Books shelved under “Non-Fiction”

My grade 11 math teacher gave this to me, and I remember reading it and loving it. Here I am, three years later, returning to Zero for a second read. No longer the gullible high school student (now a gullible university student!), I'm apt to be more critical of Zero. Nevertheless, it stands up to a second reading and both inspires and informs.

Imagining a world without zero is probably difficult for most people.…

While I haven't read a lot of serious scholarship about Shakespeare, my fascination with him has always been a little more than casual since first discovering his plays. In high school, I was part of a group of students, led by one fantastic English teacher, called the "Shakespeare Seven." We met at lunch and read King Lear, then the next year we read The Merchant of Venice on our own time outside of school.…

I was ambivalent about the gimmick of basing the history around the journey of Descartes' bones. How interesting could it be? Much to my delight, Russell Shorto managed to surprise me. While this book isn't quite the "historical detective story" it advertises, it does contain some detective work. I was fascinated by the way various people treated Descartes' remains, particularly the skull. For most of the owners of the skull, the object was one of…

This is one of those books that appeared on my radar from time to time, gently nudging me until I eventually broke down and decided to read it. I was sceptical of how interesting a book could be when its premise is a world without … well, us. In hindsight, that seems like a silly way of thinking about this book, since the only way to envision the "world without us" is to first consider…

Long have I regarded the economy as a fickle, fictitious construct of humanity. If we disappeared, it would disappear (although its effects on the environment would remain). However, that's a very naive view to take, and not a particularly helpful one. So I set out to learn more about the economy the way we're told to learn about things in school: begin at the beginning. The Ascent of Money is an attempt to recount the…

As I began reading The Third Chimpanzee, a little voice in my head told me that I should stop reading books by Jared Diamond. His subsequent three popular science books all have their origins in this one; I began with Guns, Germs, and Steel and then read Collapse. So reading The Third Chimpanzee was sort of like getting a summary of those two books, plus the one I haven't read yet. Thus,…

The impact of religion on politics—particularly the invocation of divine authority to justify a specific social order—is an issue both interesting and complex. In The Stillborn God, Mark Lilla promises an episodic presentation of the rise and fall of political theology from sixteenth century England to twentieth century Germany. While often interesting and thoughtful, the book ultimately fails to fulfil this promise, instead becoming mired in its exploration of the interaction among various philosophical…

We used this book in the second half of my Philosophy and Gender course (the first book we discussed was Feminism: Issues and Arguments, by Jennifer Saul). It's probably one of the best discussions of multiculturalism I will ever read. Anne Phillips provides a marvellous survey of contemporary political and philosophical attitudes toward multiculturalism while simultaneously advocating her approach.

Phillips' thesis is clear: she wants to keep multiculturalism but change how we understand the…

Full disclosure: I was brought up Christian (Protestant), although my family wasn't particularly observant--we went to church, less frequently as I grew up, and my dad would read from the Bible each Christmas (the nativity story, naturally). As I approach the third decade of my life and am shocked to find myself becoming an adult, not just legally but intellectually, I slide further and further along the scale from agnostic to atheist. Although I was…

If a book's merits are judged based on whether or not it achieves the goal its author intends, then Feminism: Issues and Arguments has great merit. Jennifer Saul explicitly states that she is not out to provide a final say on any of the issues she discusses in her book; rather, it's an introduction to contemporary feminist thought by focusing on several issues key to feminism. The only remaining question is one of quality; how…

Editor's note: Since I read this back in 2009, Wade has gone on to write more openly racist and eugenical books. For what it’s worth, I don’t think his views are so overtly on display in Before the Dawn. Nevertheless, as a result of his more recent writing, I do not recommend reading this book or any of Wade’s books. This review is preserved for posterity.

It's always a pleasure to read a book…

In Areopagitica, John Milton delivers a finely-honed argument in opposition to the Licensing Order of 1643, which restored strict censorship laws to England. Milton relies primarily on classical references; indeed, the title is an allusion to the Areopagus, a hill in Athens and the name of a council who sat in judgement on that hill. In a single word, Milton links the crux of his argument to the zeitgeist of Hellenic antiquity, which…

Anthologies are always a mixed bag. Often their individual stories will be compelling but not harmonious, making the entire book difficult to read as a whole. Other times, the stories will be harmonious but mediocre. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 avoids both these pitfalls with a strong selection of stories that work well together. It was a pleasure to read.

Some highlights:

• "Best American Names of Television Programs Taken to Their Logical Conclusions" by
…

I will be brief, since I don't read much horror and am generally ignorant of Lovecraft's work, so I won't try to make a general statement based on this one story.

At the Mountains of Madness itself was OK, not great. Lovecraft is far more concerned with describing the extinct society of the Old Ones and their struggles with surviving Earth than injecting genuine dread into the story. It left little impression on me.

I…

This was a gift from a friend who spent a couple of months in Banff. Books about the outdoors, much like the outdoors themselves, are not a high reading priority for me. As an outsider to this genre, however, I enjoyed reading The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek.

The first couple of chapters were somewhat dull--but then Marty began relating the events during the hunt for the eponymous bear, and suddenly the atmosphere of…

I'd recommend Remix to anyone who creates content, whether as part of their day job or simply as a hobby in their basement. Lawrence Lessig takes the complicated issues surrounding modern copyright and explains them in terms laypeople can comprehend. Moreover, he makes a compelling argument from an economic standpoint as to why less copyright could lead to more profit.

My favourite quotation from this book is:

Copyright law has got to give up its

…

My objections to Collapse are nearly identical to the ones I voiced in my review of Guns, Germs, and Steel. Jared Diamond's thesis that past societal collapses have largely been due to five main factors is a good thesis, and he makes a compelling argument. However, Collapse is poorly written and edited; Diamond reiterates his points so much that it feels somewhat patronizing.

Diamond analyzes the collapse of six past societies: the Easter Islanders,…

I read this book as an assignment for my critical thinking class. Now I have to write an essay critiquing both the validity of the argument and its soundness. So this review is a rough collection of my thoughts on Selling Sickness.

If you are predisposed to accept Moynihan and Cassels' argument--i.e., if you already agree with their position--then this book will merely enhance your disgust for the pharmaceutical industry. However, the book is…

How many people have sat down one day and said, "Gee, I think I need to learn more about the history of misogyny!"? I did! I saw my coworker reading this and expressed interest in it. Unfortunately, I don't think the brief part of A Brief History of quite sank in at the time ... I was expecting something a bit more....

For anyone largely uninitiated into gender issues or the history of misogyny, I…

I agree with those reviewers who found this book somewhat less awesome than they initially anticipated. Coming from a math background, and as surrounded by technology as I am, I think that the book would have had more of an impact with me if I knew less about these issues already. And that's why I'm giving it such a high rating: it does a good job educating, and I like that in a book.

Stephen…