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Books podcasts were talking about in January 2021
January 2021 featured a wide array of book discussions across prominent interview programs, touching on neuroscience, artificial intelligence, fiction, and personal memoirs. On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Tim Dillon mentioned Carolyn Knapp's compelling memoir Drinking: A Love Story. Max Tegmark appeared on the same program to discuss his artificial intelligence and physics text, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Dmitry Korkin also joined the Fridman podcast to recommend several profound Russian literary and philosophical works, including Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master & Margarita, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward, and Solzhenitsyn's November 1916: A Novel, noting how these powerful texts reflect deep personal and historical struggles. On the Huberman Lab podcast, Andrew Huberman highlighted the late neuroanatomist Edward Jones, who wrote the definitive text on the thalamus, aptly titled The Thalamus. Meanwhile, on Modern Wisdom, Donald Robertson discussed his own practical guide titled Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. Together, these conversations highlighted a deep appreciation for works exploring human cognition, resilience, and philosophical inquiry.
Lex Fridman Podcast
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Teaching Tricks to Canaries and Cage Birds
Discussed“people laughing that that sound is kind of like carolyn knapp who wrote a book called drinking a love story which is a really good book about not drinking drinking and then not drinking”
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Life 3.0
Discussed“he is a physicist and artificial intelligence researcher at mit co-founder of the future of life institute and author of life 3.0 being human in the age of artificial intelligence”
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The Master & Margarita
Discussed“uh it's bulgakov's master and margarita so that's probably you know well not for russian maybe it's not super original but it's you know it's it's a really powerful book for uh even in english so i write it in english”
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Cancer Ward
Discussed“so the second one is again another one that uh it happened uh i read it uh later in my life i think uh i read it first time when i was a a a graduate student and that's uh the solzhenitsyn's uh cancer ward that is an amazingly powerful book it's what is it about”
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November 1916: A Novel
Discussed“him being a part of the of the you know of someone sent to the to gulag camp right and also someone who who experienced cancer in his life you know the the good luck archipelago and this book these are the works that actually made him uh you know receive a nobel prize”
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The World Computer
Discussed“so this is the book which it's not even a book it's a it's an essay by uh jonathan neumann called the computer and the brain and that was the thing the book he was writing knowing that he he was dying of cancer”
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The Brain in Context
Discussed“so this is the book which it's not even a book it's a it's an essay by uh jonathan neumann called the computer and the brain and that was the thing the book he was writing knowing that he he was dying of cancer”
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Coaching Wrestling Successfully
Discussed“He's the author of several books including wrestling life 1 and 2 and coaching wrestling successfully”
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Creative Selection
Discussed“there's that book uh creative selection I don't know if you read it by a apple engineer named ken cocienda it's kind of a great book actually because unlike most of these business books where it's you know here's how steve job ran the company it's more like here's how life was like for me you know an engineer here”
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First, Break All The Rules
Discussed“it's like a pretty good book which some reason not the name escapes me um about management first break all the rules uh first break all the rules first break all the rules it's a book that we kind of like ask a lot of like first-time managers to read a rev”
Modern Wisdom
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Stoicism and the Art of Happiness
Discussed“i wrote a teach yourself self-help book called stoicism in the art of of happiness”
Huberman Lab
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Protect and Serve
Discussed“his name was Ted Jones, the late Edward Jones, who was a world-class neuroanatomist, he wrote the book on the thalamus, in fact, it's called "The Thalamus," and an expert on patterns of activation in the brain during sleep...”
