Monthly round-up · All months
Books podcasts were talking about in December 2021
December 2021 brought a strong focus on career shifts, psychological principles, personal growth, and athletic optimization across several popular shows. On Behind the Bastards, John Heronomous recommended Gabriel Winant's The Next Shift to explain the broad economic transition from the steel industry to healthcare and the corresponding transformations in labor unions. Timcast IRL featured Owen Cook recommending Ian H. Robertson's The Winner Effect to clarify the psychological dynamics associated with winning and serotonin levels. On My First Million, Andrew Wilkinson recommended a late 1990s book titled Clash of the Titans, which weaves together the parallel stories of media moguls Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch. Modern Wisdom included a recommendation from Yusef for Ajahn Brahm's Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond as an effective read for concentration and meditation practices. The Rich Roll Podcast dedicated episodes to exploring health and education, featuring Rich Roll introducing Julie Lythcott-Haims to discuss her educational guide Your Turn: How To Be an Adult, as well as welcoming Matt Frazier and Robert Cheeke to break down plant-based athletic performance through their book The Plant-Based Athlete. Finally, On Purpose with Jay Shetty opened an episode by highlighting Scott O'Neil's Be Where Your Feet Are, focusing on principles designed to keep individuals present and grounded.
Lex Fridman Podcast
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Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak
Discussed“there's this book called six word memoirs right where all these different personalities are awesome were you in it”
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Stalin
Critiqued“There aren't many books I had to stop reading due to their darkness, but 'The Court of the Red Tsar' about Stalin was too heavy and dark for me.”
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Lila
Discussed“and in his um follow-on book uh has a sequel to it called lila he goes into this in a little more detail”
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The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
Discussed“Have you ever read like some sci-fi where um there's like hive minds uh like the vern revenge i think has one of these and then um some of the stuff from um yes on the commonwealth saga the idea that uh you're an individual but you're connected with like a few other individuals telepathically as well and together you”
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Commonwealth Saga
Discussed“Have you ever read like some sci-fi where um there's like hive minds uh like the vern revenge i think has one of these and then um some of the stuff from um yes on the commonwealth saga the idea that uh you're an individual but you're connected with like a few other individuals telepathically as well and together you”
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Automate the Boring Stuff with Python
Recommended“but um i think that the beauty of scripting like there's a there's a python book that's uh called automate the boring stuff which is exactly the right mentality”
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Invisible Cities
Discussed“and it's there's a wonderful full book called Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and he even talks about a city as something like this where everybody you have your life but then you have all these alternate lives and every time you make any decision you're kind of and so but in this Invisible Cities there's a little string that”
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The Year of Living Biblically
Discussed“um my friend AJ Jacobs he had a wonderful book that I I use the spirit of it in the ceremonies and not the exactly but he was in a a restaurant in New York coffee shop and his child said hey where does the coffee come from”
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Viral
Recommended“so there's this excellent book that people should read uh called viral the search for the origin of covid-19 Matt Ridley and Alina Chan”
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The Long Game
Recommended“there's a great book called The Long game by Rush Doshi who's actually now working in the in the White House about this goal and and are pretty clearly articulated goal to subvert this the post-war International order”
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Love and Math
Discussed“and there's a book for instance by um edward frankel about love and math and oh yeah that book is great”
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A Grandparent's Gift of Love
Recommended“and there's a book for instance by um edward frankel about love and math and oh yeah that book is great”
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Amour et maths
Recommended“and there's a book for instance by um edward frankel about love and math and oh yeah that book is great”
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The Second Creation
Recommended“there's also a very very good kind of history of of the kind of what happened during this 20th century in physics and you know up to the time of the standard model in 1973 it's called the um the second creation by um pop crease and in man that's one of the best ones i know that's”
Behind the Bastards
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No Shortcuts
Discussed“She wrote like no shortcuts um I don't sign off on everything she has to say, but she has some really insightful things”
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The Next Shift
Recommended“there's a really great book called The Next Shift um by uh Gabriel Winant. It's all about the shift from steel, the steel industry as like the center of the US economy to healthcare.”
