The Smart Swarm by Peter Miller This is one of those rare, great books that manage to talk about many different fields of science and weave them together. It uses the habits and organizations of social animals (bees, ants, starlings, etc.) and relates it to how people interact with one another. It touches on everything …
Category: Book Review
Feb 23
Book Review: Anatomy of an Epidemic
Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker This book is written with an agenda, and I usually don’t like one-sided arguments, but in this case, the argument is one that I was already disposed to believe: namely, that taking mind-altering drugs does …
Feb 13
Book Review: The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl
The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl by Karen Burns Karen Burns, AKA “Working Girl” says she’s had 59 jobs in her life, and therefore she’s an expert at the working world. I kept expecting to see a septegenarian on the back cover, but apparently she counts each freelance assignment as a separate “job.” Still, she …
Jan 30
Book Review: Love, Honor, & Negotiate
Love, Honor and Negotiate: Making Your Marriage Work by Betty Carter I read a lot of self help books, but I haven’t read a lot of self help books on how to make one’s marriage work. The authors are Betty Carter, who has been a therapist for decades, and Joan Peters, who made it readable. …
Jan 25
Review: Crazy Like Us
Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche by Ethan Watters I read a lot of books about psychology and mental illness, but this book took what I already knew to a new level. It discusses four different illnesses in four different cultures: anorexia in Hong Kong, schizophrenia in Zanzibar, PTSD in Sri Lanka, …