true creativity and progress often comes from engaging in infinite games, in which perpetuating the game itself supersedes your own life as a player. In fact, to begin a game, or a project, that you cannot “finish” is the ultimate pursuit, an idea that most of us shudder to imagine but innately know is true.
\nMy favorite idea from this book is the difference between being “political” and having a “politics.” One is an “infinite” engagement in the world to enlarge what is possible beyond oneself and for a collective and expanding whole, whereas the other is to operate within a self-selected, closed-loop and self-aggrandizing game that can be “won.”
\n“Frustrating” is the best word that comes to mind after finishing this book — not due to the fault of the author, but due to a lack of historical clarity of key details of Alexander’s life.
\nComing from Caro and Isaacson biographies focused on 20th-century figures, I’ve been a bit spoiled, expecting a dense and total description of each phase of Alexander’s development and career. This of course is not something you are going to get with a study from the 4th century BC. Nonetheless, I finished the book interested in reading a lot more on Alexander and will be on the hunt for more literature on the topic.
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\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNDE1","databaseId":1415,"title":"Three Women","slug":"three-women","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/three-women/","date":"2020-10-29T08:19:41","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29081836/three-women-1.jpg","title":"three-women-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Lisa Taddeo","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"three-women-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29081836/three-women-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"three-women-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29081837/three-women-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"three-women-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29081838/three-women-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Three-Women-Lisa-Taddeo/dp/1451642296"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 320","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This was not only a monumental achievement of research and reporting — author Lisa Taddeo spent 8 full years following the lives, meticulously, of three America women, all of which extremely different — but what is perhaps even better about this book is the writing. I’d highly recommend it.
\nVery, very insightful. This was the first Gladwell I’ve read, and it did not disappoint. I now understand why people talk so highly of him as an author; he is able to stitch together seemingly disperse examples (in this case the Penn State athletic director scandal, instances of police violence, the Knox case, Madoff, and others) into a coherent sociological and behavioral thesis about human nature. The book’s argument, on its face, strikes you hard as immediately correct when you are exposed to it. Humans absolutely had a threshold bias towards believing that someone else is truth before they are able to make the realization in the opposite direction (people are also truly bad at understanding strangers compared to their ability to comprehend the microexperssions of those we know well).
\nThis is the original, 1928 book on propaganda that prominently (and controversially) laid the practice, and its massive impact, to bear on the public. It is endlessly fascinating — not just the book itself, but the story behind it.
\nBernays is himself a proclaimed propagandist and defender of the term as a job title. He cites the historical shift from propaganda’s 16th century Vatican roots, from which the practice was regarded as completely kosher and in fact celebrated, to the use of propaganda in WW1 and WW2, where Nazi and United States war propaganda tarred the word. This book was actually Bernay’s failed attempt to revive the word “propaganda” as a neutral or good thing, by making the argument that propaganda is simply the same as public relations or public affairs, and detailing in practical terms why.
\nThe book also hilariously serves as an add for Bernay’s services as a PR man, detailing all his past successes (in 3rd person or otherwise indirectly). The grand irony of the book is that, while Bernays utterly fails in historical retrospect to revive the term, his statement that most forms of today’s media, communications, and “public affairs” are essentially propaganda, could not be more true.
\nThis was so good. I think some of David Foster Wallace’s best writing, if not his best, is about tennis (my favorite sections of Infinite Jest were those on tennis as well). This book is a compendium of 5 long-form essays Wallace wrote, ranging from his time as a junior player to his analysis of the 1995 US Open during the Agassi era to the Federer-Nadal Wimbledon Final.
\nI’m obviously not the first to note this, but the fact that DFW was a good, not great, junior player as a teenager in the mid-west (paired with the wonderfully crazed analytical nature of his mind) is the essential differentiating factor with his writing on sports. You can feel in every page the fact that Wallace knows just enough of what the players are experiencing to access it linguistically but so far diverges from their actual experience to put his other literary foot with that of the reader, with whom he shares the awe or absurdity of the spectacle.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzk3","databaseId":1397,"title":"Aphorisms on Love and Hate","slug":"aphorisms-on-love-and-hate","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/aphorisms-on-love-and-hate/","date":"2020-10-29T08:09:33","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29080819/aphorisms-on-love-and-hate-1-768x768.jpg","title":"aphorisms-on-love-and-hate-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Friedrich Nietzsche","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"aphorisms-on-love-and-hate-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29080819/aphorisms-on-love-and-hate-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"aphorisms-on-love-and-hate-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29080821/aphorisms-on-love-and-hate-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"aphorisms-on-love-and-hate-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29080822/aphorisms-on-love-and-hate-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"aphorisms-on-love-and-hate-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29080823/aphorisms-on-love-and-hate-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/277/277536/aphorisms-on-love-and-hate/9780141397900.html"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 55","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Regrettably, I am quite light when it comes to reading Nietzsche — not out of any distaste for him, but just by chance. I’m now trying to change that, and this served as a great short introduction to begin.
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\nThis felt so accessible and direct — I really buy Wilson’s logic that the often dense language of other (often 20th century British) translations, which can have the illusion of feeling more “official”, is in fact potentially superfluous, given that older or heightened, academic English is no “closer” to the Greek than that of our contemporary English. Given this, for me, reading both Robert Fagles’ (for example) and Wilson’s translations were a great solution, as both show different, complimenting components of the story.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzg4","databaseId":1388,"title":"Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence","slug":"novacene-the-coming-age-of-hyperintelligence","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/novacene-the-coming-age-of-hyperintelligence/","date":"2020-10-29T08:02:17","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29075904/novacene-the-coming-age-of-hyperintelligence-1-768x768.jpg","title":"novacene-the-coming-age-of-hyperintelligence-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"James Lovelock","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"novacene-the-coming-age-of-hyperintelligence-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29075904/novacene-the-coming-age-of-hyperintelligence-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"novacene-the-coming-age-of-hyperintelligence-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29075905/novacene-the-coming-age-of-hyperintelligence-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"novacene-the-coming-age-of-hyperintelligence-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29075907/novacene-the-coming-age-of-hyperintelligence-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Novacene-Coming-Hyperintelligence-James-Lovelock/dp/024139936X"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 139","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Really glad I read this. Lovelock turned 100 years old writing this book, which is something you have to remind yourself of page after page due to its lucidity and energy that outdoes that of thinkers 70 years his junior. It was hard to miss his optimistic interpretation of our present and potential future throughout.