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Unauthorized Bread
Discussed“There's a a wonderful Corey Doctoro short story that that I think pivots off that idea nicely um in his uh his book uh uh what is unauthorized toast I think or unauthorized bread. Now, Unauthorized Bread is one of the stories in it, but the the book is has a different I it's a collection of his short stories”
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Open Veins of Latin America
Discussed“As much of Latin America fell victim to crises and decline, it was an Uruguayan writer, Eduardo Galliano, who pinned a new Bible for the continent's left wing, the open veins of Latin America.”
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One Click
Discussed“From the book One Click, quote, "The setup came with a stack of manuals, but no one at the school knew how to use it. Jeff and a couple of other students stayed after class to go through the manuals and figure out how to program it, but that novelty only lasted about a week."”
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The Magical State
Recommended“I'm going to be drawing heavily here from the work of the legendary Venezuelan anthropologist Fernando Coranil in his book, The Magical State, which I highly recommend”
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Electrify
Recommended“I'm nearly through Saul Griffith's book, Electrify.”
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Attack Surface
Discussed“Um I'm curious, we've got a little bit of time left and I wanted to ask in your your novel Attack Service, uh I know was released 2020, right? October if I'm not mistaken.”
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Little Brother
Discussed“Um, and so, you know, the the this expansion of surveillance is like been on my mind for a long time. I've been writing about it well at least since little brother, right? So 2006 I wrote that novel”
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An Inquiry Into the Principles of the Good Society
Discussed“And in 1937, Walter Litman, an American writer who would become most famous for inventing the term Cold War, wrote a book called An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society, which argued that totalitarianism was a product of not having individual private property and that the state needs to be limited to administering justice and not, you know,”
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Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain
Recommended“And I do really recommend Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain as a book if you actually want to like understand all this stuff more and what a giant scam it is”
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The Desert
Discussed“This is something that actually the book desert addresses fairly well and I find that's what I'm drawing from.”
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How Nonviolence Protects the State
Discussed“And I think it's something that Peter Gallaloo also talks about in how nonviolence protects the state in the sense of, you know, these people are able to once they get a certain level of attention”
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The Ultimate Rush
Discussed“His first recorded accomplishment of any note is the publication of a novel called The Ultimate Rush in 1998. The Ultimate Rush was about, quote, "A rollerblading messenger caught in an illegal insider trading ring."”
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Seasteading
Discussed“Nearly half of the world's surface is unclaimed," says Quirk, who published a book on seasteading in 2017 with the ambitious subtitle, "How floating nations will restore the environment, enrich the poor, cure the sick, and liberate humanity from politicians.”
Timcast IRL
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The Winner Effect
Recommended“so there's something there's a great book that you can read that would probably offer a lot of clarification to anybody learning about this called the winner effect and this idea of”
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Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine
Discussed“from Oxford as one of the 24 theologians enlisted to help his upcoming book astrobiology and Christian doctrine do it due out in 2022 will cover in part of the CTI and NASA's joint spiritual exploration”
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In Trump Time
Discussed“it's peter navarro's book and it's michael malus book and so you got the anarchist handbook and you got in trump time”
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Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Discussed“Americans with my now eight-year-old like Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry is her favorite book and I'm like this is stuff that I learned like I learned real American history”
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The Coming Collapse of China
Discussed“and uh gordon chang wrote his book the collapse of the ccp and it's it's coming it's gonna be so great”
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Counter Wokecraft
Recommended“i got some info on counter woke craft it's a field manual for combating the woke in the university and beyond by charles pincourt and james lindsay”
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Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party
Discussed“we have a series that it's actually very interesting called the nine commentaries on the communist party right and it was this was written by chine our chinese edition for chinese millions of chinese have read it it's a true history of communism in china”
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Lincoln
Recommended“if you want to read about a tremendous individual right i think the greatest president we've ever had and probably the greatest individual we've ever had in this country lincoln you can read gore vidal's novel lincoln about how people make tough decisions under under tough situations”
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Snow White Zombie Apocalypse
Discussed“a comic book called Snow White Zombie Apocalypse that I've helped Kickstart a couple times because I think it's fantastic really really great art cool story”
My First Million
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Clash of the Titans
Recommended“so i read this really great book that sam i think you'd love called clash of the titans it's from the late 90s and it's two parallel stories one is ted turner and one is rupert murdoch right from the beginning and the stories are kind of interwoven and at various times they clash and uh you know try and”
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Free Country
Recommended“one book i read recently dude that is so good i think you really enjoy it it's called free country it's two guys in europe who backpack who try to go from the bottom of uk to the top of uk biking”
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Little Golden America
Recommended“um little golden america in the 1930s two russian journalists from the ussr were welcomed into america and they just traveled for four months all over america”
Modern Wisdom
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Superpower mindfulness
Recommended“so for the standard v passenger mindfulness meditation i think mindfulness in plain english is very good for concentration meditation ajahn brahm's book called mindfulness bliss and beyond”
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Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond
Recommended“so for the standard v passenger mindfulness meditation i think mindfulness in plain english is very good for concentration meditation ajahn brahm's book called mindfulness bliss and beyond”
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The Winner Within
Discussed“Well, uh on the back of the last book, McMillan approached me during the lockdown to do a book on leadership, and I'd always thought um there was a couple of books when I was growing up as a coach, uh learning my trade, that I really appreciated the help I got from one was from Pat Riley, the LA”
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Four Pillars of High Performance
Discussed“he was on the show uh talking about his what was it becoming impossible what was his book um and uh man that guy is what i think so beautiful about about him”
The Megyn Kelly Show
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It Doesn't Have to be Awkward
Discussed“so it back to the title of the book it doesn't have to be awkward, is it awkward to write about that and talk about that with him sitting right there”
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Ice Brothers
Discussed“And the book is called Ice Brothers by Sloan Wilson.”
