Recent Books -- Monk and Robot, Terminal Alliance, How Asia Works, Data Detective, Delta-V, Critical Mass
05 April 2023
- A Psalm for the Wild-built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers. Brilliant little stories about what it really is to be human and how to accept others. Can’t recommend highly enough.
- Terminal Alliance by Jim C. Hines. Engaging space opera. No new ground covered but likable characters and good plotting.
- How Asia Works by Joe Studwell. A bit dense but a very good analysis of country development in Asia – what has worked, what has failed. A lot of excellent analysis of the policies that led to success in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. I loved this line – “At the industrial policy-making level, what stands out with the benefit of hindsight is that there was almost no role played in Japan, Korea, or Taiwan by economists.” Most of the advice by big-brained western consultants and agencies has been dead wrong.
- The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics by Tim Harford. An ok look at how to better understand and validate statistics. Tho probably won’t stick with me the way The Black Swan or Superforecasting have stuck with me.
- Delta-V adn Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez. The story of the bootstrapping of the first space-resident society off Earth. A lot of fun technology forecasting, but characters and plot were kind of secondary.