\nLovelock, more so than those more cautious, like Nick Bostrom, see the myriad outcomes of artificial intelligence as quite positive for critical components of mass energy generation and management, social organization, ect.
\nMy biggest complaint is that only one-third of this book was actually about Lovelock’s concept of the Novacene; the first two-thirds are a review of his Gaia theory and a review of the Anthropocene. Both are essential precursors to build upon, but I wish the book was longer and we could hear more of the author’s analysis on the potential transition between organic and inorganic life in the next few centuries.
\nThis was one of the best books that I’ve been able to read this year. Often, you get the sense of repetition of argument and trope reading even some of the highest quality in non-fiction, and the juxtaposition of Taleb to the more mainstream of public intellectualism is so wonderfully stark. A lot of people are fooled and perturbed by Taleb’s demeanor — it’s obvious, though, that this is a feature of his, not a bug.
\nIt takes someone able to weather chaos unfazed and emboldened (coincidentally, the definition of anti-fragility) to make the line of argumentation about the world that he does. Reading this book makes you not only intellectually smarter but more importantly far better at “sense-making” the world around you — better able to identify irrationalities in the standard orthodoxy that is compounded by academia and the business community. I still haven’t read the other books in his Incerto series, including Black Swan, but they are top on my list.
\nEncyclopedic. This book is a masterpiece of cultural review; Freedman covers (elegantly) an absurd array of historical content, across military history from the Bible to present day, military history, business history, and so much in between. I’m not sure I’ve read a more ambitious non-fiction book yet; Freedman essentially writes an agile, almost quilted biography of what feels like hundreds of critical figures, all while injecting his own genius insights between the pages. Reading this slowly and deliberately, as it demands, takes time; it feels like I was lugging this around in my bookbag for ages.
\nFreedman’s conclusions, at the close of such a massive analysis, are perhaps counterintuitive to some. I won’t ruin them for those considering reading the book, but Freedman brings forth a common theme — storytelling — that stitches together nearly all of his disperse examples.
\nMatthew E. May puts words to a concept most intuitively understand and have experienced but few have actually been able to execute on — the concept of “elegance,” specifically in solutions to intractable problems. An elegant solution is most often one that leaves things out, rather than putting extra components in, as a means of addressing a problem of significant complexity. I like many of May’s examples, but I admit a few of them were a bit airy for me and didn’t hold as much weight as I would have hoped.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzY4","databaseId":1368,"title":"The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin","slug":"the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin/","date":"2020-10-29T07:47:27","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29074615/the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-1-768x768.jpg","title":"the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Benjamin Franklin","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29074615/the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29074616/the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29074618/the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29074619/the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Benjamin-Franklin-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486290735/ref=asc_df_0486290735/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312064602668&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1580331468171756858&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1013587&hvtargid=pla-435988773993&psc=1"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 144","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I haven’t yet read a full biography of Franklin (one of the next up on my to-read list is Isaacsons’) although I find him one of the most fascinating and important figures in history. So I thought that this, as an introduction to Franklin, would be a great first step. It was, although far different than I assumed.
\nFranklin writes this book for the use of his children, in order to for them understand the virtues he held and the decisions he made (most) during his early life that led him to become successful and “of good reputation.” It is therefore more or less a series of insights and anecdotes, rather than a comprehensive retelling of central events in his life.
\nSecond, Franklin skips over some pretty important years during the prime of his life, jumping past the Revolutionary War to resume his notes in 1784, which of course is unfortunate, although the man was quite preoccupied. Overall, I would recommend this book, but would want to make sure a prospective reader knows what they are getting themselves into and doesn’t have the wrong incoming perception.
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\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzYw","databaseId":1360,"title":"The End of Eternity","slug":"the-end-of-eternity","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-end-of-eternity/","date":"2020-10-29T07:37:55","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073654/the-end-of-eternity-1-768x768.jpg","title":"the-end-of-eternity-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Isaac Asimov","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-end-of-eternity-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073654/the-end-of-eternity-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-end-of-eternity-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073655/the-end-of-eternity-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-end-of-eternity-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073657/the-end-of-eternity-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/End-Eternity-Novel-Isaac-Asimov/dp/0765319195"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 260","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Asimov remains my favorite science fiction writer, and I’m obviously not alone in that assessment. The more and more I read about him (like the fact that he wrote over 400 books), the more and more I am stunned and want to dive in deeper. I still am yet to read Foundation, which is supposedly his best, but this will be hard to beat. The End of Eternity stitches together a wonderfully written novel around an equally impressive analysis of the arbitrary nature of time relative to one’s own narrow life, and the transferable and ubiquitous components of human that exist outside of our temporal constrains.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzU2","databaseId":1356,"title":"How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing","slug":"how-we-weep-and-laugh-at-the-same-thing","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/how-we-weep-and-laugh-at-the-same-thing/","date":"2020-10-29T07:35:31","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073357/how-we-weep-and-laugh-at-the-same-thing-1-768x768.jpg","title":"how-we-weep-and-laugh-at-the-same-thing-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Michel de Montaigne","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-we-weep-and-laugh-at-the-same-thing-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073357/how-we-weep-and-laugh-at-the-same-thing-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-we-weep-and-laugh-at-the-same-thing-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073358/how-we-weep-and-laugh-at-the-same-thing-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-we-weep-and-laugh-at-the-same-thing-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073359/how-we-weep-and-laugh-at-the-same-thing-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/How-Weep-Laugh-Same-Thing/dp/B01BITN7LA"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 55","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Some of the most relaxing and beautiful prose you can read. Montaigne’s final sections reframe conceptions of death into simple and minimalist ideas that transcend time — “When I die, may I be in the middle of my work,” “Our first hour gives us life and began to devour it,” “mortal creatures live lives dependent on each other, like runners in a relay the pass on the torch of life,” “why not withdraw from life like a guest replete?”
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzUx","databaseId":1351,"title":"The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World","slug":"the-imagineers-of-war-the-untold-story-of-darpa-the-pentagon-agency-that-changed-the-world","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-imagineers-of-war-the-untold-story-of-darpa-the-pentagon-agency-that-changed-the-world/","date":"2020-10-29T07:32:40","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073129/the-imagineers-of-war-1-768x775.jpg","title":"the-imagineers-of-war-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Sharon Weinberger","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-imagineers-of-war-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073129/the-imagineers-of-war-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-imagineers-of-war-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073130/the-imagineers-of-war-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-imagineers-of-war-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073131/the-imagineers-of-war-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-imagineers-of-war-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29073133/the-imagineers-of-war-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Imagineers-War-Untold-Pentagon-Changed/dp/0385351798"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 475","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Fascinating. An extensive, meticulously crafted account of DARPA’s 60+ year history that I would recommend as essential reading for those seeking to understand the bureaucratic and structural underpinnings of America’s development and deployment of advanced technologies.