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Bright Lights, Prairie Dust
Discussed“carolyn ingles the matriarch of the ingalls family and she has now after all this time released a book called bright lights prairie dust detailing her life on the prairie”
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Paws off My Cannon
Discussed“let's spend a minute on pause off my canon um”
Conversations with Tyler
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IQ84 (Buch 3)
Discussed“And the last one on your best books list, Haruki Murakami IQ84. I would like to read it again, which is a positive sign.”
The Joe Rogan Experience
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Twilight
Discussed“like the the [ __ ] Twilight series that was literally about girls having a sexual relationship with a Vampire which is the dumbest [ __ ] thing I've ever heard of my life”
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Dead Souls
Discussed“my favorite book growing up was about a con man it was this book called dead souls uh by a russian writer named goggle and it's about it's it's about a guy who basically buys a bunch of dead serfs uh and mortgages them”
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Reporter
Discussed“like it's a great story that that's like sort of apropos to all this is um in seymour hirsch's book uh it's his memoir reporter there's a story about how in the early 90s the cia wanted everybody to know that they had caught”
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Rationality
Recommended“i enjoy your books and i just started this one so i'm enjoying it very much as well”
Pod Save America
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Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
Discussed“uh I'm reading Agee of ambition by Evan osnos about his time living in China it's very good”
The Rich Roll Podcast
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Your Turn
Recommended“Next up is author, education luminary and fellow Stanford classmate, Julie Lythcott-Haims on the pod, promote her new book, "Your Turn: How To Be an Adult".”
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The Plant-Based Athlete
Recommended“Well, to help me dive into the nuances of this understandable inquiry, Matt Frazier and Robert Cheeke, authors of the aptly titled book, "The Plant-Based Athlete" joined me to break down the basics of optimizing athleticism from strength training to endurance all on the power of plants.”
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There and Back
Discussed“Yes, you sent me his shout out to Jimmy Chin's new book, There and Back. And obviously we're both huge fans of Jimmy's.”
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No Limits
Recommended“Cool, well, until the documentary comes out and until the new edition of the book comes out, people can find your book No Limits on Amazon.”
Huberman Lab
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The Warrior Diet
Discussed“He wrote a book called 'The Warrior Diet', which received very little attention at the time. In that book, he described that during his time in Israeli special forces, they rarely ate more than once a day and sometimes went one to two days without eating.”
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The Development of the Unconscious Mind (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)
Recommended“You may check his work online; he has educational YouTube videos and authored an accessible book titled "Right Brain Psychotherapy," full of excellent references and insights.”
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We Know It When We See It
Discussed“And I'm remembering, Dick's book is called, "We Know It When We See It."”
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
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Be Where Your Feet Are
Recommended“and today's guest since i've had his book in my home even before i've met him has been doing just that i'm speaking with none other than scott o'neill the author of this incredible new book called be where your feet are seven principles to keep you present grounded and thriving”
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Own Your Morning
Discussed“We're talking about our morning routines and I'm sitting down with the one and only editor-in-chief of Women's Health, Liz Plosa, and talking about her new book Own Your Morning.”
