Monthly round-up · All months
Books podcasts were talking about in August 2020
During August 2020, various episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast featured extensive discussions surrounding several influential nonfiction and fiction books, touching broadly on themes of human cognition, history, performance, and existential meaning. Lex Fridman recommended Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money as a great resource for understanding financial history. In a conversation with David Eagleman, the discussion turned toward Eagleman's work Incognito, as well as Anthony Doerr's novel All the Light We Cannot See, which Eagleman noted was inspired by his own book's exploration of visible light and electromagnetic radiation. Eagleman also reflected on Carl Sagan's Cosmos, a book that shaped his early interest in science. Grant Sanderson appeared on the podcast and recommended Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool for listeners interested in peak performance and deliberate practice. Later in the month, Sheldon Solomon joined the program to discuss Ernest Becker's posthumous book Escape from Evil and The Birth and Death of Meaning, which approaches human behavior from an evolutionary perspective. Solomon also recalled how a single line in a nineteenth-century essay by Alexander Smith within a book called Dreamthwarp captured his youthful attention. Across these diverse conversations, the featured texts collectively mapped out a deep exploration of human psychology, creativity, historical development, and the quest to comprehend existence and meaning.
Lex Fridman Podcast
-
The Ascent of Money
Discussed“i recommend ascent of money as a great book on this history”
-
Incognito
Discussed“i gave this the end of my book incognito”
-
All the Light We Cannot See
Discussed“uh anthony door wrote a book called all the light we cannot see which actually uh was inspired by incognito by exactly what we were talking about earlier about how you can only see a little bit of the what we call visible light in the electromagnetic radiation”
-
Cosmos
Discussed“as far as not as far as nonfiction goes i grew up uh with cosmos both watching the pbs series and then reading the book”
-
Peak
Discussed“a a good book to read if you want that sense is peak which essentially talks about peak performance in a lot of different ways”
-
The Poetical Works of Alexander Smith
Discussed“what garnered my attention when i was a young punk was just a single line in an essay by a scottish guy it was alexander smith in in a book called dreamthwarp i think it's written in the 1860s”
-
escape from evil
Discussed“i don't know how you pulled this off but he had one more after he died called escape from evil”
-
Birth and Death of Meaning
Discussed“um there's another book the birth and death of meaning uh which is framed um in from an evolutionary perspective”
-
A Book Review of Carl Becker's Book on the Declaration of Independence
Discussed“you said you picked up becker's book and you know it felt like it was onto something that's the same thing i felt when i picked up becker's book”
-
Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost In the Machine
Discussed“that would basically be like stephen pinker's blank slate”
-
Second Treatise of Government
Discussed“and he starts in his second treatise on government 1690 or so”
-
Darwin's Cathedral
Discussed“so it's david sloane wilson wrote a book called darwin's cathedral and he said religion has nothing to do with death”
-
False Dawn
Discussed“he wrote a book about globalism”
-
Totalitarianism
Discussed“and actually hannah arendt in the 1950s said the same thing in her book about totalitarianism when she said that you know that economics has reached the point where most money is made not by actually making stuff”
-
In the Name of Identity
Discussed“and so there's a guy named amin malouf a lebanese guy who writes in french who in the 1990s i think wrote a book called in the name of identity violence and the need to belong”
-
An Arabic Zoological Dictionary
Discussed“and so there's a guy named amin malouf a lebanese guy who writes in french who in the 1990s i think wrote a book called in the name of identity violence and the need to belong”
-
Consciousness Regained
Discussed“another possibility is uh nicholas humphrey a british dude who wrote a book about i think it's called regaining consciousness”
-
Walden
Discussed“and evidently uh thoreau sold like 75 copies of walden”
-
Deer Disassembly
Discussed“it's eric fromm uh in a book called escape from freedom he's like look you”
-
Charter Schools and Their Enemies
Discussed“thomas soul uh wrote a book about uh recent book on um charter schools”
-
Clock Without Hands
Discussed“i i'm enamored with a novel by a woman named carson mccullers written in 1953 called clock without hands”
-
Being and Time
Discussed“and it took me 40 years to read being in time”
-
Absalom, Absalom!
Discussed“i like faulkner absalom absalom is is a fine book”
-
The Decline of the West
Discussed“but there's another lunatic oswald spangler who wrote a book called decline of the west”
-
Speak, Memory
Discussed“and now let me leave you with some words from vladimir nabokov that sheldon uses in his book warm at the core the cradle rocks above and abyss and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness”
-
The Smallest Lights in the Universe
Discussed“plus in a couple days august 18th her new book a memoir called the smallest lights in the universe is coming out”
-
Sleeping Island
Discussed“and it was a book called sleeping island by an author pg downs who just coincidentally lived in this area”
-
Causality
Discussed“uh he emphasizes the importance of causality so that was in his later book so this was the first book probabilistic reasoning in interlinked systems he mentions causality but he hadn't really sunk his teeth into like you know how do you actually formalize that yeah and uh the second book causality so two thousand uh the one in two”
-
The Book of Why
Discussed“yeah right yeah right uh the book of why is definitely more enjoyable oh for sure yeah um so yeah so i would i would recommend probabilistic reasoning in intelligent systems”
-
David McCullough Library E-book Box Set
Discussed“the third one uh i would definitely recommend reading is um uh this is not a technical book it is history it's called it's the name of the book i think is bishop's voice it's about wright brothers and uh and their their their path and how it was uh it's there are multiple books on this topic and all”