\nIt is staggering to see the diversity of work DARPA underwent throughout its early life-cycle, from the space race and nuclear age to Vietnamese War, the creation of ARPANET, counterinsurgency to big data and so much more. DARPA’s major failures, its offsetting successes, their political translation into funding and policy, and how all of these stimuli contributed to the Agency’s standing in the beltway over the decades, was endlessly interesting to me. Weinberger does a stellar job, especially considering the fact that this is not only an unauthorized biography, but also because she had to contend with so many logistical challenges navigating through the barriers of classified information.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzQ2","databaseId":1346,"title":"The Revolt of the Public","slug":"the-revolt-of-the-public","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-revolt-of-the-public/","date":"2020-10-29T07:29:57","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072848/the-revolt-of-the-public-1-768x768.jpg","title":"the-revolt-of-the-public-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Martin Gurri","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-revolt-of-the-public-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072848/the-revolt-of-the-public-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-revolt-of-the-public-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072849/the-revolt-of-the-public-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-revolt-of-the-public-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072851/the-revolt-of-the-public-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-revolt-of-the-public-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072852/the-revolt-of-the-public-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Revolt-Public-Crisis-Authority-Millennium/dp/1732265143"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 445","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I think to no fault of the author, and instead as a testament to present times, this book felt a bit obvious. Gurri, a former CIA analyst and current geopolitical thinker, published this book in 2014, far before the Trump election. The book correctly diagnoses one of the critical and fundamental cultural shifts of our age: a resentment of expertise and the elite class, a popular assault on democracy, and a nihilistic tendency towards the burning down of our cultural, government, and geopolitical democratic institutions without an agreed-upon proposed replacement to them. Reading the book in mid-2019, however, most all of Gurri’s supporting evidential facts and anecdotes — the Arab Spring and Wael Ghonim, Egypt, Israel, Greece, and others — are now second-hand knowledge integrated into the modern fabric of political decision making. It is a jarring attestation to the chaos of our present age that it only took 3 and a half years to make a book with such an (at the time) new thesis (dare I say) almost pedestrian and self-evident.
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\nReading through each page, the biggest visual element to jump out at me was the design. The folks drawing up each ad and each page layout obviously did not have the aid of modern computing, but this in some ways was a good thing. The product here is a visual sense of minimalism and elegance that is somewhat lost today, with the amount of noise and shock value inherent in today’s media. The feature articles in the magazine were, in contrast, not Vogue’s strongest hour, an awkward experience to read given some of the more visceral inherent sexism in the world of dieting and career advice.
\nOverall, I highly recommend trying out older magazines like this. They aren’t incredibly expensive (this was about 40 dollars), and it provides a miniature immersion into a past society that isn’t possible to achieve reading contemporary.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzM3","databaseId":1337,"title":"The Next Person You Meet in Heaven","slug":"the-next-person-you-meet-in-heaven","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-next-person-you-meet-in-heaven/","date":"2020-10-29T07:24:15","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072302/the-next-person-you-meet-in-heaven-1-768x768.jpg","title":"the-next-person-you-meet-in-heaven-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Mitch Albom","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-next-person-you-meet-in-heaven-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072302/the-next-person-you-meet-in-heaven-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-next-person-you-meet-in-heaven-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072303/the-next-person-you-meet-in-heaven-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-next-person-you-meet-in-heaven-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072305/the-next-person-you-meet-in-heaven-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Next-Person-You-Meet-Heaven/dp/006229444X"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 208","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I love Albom’s writing. He writes so simply on the exploration of life and its relation to death, in a way that is hard to replicate in an academic or heavy setting.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzMz","databaseId":1333,"title":"How To Be Alone","slug":"how-to-be-alone","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/how-to-be-alone/","date":"2020-10-29T07:21:32","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072015/how-to-be-alone-1-768x768.jpg","title":"how-to-be-alone-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Lane Moore","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-to-be-alone-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072015/how-to-be-alone-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-to-be-alone-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072026/how-to-be-alone-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"how-to-be-alone-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29072028/how-to-be-alone-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Alone-Want-Even/dp/1501178830/ref=asc_df_1501178830/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312061076565&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17556636461301284191&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1013587&hvtargid=pla-565431819315&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=62837065140&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312061076565&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17556636461301284191&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1013587&hvtargid=pla-565431819315"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 214","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A hilarious book — to me most about the experience of overthinking and inner monologue we all struggle with.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzI5","databaseId":1329,"title":"Common Sense","slug":"common-sense","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/common-sense/","date":"2020-10-29T07:17:15","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29071544/common-sense-1-768x960.jpg","title":"common-sense-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Thomas Paine","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"common-sense-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29071544/common-sense-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"common-sense-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29071545/common-sense-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"common-sense-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29071547/common-sense-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Common-Sense-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486296024"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 58","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I had never actually read Common Sense front to back, a shortfall I suspect some others with interest in American Revolutionary history share with me. As with other similar writings during this period, one can often forget how procedural and analytical argumentation like this can be.