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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Jordan Peterson, God, and Christianity
Discussed“they're both working at loyola marymount university and they recently co-authored a book called jordan peterson god in christianity the search for a meaningful life which is definitely a title that i would never have imagined existing”
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The God Hypothesis
Discussed“and i read online that you were looking at the god hypothesis and as you know from reading that book there is a lot of very solid evidence that the universe is fine-tuned”
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Christ Alive in Me
Discussed“and i just ran across this in a book called christ alive in me by this jesuit priest father david mcconey and it was a great kind of analogy”
The Daily Stoic
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Yes to Life
Recommended“And Daniel Goleman wrote the intro, but it just came out this year, it's called Yes to Life. It's like so good, so good.”
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Personal knowledge
Discussed“and in all of these – but i mean it’s what what you said is – michael polanyi philosopher of science captured this book and his personal knowledge”
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Envy
Discussed“That's a wonderful little book called Envy that he wrote.”
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Twelve and a Half
Discussed“This is what you talk about a little bit in the book. It's so much harder to measure. Like how do you know dayto day that you're getting there?”
The Book Review
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A Carnival of Snackery
Discussed“Paul David sederis joins us now from Montana where he is on tour for his latest book a carnival of snackery”
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The Lyrics
Discussed“Paul mun joins us now from County Cork in Ireland he is a petzer prizewinning poet he has a new collection out now called howdy skelp and he is also the co-editor co-author of Paul McCartney's books the lyrics”
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A house is not a home
Discussed“and she wrote A Memoir a very big best-selling Memoir called A House Is Not a Home published in 1953 and she had a ghost writer”
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Sinner and the Saint
Discussed“well one of my one of my close friends is Kevin Birmingham who just came out with a terrific book called the center and the saint about Crime and Punishment”
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The Last of the Mohicans
Discussed“and the more I got into these stories when I discovered that the last of the micans was influenced by a real event or events which was the kidnapping of Daniel Boon's daughter jiab Boon”
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Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails
Discussed“you know I I read and reviewed this monsterized book it's called the uh Oxford companion to spirits and Cocktails and it's edited by David wondrich who's sort of one of the one of the key figures in the cocktail Renaissance”
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Killer Cocktails
Discussed“you know I I read and reviewed this monsterized book it's called the uh Oxford companion to spirits and Cocktails and it's edited by David wondrich who's sort of one of the one of the key figures in the cocktail Renaissance”
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Accidental Gods
Discussed“so I reviewed something recently that's a very different kind of book it's called accidental gods and it's by anadel subin”
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Home Comforts
Recommended“I feel like this book since you said the author is a former academic is like the night owl to the morning Lark book by a former academic home Comforts The Art and Science of keeping house by Cheryl melson which is a book that I love”
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Tinderbox
Discussed“to what extent are these books and this book in particular Tinder Box on HBO a business story”
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Taste Makers
Recommended“mayuk sen is the author of tast makers seven immigrant women who revolutionized food in America”
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Now Beacon, Now Sea
Recommended“I've been reading a very lovely Memoir that was published this year called now Beacon now see by Christopher Santino”
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Ghost Light
Recommended“I just read a memoir called ghost light by Frank rich and it came out about 20 years ago and it is a Coming of Age Memoir”
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How Beautiful We Were
Discussed“our first fiction book is how beautiful we were by amolo maou”
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Intimacies
Discussed“our second fiction book is intimacies by Katie krur MJ over to you”
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The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
Discussed“our fourth book in fiction is a debut novel by the essayist and poet Honore fenon Jeffers and that book is the love songs of w EB Deo”
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Sylvia Plath
Discussed“we are halfway through which means it's time for non-fiction and our first non-fiction book is red comet the short life and blazing art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark”
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How the Word Is Passed
Discussed“our second book on the non-fiction side is how the word is passed a Reckoning with the history of slavery Across America by Clint Smith”
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On Juneteenth
Discussed“I think that for me the Annette Gordon Reed on juneth while very personal also is about the work of the historian and about how we write history”
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Invisible Child
Discussed“it is Invisible Child poverty survival and hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott Liz tell us about this one”
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The Copenhagen Trilogy
Discussed“we are up to our final book on the list and our second book in Translation the book is the Copenhagen Trilogy childhood youth dependency by Tova dlion”
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The Magician
Recommended“the book I want to mention is the magician by colum toin the Irish novelist this is a work of historical fiction”
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Razorblade Tears
Recommended“and razorblade Tears by sa Cosby was Far and Away my favorite Thriller of the year”
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Wayward
Recommended“I would love to tell you about wayward By Dana spota”
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Dirty Work
Recommended“so I want to talk about a wonderful work of reportage it's a all press's Dirty Work essential jobs and the hidden toll of inequality”
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Beautiful World, Where Are You
Recommended“Sally Rooney's beautiful world where are you encapsulates kind of where she is in her career right now”
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The Prophets
Recommended“I want to talk about the profits by Robert Jones Jr it came out at the beginning of the year and it just blew me away”
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Our Country Friends
Recommended“I'm G to add one personal favorite of mine which is our country Friends by Gary steinart”
The Tim Ferriss Show
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Incerto
Discussed“Aha. So, for clarity, Tim, the Incerto, I'm assuming it's Incerto since he likes Italian, is the collection of the following books: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Antifragile. Some will include Skin in the Game. Great. Then I'm a fan of the collection.”
