Books shelved under “Non-Fiction”

Two people recommended this book to me on two separate occasions, so I was eager to read it. While the book turned out to be as thought-provoking as I had hoped, the writing left something to be desired.

Jared Diamond has a compelling thesis and offers good arguments to support it, including numerous figures, charts, maps, and dates. However, in his zeal for such statistics, he often forgets about the coherency of the writing, and…

This was a very fascinating book. Some of the technical language may be new to a reader who is not already knowledgeable on computers and networking. Beyond the vocabulary, however, the book is accessible to newcomers to the field. Zittrain writes with an open invitation to discuss, talking with the reader rather than lecturing the reader. He admits that he does not have all the answers to the rather large problems the Internet faces. On…

I heard of Susan Jacoby's book (and Jacoby herself, I might add) through her interview on The Colbert Report. The topic struck a chord with me. I suppose I could describe myself as an intellectual even though I am only a teenager/young adult--I read for pleasure, as my membership on this site would indicate, and I regularly engage in thought and discourse about matters that may be labelled intellectual. As a result, a book…

Genocide is depressing. One of the few things more depressing than genocide, however, is apathy, like that exhibited by the world governments during the genocide of Rwanda.

Reading Dallaire's memoir, I was tempted to blame the U.S., France, the U.N., et al., for their lack of response to his constant prescient warnings about the situation. However, Dallaire's message is clear and correct. Rather than pointing fingers, we need to come together as an international community…

As a fantasy writer, I was fascinated to learn how one of the fantasy genre's most successful writers planned out his novels. I was well aware that Eddings was a formulaic writer, but it was interesting nonetheless to hear about his past in addition to reading the sheer amount of extra material he compiled in order to write The Belgariad.

While interesting, it is all academic, and obviously out of context to anyone who…