\nThis is not, by today’s standards, a short, impassioned radical monologue. It has its bombastic moments, but overall, Paine outlines and academically defends a set of fundamental constraints between colonial America’s relations with Europe, economically, geopolitically, morally, and structurally (governance). It is good to be reminded of the care that past Americans have taken, even in their moments of highest stress and danger, to think deeply and quantitatively through (seemingly) radical viewpoints.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzI0","databaseId":1324,"title":"Reality Is Not What It Seems","slug":"reality-is-not-what-it-seems","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/reality-is-not-what-it-seems/","date":"2020-10-29T07:13:51","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29071238/reality-is-not-what-it-seems-1-768x768.jpg","title":"reality-is-not-what-it-seems-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Carlo Rovelli","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"reality-is-not-what-it-seems-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29071238/reality-is-not-what-it-seems-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"reality-is-not-what-it-seems-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29071239/reality-is-not-what-it-seems-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"reality-is-not-what-it-seems-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29071240/reality-is-not-what-it-seems-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"reality-is-not-what-it-seems-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29071242/reality-is-not-what-it-seems-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Reality-Not-What-Seems-Journey/dp/0735213925"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 280","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I’m really becoming a sucker for Rovelli’s books. He is a remarkable writer. You often forget, when wading through his prose, that he is telling you about some of the most complex concepts in all of physics. His writing is approachable, it’s inspired, and it draws you into concepts seemingly previously inaccessible. Here, he tackles quantum gravity, beginning with the brilliant anecdote of Democritus’s atomic theory, and the 26-century journey it took until Einstein’s 1905 discovery of General Relativity. Couldn’t recommend this book more.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzE5","databaseId":1319,"title":"Titan: The Life of Paul D. Rockefeller, Sr","slug":"titan-the-life-of-paul-d-rockefeller-sr","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/titan-the-life-of-paul-d-rockefeller-sr/","date":"2020-10-29T07:11:17","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29070943/titan-1-768x802.jpg","title":"titan-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Ron Chernow","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"titan-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29070943/titan-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"titan-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29070944/titan-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"titan-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29070945/titan-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"titan-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29070947/titan-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr/dp/1400077303/ref=asc_df_1400077303/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312021252609&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9695818917801860697&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9030960&hvtargid=pla-332442745144&psc=1"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 774","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"Chernow does an incredible job here. He is dealing with a reclusive, complex and dualistic subject, yet unlike past Rockefeller biographers, he is able to dispassionately paint each aspect of Rockefeller’s extraordinarily long life, from his unbelievably odd and tenuous pre-civil war life, to his dogged early business years, through the rise of Standard Oil, through Rockefeller’s many controversies, faults, and challenges, and into his prolific and precedent-setting philanthropic career. All of which, of course, takes place during a period of remarkable change in American history, from the Civil War, to the gilded age, to the beginnings of 20th century American power.
\nThe further into this book you get, the more you realize it is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the critical beginnings of American industrialism, the iconographic role of the individual in Western business, the challenges and systemic moral entanglements of philanthropy, asymmetric power, and so many other essential concepts we create our own unfounded assumptions upon. Yes, this is a 774-page commitment, but it’s one that is hard to put down.
\nThis immediately became a favorite of mine. This book is essentially a journal of Philippe Petit, the legendary high-wire walker now depicted in scores of movies and documentaries, chronicling how one prepares for facing death, the meditative solace of practicing alone, and much more.
\nThis was mind-blowing. For Taschen. Nathan and Zollner compiled into one book the most complete amalgamation of Da Vinci’s drawings ever assembled, from their current locations across the globe. They add in quite copious essays and notes on each section, ranging from anatomy to military engineering to drapery studies. It was that diversity of subject matter that still astonishes me about Da Vinci — he was legitimately the best in the world, or close to the best in the world, at 5-6 seemingly unrelated fields of artistry, science, and engineering, all at the same time.
\nThis book takes a while to get through — it is quite physically heavy in hardcover, and it does tire your eyes to look through each work and its full commentary, over and over, for sustained periods of time. But it is well, well worth the effort.
\nI admit I stayed away from reading this book when it first came out, not out of any negative feelings for Dalio, but more just from the obsession it engendered from the self-help crowd, which was a negative signal for me. After finally reading it, though, I realize this was a red herring. Partly the reason Dalio has been able to elicit such widespread readership of Principles is because of how simple he was able to distill these quite complex concepts of management and internal transparency, not because the concepts themselves were in any way diluted.
\nAnd so I stand corrected (and inspired). This book, of course, goes into quite a lot of detail about Dalio and Bridgewater’s concept and implementation of “radical transparency” in the workplace. But one area that I would ask those about to read the book pay special attention to is his writing on sharing the context of a given situation between multiple parties. This is one of the most deceptively challenging components of running any organization, and Dalio gets at the core of how to address some of the systematic causes of the problem.
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\nHis answer is yes — that a naked and holistic acceptance of nihilism and the absurd (one’s failure to find meaning) constitutes a “revolt” allowing one to live with true passion. This book is extremely hard to get through. It’s dense, and its short page length can fool you into thinking it will be a quick read. But overall, it is a seminal work of the philosophy of the absurd, which I love reading about.
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\nIt’s clear that Goodwin could have only written this book after the 40 years she has spent writing volumes on each individual character. But more than that, it’s clear how enjoyable it must have been to revisit her notes here in this work, as she compared and contrasted their qualities from a new angle.
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\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMjg0","databaseId":1284,"title":"Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work","slug":"stealing-fire-how-silicon-valley-the-navy-seals-and-maverick-scientists-are-revolutionizing-the-way-we-live-and-work","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/stealing-fire-how-silicon-valley-the-navy-seals-and-maverick-scientists-are-revolutionizing-the-way-we-live-and-work/","date":"2020-10-29T06:25:40","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29062434/stealing-fire-1-768x768.jpg","title":"stealing-fire-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"stealing-fire-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29062434/stealing-fire-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"stealing-fire-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29062436/stealing-fire-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"stealing-fire-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29062437/stealing-fire-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Fire-Maverick-Scientists-Revolutionizing/dp/0062429655"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 304","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This was a well-researched review of what the authors and others describe as the pursuit of “ecstasis,” an admittedly eye-roll worthy extrapolation of the Greek idea of ecstasy (not the party drug but the philosophy). Yes, there are anecdotes in the book that I felt were somewhat impotent and inapplicable, but Kotler and Wheal are hitting on a fascinating and important age-old phenomenon that shouldn’t be discounted or trivialized just because it is currently a Silicon Valley trend.
\nThe idea of pursuing whatever tools allow one to enter an altered state of consciousness, whether as a means of more productive work, as a means of experiencing a form of mysticism, or both, is a legitimate one. Understanding the latest in the domains that govern this search, including psychopharmacology, group physiology, biological engineering and network theory is quite valuable, and for that reason, I thought this book was helpful and quite worth the time.
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\nI had been meaning to finally read this, after seeing it referenced so heavily throughout other philosophical readings and in academia. It’s an interesting reminder to see Descartes champion important elements of first-principal and dispassionate thinking, even though in some cases he famously misapplies it (mostly in his philosophy of the mind). It doesn’t take away from his importance, however.
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\nThe content for this book is from late 2013 and early 2014, which was a worry of mine before reading, due to the fact that this touches on modern times. But it was actually a feature rather than a bug. Yew correctly predicts a crucial set of facts regarding China between 2014-2019, and also makes prescient predictions regarding future executive leadership of the United States.
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\nWhat you cannot prepare yourself for before reading War and Peace is the (welcome) level of linguistic and narrative density. It’s like running an ultramarathon through a Southeast Asian jungle with a pickaxe. Every single page has world-class prose, a deep investigation of human nature and its inherent ironies, and throwaway lines (like calling war “a tournament of courage”) that would themselves in another context make many writer’s careers.