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Total Immersion
Recommended“If you look at my first TED Talk, it describes how I used Total Immersion Swimming by Terry Laughlin, who's also been on the podcast.”
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Butter Busters
Discussed“butter busters yeah let's talk about butter busters this is going somewhere bear with me what is butterbusters so butterbusters is a cookbook that my mom wrote on a word processor in like 1993 uh literally in our kitchen that went on to sell millions and millions of copies”
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Losing My Virginity
Recommended“i was reading a lot of richard branson's stuff and i was i read losing my virginity which is a great group you've never read one of the books that sort of kick-started me”
Acquired
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The Cola Wars
Discussed“we're getting hurt by pepsicola and bear in mind in the 80s and 90s there was a book written called the cola wars where these guys were fighting like cats and dogs for mark for market share”
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Rabbits
Recommended“so this book is called rabbits”
EconTalk
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The Calculus of Consent
Discussed“but the real origins of public choice and particularly the first of what we now think of as the the public choice pentateuch the five founding books of public choice was the calculus of consent and the calculus of consent takes up some of the work written by it was written by james buchanan and gordon tullock it was published”
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The Sea We Swim In
Discussed“our topic for today is his new book the sea we swim in”
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Actual Minds, Possible Worlds
Discussed“and he wrote a book which was largely called actual minds possible worlds which was largely about the idea that stories constitute a distinct line of thought a distinct mode of thought”
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Reality In Advertising
Discussed“with rother reeves who was the head of the ted bates advertising agency at that time and wrote a book called reality and advertising in which he argued for the unique selling proposition”
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On the Origin of Stories
Discussed“and some years ago i think around 2009 he he um he published a book called on the origin of stories which is essentially a literary darwinist look at storytelling”
People I (Mostly) Admire
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Career and Family
Recommended“Claudia has pulled this research together into a brand new book entitled "Career and Family: Women's Century-Long Journey Towards Equity."”
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
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White Fragility
Discussed“No, I mean these HR consultants who've written these books, like on the—was it D'Angelo or whatever on white fragility? And you know, how to be an anti-racist?”
The Jordan Harbinger Show
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Escape from Camp 14
Recommended“book about the concentration camp i think it's called escape from camp 14.”
ChooseFI
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The Soul of Money
Recommended“Um, yeah, some of those micro moments that I had a chance to see in going through this exercise was like, 'Oh here's a book that I read, The Soul of Money, which is the greatest book I've ever read in terms of my emotional relationship with money.'”
The Dr. John Delony Show
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Ravenous
Recommended“another great book was called ravenous by otto warburg um oh ravenous ottawa warburg and the cancer diet it's written by sam apple apple the book's called ravenous”
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Black Rock Brothers (The Adventures of Wilder Good #5)
Recommended“the one before blackrock brothers these are extraordinary”
This Week in Startups
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Powerhouse
Recommended“i have the ultimate uh build on that the oral history of creative artist agencies your nest yes listen and i'm in this right now and i'm like it's 12 hours into the audiobook so that's a great compliment to the ovitz one”
SmartLess
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The Storyteller
Recommended“He's great, super funny, and he's got a brand new book out, I should have asked him, it's called The Storyteller.”
