Following on my book review of 2019, I’ve decided to divide this year’s piece into four chunks according to the quarters of the year. Here’s my thoughts on the four books I’ve read so far.
Born a Crime
This has definitely been the page-turning read of 2020 so far. I’m a bit late to the Trevor Noah autobiography game, but this piece manages to combine political critique, great humour, and touch on elements of purpose. I started this in a plane and couldn’t put it down. A must-read for anyone who wants to know more about Apartheid, or pranking in a way only comedians know how.
Convenience Store Woman
This has to be one of the strangest books I’ve ever read. It has a Camus-style of dry humour about it, where the protagonist is very much living a life of routine existensialism. The deadpan nature of the book is surprisingly good, and while I don’t think I’d rave about it, it’s worth a try if you want something a bit different!
Uninhabitable Earth
This book starts off in tremendous pace, talking about the harsh realities of global warming and what it means to the future of mankind. After about 2-3 chapters, it almost feels more like a rant than it is a scientific discussion on what we must do in order to tackle global warming. Not to mention the book contains zero figures! The book offers almost zero optimism to the planet’s future, and no real solutions for the reader, either.
However, and most importantly, I’m afraid the book suffers from poor scientific writing. For example, the book continually uses Fahrenheit and Celsius in interchangeable ways. In addition, the book mentions facts after facts, without a deep interpretation on what that can mean. The book also has run-on sentences that, if read aloud, make you struggle to keep your breath (maybe this is intentional?). Finally, it has vocabulary that you wouldn’t really find in either natural science or casual science books, such as “quotidian”, “anthropogenic”, etc.
As a bioinformatician/data scientist, one takeaway I had from this book was just how much scientists must adhere to, and practice, good communication skills. Through deliberate practice and rigour, this will help deliver impact and convey the importance of observations in our data, and form strategies for further action.
Ultralearning
This is a bit of a cheat - I actually started this book midway 2019 and stopped briefly because I was reading Bad Blood and lost track - how ironic! Either way, if you’re not familiar with Scott Young’s material, I think it’s brilliant as usual, and this book is a friendly introduction to more deliberate epistemology. Side note: if you already read a bit of Scott Young’s material, there are some elements that I feel are repeats of what he has mentioned prior. Having said that, the anecdotes of individual “Ultralarning” brilliance are incredibly interesting (e.g. the story of Van Gogh’s rise as a painter, Judit Polgar… etc.)
I’m expecting Q2 to be a bit slower, but there will be more reviews next time!