\nThis translation, with its wonderful introduction, was good. I searched through a few possible versions and found this one the best.
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\nWe allow others to take it from us, in some cases continuously and for the entirety of our lives. It is always counterintuitive, socially challenging and at times alienating to address this problem so core to our identities, but we must if we are to live full and engaging lives.
\nMy favorite quote from the book: “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.”
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\nThis book compiles multiple Durant essays, mostly from the end of his life, that synthesize his view of the top thinkers and poets of all time, the most important moments in history, notes on human progress, and his view of the 100 most essential books ever published.
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\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTY0","databaseId":1164,"title":"The Great Gatsby","slug":"the-great-gatsby","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-great-gatsby/","date":"2020-10-29T05:13:07","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29051143/the-great-gatsby-1-768x768.jpg","title":"the-great-gatsby-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"F. Scott Fitzgerald","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-great-gatsby-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29051143/the-great-gatsby-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-great-gatsby-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29051145/the-great-gatsby-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-great-gatsby3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29051148/the-great-gatsby3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-great-gatsby-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29051146/the-great-gatsby-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Great-Gatsby-F-Scott-Fitzgerald/dp/0743273567"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 180","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I’m so grateful to have been reminded to read this through again. Fitzgerald’s granddaughter, who pens this version’s prelude and introduction, talks about how The Great Gatsby should be re-read each 10 years of one’s life, because it holds such a different meaning and truth in one’s teenage years (where most read the book), 20’s, 30’s and beyond. She’s right. I couldn’t appreciate the depth of Fitzgerald’s characters then, and I will learn so much more as I return to the book again a decade from now.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTU2","databaseId":1156,"title":"The Old Man of the Moon (Penguin Classics)","slug":"the-old-man-of-the-moon-penguin-classics","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-old-man-of-the-moon-penguin-classics/","date":"2020-10-29T05:07:13","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050521/the-old-man-of-the-moon-1-768x767.jpg","title":"the-old-man-of-the-moon-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Shen Fu","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-old-man-of-the-moon-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050521/the-old-man-of-the-moon-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-old-man-of-the-moon-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050522/the-old-man-of-the-moon-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-old-man-of-the-moon2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050524/the-old-man-of-the-moon2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Penguin-Little-Black-Classics/dp/B00XXO0P28"}},{"cta":{"label":"Edition: Penguin Classics","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 57","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A beautifully written and tragic autobiographical tale of a scholar’s love for his wife, in the Jiangsu province of China during the late 1780’s through the early part of the turn of the 19th century.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTQ3","databaseId":1147,"title":"On Justice, Power and Human Nature","slug":"on-justice-power-and-human-nature","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/on-justice-power-and-human-nature/","date":"2020-10-29T05:03:10","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050127/on-justice-power-and-human-nature-1-768x768.jpg","title":"on-justice-power-and-human-nature-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Thucydides","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"on-justice-power-and-human-nature-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050127/on-justice-power-and-human-nature-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"on-justice-power-and-human-nature-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050129/on-justice-power-and-human-nature-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"on-justice-power-and-human-nature-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050131/on-justice-power-and-human-nature-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"on-justice-power-and-human-nature-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29050132/on-justice-power-and-human-nature-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Power-Human-Nature-Peloponnesian/dp/0872201686"}},{"cta":{"label":"Translator: Paul Woodruff","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 210","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"After thousands of years, still some of the most engaging and brilliant writing one can read. Paul Woodruff provides a wonderful, long introduction and great context for each passage of the History, with some much-needed footnotes where necessary to denote directions he has taken with this translation that differ from other classical versions. There are such valuable reminders of strategy and the unchanged tenants and weaknesses of human nature here, especially culminating in the Sicilian Expedition passages, which are still my favorite part of the History, followed by the Funeral Oration. Note that the text size on each page of this particular volume pretty damn small, making this a pretty serious and dense 210 pages.
\nOf the books I’ve read thus far that could be characterized as a “review” of the main threats and trends that lay in front of us during the next 100+ years, this is my favorite. Rees is most realistic, forward, and at times frightening, about the true scale of the problems that stare down humanity. His vantage point of cosmology is well suited for this type of thinking because it abstracts the reader further away from a standpoint of the here and now, which is often selfish and myopic. Instead, one feels closer to the original position when reading this — a bit more objective.
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\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxMTA2","databaseId":1106,"title":"Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis","slug":"upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis/","date":"2020-10-29T04:37:44","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29043332/upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis-1-768x768.jpg","title":"upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Jared Diamond","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29043332/upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29043334/upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29043336/upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/29043338/upheaval-turning-points-for-nations-in-crisis-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Form: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Upheaval-Turning-Points-Nations-Crisis/dp/0316409138"}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 502","link":null}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A lot to say here. Overall, this was a very useful book to read, and far and away worth it. Jared Diamond, unsurprisingly, exhibits a modern-day polymathy that is rare amongst authors. The book utilizes historical reference, parallel and associative reasoning, fascinating personal anecdote and analysis of current global issues (especially that of climate change and nuclear threats), that, taken individually, are brilliant and helpful.
\nIt might be the case, though, that Diamond’s stature and genius led this book into an “embarrassment of riches” problem. He acknowledges this at the end of the book, but Upheaval’s premise — that applying the framework physiologists use for helping those overcome personal crises to that of past and current nations and states in collective crises is a dichotomy that better helps us understand how to overcome future global problems — yields mixed utility. Partially leading to this (and again, Diamond to his credit also sees this flaw) is an overabundance of anecdotal evidence for the book’s argumentation.
\nNone of Diamond’s main examples, ranging from 19th century Meiji Japan to WW2 Finland and modern-day United States, have critical issues when viewed independently. In fact, they are quite enjoyable and educational to read through and yield a lot of insight. But it does feel a bit forced when Diamond stitches them together into his framework of crisis management, which both elongates the book in order to accommodate for his justification of each tenant, but also requires such a summarization of key concepts that it feels like non-minor corners are cut.
\nThe book really shines towards the end, where Diamond diagnoses some of the critical issues facing the United States and the world today, which is rare, considering that most ambitious and credentialed authors fail in this area. It, in my view, isn’t a surprise that this is also the part of the book most deviant from its overarching physiological framework, least based on anecdote, and most based upon hard science and economics (Diamond’s biggest strength).
