Category Archives: Books

Carl Hiaasen (Skinny Dip)

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“Tool stood six three and weighed 280 pounds and owned a head like a cinder block. His upper body was matted so heavily with hair that he perspired copiously, even in cold weather, and found it uncomfortable to wear a shirt. Nearly a year had passed since Tool had been shot in broad daylight by a poacher who had mistaken him for a bear. No entry wound had been visible, as the slug had uncannily tunneled into the seam of Tool’s formidable buttocks. Because bleeding was minimal, he elected to forgo medical treatment—a decision that would come back to haunt him.”

— Skinny Dip (Carl Hiaasen)

Breath

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Breath: The New Science of A Lost Art (James Nestor)

(Amazon) “There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.”

“Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.”

I found this book absolutely fascinating. Some of my favorite bits: Continue reading →

Giving up on time

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“He was used to the disappearance of large parts of his life. Sometimes, he passed out at ten o’clock in the morning, and when he woke up, it was nine o’clock in the morning — some other morning. At first, the time changes were disorienting, but over the course of a couple of years, he got used to it. He simply gave up on time — now life was daytime and nighttime, strung along like beads on a string, and the minute, hour, and date were irrelevant.”

— Wicked Prey (John Sandford)

Production-line Education

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“The Industrial Revolution has bequeathed us the production-line theory of education. In the middle of town there is a large concrete building divided into many identical rooms, each room equipped with rows of desks and chairs. At the sound of a bell, you go to one of these rooms together with thirty other kids who were all born the same year as you. Every hour a different grown-up walks in and starts talking. The grown-ups are all paid to do so by the government. One of them tells you about the shape of the earth, another tells you about the human past, and a third tells you about the human body. It is easy to laugh at this model, and almost everybody agrees that no matter its past achievements, it is now bankrupt.”

— 21 Lessons for the 21st Century