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\nThe book also paints a vivid picture of the surrounding politics and relationships surrounding Brutus and the assassination. Cicero’s depiction in particular was fascinating, as it showed the extent to which he was able to intellectually influence Brutus and the conspirators, often from afar and never through direct action. I’d highly recommend this book, irrespective of your interest in this part of history.
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\nBernstein, himself an impressive financial consultant, shows not only a mastery of historical and contemporary figures in risk science, but demonstrates an ability to put their great egos in check. I’m glad I was able to, in prior readings, learn a bit more about nonlinear science, because I wouldn’t have grasped the concepts towards the end of this book as well without it. This book, although not the longest by page count, is a serious investment of time. To truly respect its content, you will be reading pages a few times before moving on, and it will take a bit longer than expected. But it is well worth it.
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\nSocrates is dogmatic, hilarious, and laudable in his attachment to the morals of his argument, even though he assumes it will lead to his conviction and capital punishment. He is, at least in this translation, not the most accommodating personality, which he admits contributed to his reputation and others’ motivation to engineer his downfall. This is quite worth the read if only to hear a fuller elucidation of Socrates’ philosophy that an unexamined life is not worth living, and why.
\nI have heard this book referenced in argumentation, so I just decided to read it for myself so I could understand its argument.
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\nAnd then, of course, this was most of all a book on greed and the ebbs and flows of an industry and that industry’s repercussions on millions of lives. I found it fitting how the book’s afterward ended, with the authors looking at the ensuing 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s and drawing similar parallels of repeated behavior — asking whether permanent lessons are ever truly learned in business and acted upon.
\nA good introduction to the Bronze Age and its collapse, with a great deal of information on the archeological discoveries that made it possible to piece together the history. Cline makes an argument that paints Bronze age economic and political conditions as an analog in some ways to the “globalization” of 20th and 21st centuries, which I was a bit skeptical of.
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\nHere, Kissinger takes us through the world through the lens of statehood and its associated geopolitics, using the treaty of Westphalia and the Westphalian System as a central compass of navigation. Irrespective of one’s views on Kissinger’s politics, I think it is hard to challenge that he is an authority on the history of diplomacy and statecraft. This book was another showing of that to me.
\nKissinger’s grasp of the trends of history, and then, of course, his actual (at times central) participation in it, was engaging and useful. Its certainly of value to hear him summarize events he took part in as a primary source for his own analysis. But this book was most interesting to me in another area — Kissinger’s projections of the future. I thought he made prescient assertions on how the collection and use of social data in the 21st century could make corporations play the role of quasi nonphysical states, or at least as disrupting agents in the global order.
\nA much needed practical exploration on lying and deceit. Harris makes a strong argument for why lying (and especially white lies) in nearly every circumstance, is bad, both in a personal sense and as a categorical imperative. To do this, he dives into the requisite edge-case scenarios — the murderer at the door, the dying wife asking the husband if he has ever cheated, and much more. In a few cases, Harris discusses rare instances in which lying is applicable, and fields a series of crucial questions in his appendix from readers who offer their own experiences.
\nHarris doesn’t fall into a trap that many other philosophers and authors (of old and new) do when taking this subject on. He does leave space for challenging hypotheticals (espionage, undercover police offices, despotic and dangerous regimes), but his argument whenever possible focuses on the far more important topic of everyday discourse and lifestyle, which is often neglected. He makes a brilliant case for why the short term discomfort of active honesty, even in seemingly trivial situations, facilitates a life and society that in the medium and long term is far happier, sane and productive.
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\nEach world, although fictional, shows an underlying tenet of how we perceive time in our own existence. The book is a brutal but elegant set of reminders of we often sleepwalk through life, missing the temporal realities and constraints we are under.
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\nSome of the book was a bit cheesy and some if it was (as a former not so great competitive tennis player myself) seemingly not generalizable advice. Yet this still brings a perspective I haven’t been able to find yet in the academic physiology or strategy world, and for that reason, it’s a worthwhile read.
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\nI was surprised about the degree to which Einstein endorsed a singular world government — one that would have essentially strengthened the power of the United Nations to add military and legislative abilities, and to combine the power of the United States and Russia, amongst other ideas. The book includes rebuttals to Einstein’s views, as well as Einstein’s responses back. I wonder if, were he alive today, Einstein would hold those same views.
\nA common thread throughout the book is Einstein’s perspective on whether scientists should play a role in the implementation of social, political and military policy. It was worthwhile to hear his (correct) reasoning, which touches upon the downsides of silo-ed thinking and the upsides of intellectually diverse bodies addressing societal issues.
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\nTake Article 23 for example:
\n(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
\n(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
\n(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
\n(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
\nThe idea of one’s work as an essential part of one’s identity is, up to this point in history, assumed and fundamental. Yet with today’s debate on the future of work this may change or be threatened. While the exploration of workers during the last few centuries was a consistent theme, we may in the next few centuries see a dismissal of the need of workers. What will happen if workers go from essential to irrelevant? How will this interact with the human right to work? It is many of these sticky future and present issues that make revising this document important.
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\nReading the book spurred a lot of notes on my end, far more than available for a short section here. Overall, I disagreed with a significant amount of Giridharadas’s selection and use of evidence, evidence which mostly was in service of an overarching point that I was in support of. Regardless, this is a book worth reading and a viewpoint worth considering and acting upon.
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\nThe first: a description of a 1961 Yale physiological study by Stanley Milgram that purportedly showed human’s willingness to kill or severely hurt strangers they had no gripe with, simply because they were ordered to by what seemed to be a higher authority. The study was terrifying and fascinating, and led me to check it out in more depth later.
\nThe second: Snyder successfully brings home a point in this book that is not often said enough. There is a propensity and romantic appeal for the American intellectual elite to use Ancient Rome and Greece as chief historical analogs when studying the fall of democracy, and juxtaposing it to a potential future decline of American government. Yet, we often forget the far more recent 20th-century examples of democratic decline and failure, examples that often have more realistic historical context. Even in such a short book, Snyder does well by this argument.
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\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzgx","databaseId":1781,"title":"The Mamba Mentality: How I Play","slug":"the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play/","date":"2020-10-30T16:42:43","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30163846/the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play-1-768x957.jpg","title":"the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Kobe Bryant","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30163846/the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30163848/the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30163850/the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30163851/the-mamba-mentality-how-i-play-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Edition: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 208","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Mamba-Mentality-How-Play/dp/0374201234"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"I grew up mostly in LA during the meat of Kobe’s tenure in the NBA and I love basketball, so watching him on the court was an unavoidable part of my childhood. My fascination with him, though, was always his work ethic, or at least the myth(s) that encircled it. Kobe is a dedicated strategist, and to see how he applied that type of analytical obsession to the confines of the game of basketball over the course of two decades was (I think) a once-in-a-lifetime athletic feat.
\nI was pleasantly surprised with this book. It could have been an unremarkable, stagnant PR play. But Kobe, quite transparently, goes into depth about areas of his thinking that, for a fan like myself as well as someone curious to study a world-class operator in their craft, was new and helpful information.
\nMy personal favorite element of the book was Kobe’s relationship with the referees and NBA regulations — specifically, his honesty about subverting them to his advantage. He was always looking for an edge, whether it was placing his defensive off hand on a player’s hip to push him down, out of visual reach of the refs, or my personal favorite: Kobe reading the referee handbook front to back to know where the refs legally need to be placed on the court during specific times in a possession. Using that knowledge, he was able to deduce and manipulate the court’s blindspots.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzg2","databaseId":1786,"title":"The Lessons of History","slug":"the-lessons-of-history","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/the-lessons-of-history/","date":"2020-10-30T17:00:04","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30164547/te-lessons-of-history-1-768x768.jpg","title":"te-lessons-of-history-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Will & Ariel Durant","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"te-lessons-of-history-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30164547/te-lessons-of-history-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"te-lessons-of-history-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30164549/te-lessons-of-history-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"te-lessons-of-history-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/12150750/te-lessons-of-history-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"te-lessons-of-history-4","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/12150811/te-lessons-of-history-4.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Edition: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 102","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Book: 67","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Recommended by: Alan Schwartz","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-History-Will-Durant/dp/143914995X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"It’s hard to write a first sentence to summarize this work considering the multitude of emotions and reactions it gives you at once. When I was recommended this book over and over again during the year, someone described the Durants as “omniscient” historians. I can see the draw to that description, however exaggerated it may be, but I think in some ways the opposite is true. It’s less the author’s clear mastery of thousands of years of history, historiography, and philosophy that makes this book so differentiated than anything of its kind I’ve read, but rather their ability to constantly plead ignorance and apply endless productive optionality to their interpretation of the human experience.
\nYou realize this immediately in the introduction:
\n“Since man is a moment is astronomic time, a transient guest of earth, a spore of his speeches, and scion of his race, a composite of body, character, and mind, a member of a family and a community, a believer or doubter of a faith, a unit in an economy, perhaps a citizen in a state or a solider in an army, we may ask under the corresponding heads — astronomy, geology, geography, biology, ethnology, psychology, morality, religion, economics, politics and war — what history has to say about the nature, conduct, and prospects of a man. It is a precarious enterprise, and only a fool would try to compress a hundred centuries into a hundred pages of hazardous conclusions. We proceed.”
\nYet these “hazardous conclusions,” ranging from grand interpretations of history through the apertures of war, economics, race, biology, growth and decay, in some cases connect the dots so clearly for the reader that it is almost a shocking experience. It’s the kind of book that you end up reading twice just by reading once — each page requires you to stop and re-read in order to appreciate and understand the connections the Durants make. There are certainly areas of disagreement I have with some of the author’s argumentation, and some areas of focus are slightly off-kilter to a 21st century reader, but the book’s value easily transcends them.
\nThe final chapter, on whether we have truly achieved progress as a species during our collective development, is the most succinct explanation of the value of education on a large temporal scale that I’ve read.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzg5","databaseId":1789,"title":"AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order","slug":"ai-superpowers-china-silicon-valley-and-the-new-world-order","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/ai-superpowers-china-silicon-valley-and-the-new-world-order/","date":"2020-10-30T17:58:52","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30175808/ai-superpowers-china-silicon-valley-and-the-new-world-order-1-768x960.jpg","title":"ai-superpowers-china-silicon-valley-and-the-new-world-order-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Kai-Fu Lee","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ai-superpowers-china-silicon-valley-and-the-new-world-order-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30175808/ai-superpowers-china-silicon-valley-and-the-new-world-order-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ai-superpowers-china-silicon-valley-and-the-new-world-order-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30175806/ai-superpowers-china-silicon-valley-and-the-new-world-order-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"ai-superpowers-china-silicon-valley-and-the-new-world-order-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30175804/ai-superpowers-china-silicon-valley-and-the-new-world-order-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Edition: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 253","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/AI-Superpowers-China-Silicon-Valley/dp/132854639X"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"This was quite the hyped book this year, and for good reason. I thought Lee did an excellent job (in an introductory sense) at beginning to translate the Chinese political, cultural and business community’s side of artificial intelligence development for an American audience.
\nThe title of the book might mislead you a bit, though. Going into it, I thought the book would cover the strategic and geopolitical AI implications between the US and China, and it did somewhat, but Lee instead mostly focuses on the respective personalities and cultural features between the US and Chinese AI communities, rather than that of governments or militaries. This wasn’t at all a deficiency of the book, but with the subtitle of “The New World Order,” be sure to know that going in.
\nI especially thought Kai-Fu Lee’s views of the future of work in an AI-dominated China was very useful. This topic is very well covered in the United States, but rarely is there a nuanced and informed western book that discusses China’s future domestic workforce changes from their perspective.
\n"}],"sidePopups":{"popups":null}}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzkz","databaseId":1793,"title":"Daring Greatly","slug":"daring-greatly","link":"https://www.helena.org/books/daring-greatly/","date":"2020-10-30T18:07:02","featuredImage":{"node":{"sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30180610/daring-greatly-1-768x873.jpg","title":"daring-greatly-1"}},"acfBookDetails":{"henrysReads":true,"seo":{"title":null,"metaDescription":null,"metaImage":null},"bookIntro":{"author":"Brené Brown","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"daring-greatly-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30180610/daring-greatly-1.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"daring-greatly-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30180611/daring-greatly-2.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"daring-greatly-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30180614/daring-greatly-3.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Edition: Paperback","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 303","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":null,"link":"https://www.amazon.com/Daring-Greatly-Courage-Vulnerable-Transforms/dp/1592408419/ref=asc_df_1592408419/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312006100296&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7527948547719741033&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9030999&hvtargid=pla-436571943101&psc=1"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"A thoughtful and readable research-driven look at shame, vulnerability and courage, it’s drivers, and how to work towards managing and mastering those elements in one’s life successfully. I loved many of the anecdotes Brown uses, especially her own.
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\nThe second half — Hawking’s analysis of humanity’s greatest threats and opportunities, was so exceptionally good I read through much of it twice. Often writers that handle this topic do so from an alternative aperture to that of Hawking’s, or at least from a far smaller temporal scale. Hawking, of course, often thinks on timescales of millions (or more) years. When existential risk and “long-tail” problems like the use of large-scale nuclear weapons, an asteroid collision, or the mismanagement of general artificial intelligence and genetic engineering are looked through the filter of likelihood over anything even fractional to Hawking’s timescale, their relative chance of occurrence, and what it says about the fundamentals of our current state of society, suddenly becomes quite unfavorable.
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\nIn this book, Wilson supplies, amongst much else, one of the most impassioned and (in my opinion) merited arguments for the continued study, funding, and evangelism of the humanities, as a core necessity for the progress of our race. Wilson is also quite hilarious, he has an unforgettable segment about the study of ants as a potential means of deduction for larger themes of humanity.
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\nWashington, to folks like me, and I would imagine to many others, has been treated by history (unfairly) as a less dynamic figure than that of other founding fathers. Of course, history appropriately places his achievements and contributions more or less as they should be — central to the success of the American Revolution, and central to the early structure of the American way of life and democracy. But there is a schism there — why is it that Washington has remained a somewhat enclosed, stoic, and perhaps monolithic figure in history, and how could that be consistent with his life narrative?
\nChernow shows that it was an interesting mixture of Washington’s own actions. Washington was, more than any prominent figure of early American history, able to use silence and withdrawal as a means of acquiring and exercising power. His skill, one that he used significantly to lead the Continental Army and become the first president of the United States, was to never let anyone know what he was thinking, and always be the last person in the room to speak. Yes, Washington in his early life obtained significant financial status partially through a series of 5 tragic yet cosmically significant deaths in his family, and yes there were certainly bouts of significant luck that he encountered. Yet overall Chernow shows Washington to be a prolific strategist; he one with his own opinions, his own intellectual vigor and his own significant temper, but he was also one who knew how to shut all of those away to his advantage. Transposed against the Adams’ and Jefferson’s of Early American history, this was a fascinating quality to focus on as I read.
\nThe book was thorough and long (904 pages), but Chernow needs to space to go into the depth of research he had to offer, and it pays off.
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\nIt is hard to write a set of sentences that do justice to the depth of this book and the meditations on the human experience that result from it. What I can comment on confidently, however, is the power and warmth conveyed by Alexander’s prose (not reactions one would expect from a memoir on such an existential and sensitive topic), and the indeilibity of Alexander’s writing about her time with her husband.
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Crumpton","bookImages":[{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-art-of-intelligence-book-list-1","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30212750/the-art-of-intelligence-book-list-1-scaled.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-art-of-intelligence-book-list-2","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30212756/the-art-of-intelligence-book-list-2-scaled.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}},{"image":{"altText":null,"mainImageMobile":{"altText":"","title":"the-art-of-intelligence-book-list-3","sourceUrl":"https://cdn.helena.org/wordpress/app/uploads/2020/10/30212803/the-art-of-intelligence-book-list-3-scaled.jpg"},"tabletImage":null,"laptopImage":null,"desktopImage":null,"widescreenImage":null}}],"copyBlock":{"eyebrow":null,"mainCopy":null},"bookSpecs":{"shortDescription":"Chronicling the journey through Helena’s book recs.","summary":[{"cta":{"label":"Edition: Hardcover","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Page Count: 338","link":null}},{"cta":{"label":"Purchase Link","link":"https://www.amazon.com/Art-Intelligence-Lessons-Clandestine-Service/dp/0143123378"}}],"recommendedBy":[]}},"detailBlocks":[{"fieldGroupName":"book_Acfbookdetails_DetailBlocks_Paragraph","paragraph":"An impressionably bold and impassioned look at the role of intelligence from the turn of the 20th century, through the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and to the future of the 21st century. Crumpton writes from an experienced and learned perspective, and he doesn’t fall into the trap of simply writing an anecdotally engaging but strategically vapid memoir.
\nThe book’s main triumph is its analysis of nonstate actors and asymmetrical conflict. Crumpton doesn’t hold back in his criticism of the more archaic 20th-century governance, military and intelligence structures that in many ways still pervade, and he also is equally cognizant of his own areas of weakness (although as his career builds outside of just the Clandestine Service and into NR and his Ambassador-at-Large rank, those weaknesses began to minimize).
\nOutside of the book’s academic and intellectual value, it was just flat-out-entertaining. There is an honorable directness to it; Crumpton says what he thinks about senior officials he disagreed with, doesn’t overly glamorize the service, and might have a future in comedy if he needs to supplement his day-job.
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\nBut he executes this mission well. Yes, there are some weaker elements of the book; I thought Friedman’s over-reliance on content derived from his talks with field-specific leaders led to some argumentation that was less Friedman’s and more a review of the respective agendas of the interviewees. Yet in most other areas, Friedman displays a remarkable ability to weave the insights of others into a legitimately proprietary argument that didn’t fall victim to the platitudes of many other authors when taking on a topic this broad in nature. The book was a pleasure to read, and I would absolutely recommend it.
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\nJust out of curiosity, I decided to read the full magazine rather than just the Orwell piece, and I’m very glad I did. The issue is quite differentiated — a hilarious anecdotal piece by Leslie A. Fielder about the social dynamics of an evening with a drunkard (“An Expense of Spirit“), an incredibly dense and long Meyer Schapiro criticism of Eugene Fromentin (Fromentin as a Critic), two William Burford poems, a harsh and sardonic piece by Isaac Babel (“The Sin of Jesus,”) and the list goes on. The Orwell piece did not disappoint — it was a humanizing, nuanced 8-page criticism of Mahatma Gandhi that cut to the core of his outward myth and legacy, correctly predicting that future generations would conveniently forget many of the harder-to-reconcile elements of his asceticism.
\nThe entire issue encases you in the collective mindshare of the post-war intellectual elite; the New Yorkers, Hollywoodites, and Parisians, and its a reminder of a world in sober transition. It came with a delightful postcard of Los Angeles’ Westlake Park — right next to the Helena Offices.
\n\n
Although I had been briefly exposed to the argument that the fall of the Roman Empire had quite a lot to do with disease and non-anthropomorphic climate change, this book was the first time it was prosecuted in detail. Harper is an engaging writer. He covers both a surprising breadth of Roman history in the book as well as a surprising depth of scientific evidence. The book’s purpose is not to make the case that humanity currently deals with a similar threat, but it is a strong reminder that history tends to repeat itself, especially when that history is one of nature’s wrath.
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