Books Read
2025
Books Read
2025
This page contains the books that I read during 2025.
| Book | Title | Author | Completed On | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | ||||
|
The Message | Ta-Nehisi Coates | This book takes a look at the Isreal Palestine Gaza conflict | |
|
The Lantern of Lost Memories |
Sanaka Hiiragi Translated by Jesse Kirkwood |
This book takes a look at what if you can relive the most important day of your life after departing this world | |
|
You Should Have Left | Daniel Kehlmann | This ghost like story was interesting but it wasn't as good as the reviews lead to believe | |
|
Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence | Sara Imari Walker | This book talks about a new theory called Assembly Theory which combines the Laws of Physics and Algorithms. It is being used to try to explain the difficult questions, What is Consciousness?, What is Matter? and What is Life? It was a very interesting look into creating a new paradigm shift in Science. | |
|
Is Math Real: How Simple Questions Lead Us to Mathematics' Deepest Truths | Eugenia Cheng | This book looks at Math from a different perspective from how we normally look at Math. It is trying to show that anyone can do Math. She talks about elementary math and leads one into a field of Mathematics called, Category Theory. | |
| February | ||||
|
A Journey of Embedded and Cyber-Physical Systems: Essays Dedicated to Peter Marwedel on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday | Jian-Jia Chen | This book contains research papers on embedded and cyber-physical systems. It was interesting learning about this type of work even thou it isn't the type of work that I do. I enjoyed learning about these different topics. | |
|
Math-ish: Finding Creativity, Diversity, and Meaning in Mathematics | Jo Boaler | This book discusses the state of our teaching of Mathematics and how archaic it is in its current state. It offers a new way of teaching Mathematics that can be more beneficial to students and society. These techniques have been used within other societies with great success. | |
| March | ||||
|
The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way | Amanda Ripley | This book discusses the different level of education around the world. It shows how the United States compares to other countries education system. It looks who is successful and what makes them successful. It also goes into greater details on what might make a great education system. | |
|
The Geography of Words: Vocabulary and Meaning in the World's Languages | Daniko Šipka | This book talks about how the different languages in the world can have different meanings with similar words and phrases. It also talks about how similar languages culture impact words and phrases. | |
|
The Life Impossible | Matt Haig | This book was written by one of my favorite author in recent years. It is a story about realizing that we should live our life with the understanding that we aren't perfect. We shouldn't let our past influence our future well-being. | |
|
Oxygen: A Four Billion Year History | Donald E. Canfield | This book sets out to explain our current understanding of the evolution of the planet Earth. It explains what we understand on how the planet Earth maintains itself now. In turn, it tries to explain how our planet has evolved throughout is exists for 4.5 billions of years. It explains that we are limited by what we can explain since Earth contains only so much information about the past. With that, it then explains the different speculations that we have defined. | |
| April | ||||
|
Essential: How Distributed Teams, Generative AI, and Global Shifts Are Creating a New Human-Powered Leadership |
Christie Smith Kelly Monahan |
This book explains the history of leadership since the industrial revolution. It points out the good and the bad parts of those different leadership practices. It then delves into the current evolution of leadership model that has proven to be successful. This model encompasses the need to involve the humanistic side of leadership to be able to succeed in this age. Specifically, it talks about the flywheel leadership model and its benefits to companies. | |
|
Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe | Steven Strogatz | This book talks about the history of Calculus from its inception to now. It offers examples of is power and how is has impacted the world around us. It also reveals that its birth was not through Newton but an accumulation of all that came before him. It was such a pleasure to read and would recommend this book to anyone that is slightly interested in Math and its impact on our world. | |
|
The Blanket Cats |
Kiyoshi Shigematsu Translated by Jesse Kirkwood |
This book contains seven self-contained short stories that are connected by the blanket cats. The stories can be read in any order and are interesting in and of themselves. | |
|
The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics | Tim Harford | This book is about the use of statistics in the real world. It describes how statistics can skew or enlighten us about the world around us. The author offers ten techniques to look at statistics to better understand the data. The main point that he is making is that we need to be curious about the data, from what it is using to what it is trying to show. I enjoyed the different points and its reminder that doing statistics is not that simple. | |
|
|
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies | Nick Bostrom | This book discusses the control problem involved with AGI and its current state. It discusses what we should be thinking about while trying to create AGI. It makes us realize that we are far from being ready to deal with super inteligent systems. | |
| May | ||||
|
Klara and the Sun | Kazuo Ishiguro | This novel is about an AI Robot that is an Artificial Friend, (AF), to a teenager girl called Josie. It is about its struggle to be able to help Josie through a difficult period. It considers what an AF might be thinking while trying to care for someone. | |
|
Life Lessons from a Parasite: What Tapeworms, Flukes, Lice, and Roundworms Can Teach Us About Humanity's Most Difficult Problems | John Janovy Jr. | This book is written by a Parasitologist that offers fourteen chapters about the different kind of research that has been done. While each chapter is interesting, it also not something for the faint of heart. These articles are very instructive about how parasites move around our environment and how they are related to our society. | |
|
Mina's Matchbox |
Yoko Ogawa Translated by Stephen B. Snyder |
This novel is about a middle school girl named Tomoko that goes a live with her cousin named Mina. It was good about how they've grown closer during Tomoko year long stay with Mina and her family. | |
|
More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI | John Warner | This book argues why LLM's can not replace the emotional impact that a human writer can have on written work. While LLM's can produce fundentally correct text it's unable to extract nor produce the emotional feeling that a human being can produce. | |
|
Write for Your Life: A Guide to Clear and Purposeful Writing (and Presentations) | Charles Wheelan | This is one of my favorite authors and this book doesn't disappoint. This book is full of great advice on how to write and present. | |
|
First Love |
Ivan Turgenev Translated by Isaiah Berlin |
This novel was mentioned in one of my prior novels that I read. I decided to read it and alas I wasn't that impressed by the story. The only good thing about this book was that it was a novella and I was done reading it fairly quickly. | |
| June | ||||
|
The Memory Police |
Yoko Ogawa Translated by Stephen Snyder |
This is the second novel from Yoko Ogawa that I read. It was an interesting look at the possibility that a "Memory Police" can control what disappears in their world. This world is an island that different things disappear and how people just accept these disappearances. | |
|
Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiousity |
David Bessis Translated by Kevin Frey |
The author of this book tries to explain how Mathematicians think. The objective is to try to get others interested in Math by removing the intrinsic fear that most people feel towards Math. I must admit that he has done a pretty good job at removing the sense of fear for Math. I am one that also believes that others will benefit from this book. | |
|
Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works for Us | Gary F. Marcus | This book is about how generative AI is not really what it is cut out to be. In fact, it explains that much of the hype is not something that we should be excited about. The author explains that the lack of governance of AI is allowing the proliferation of unethical use of AI. He goes on to explain that the use of governance will enable companies to focus on providing ethical products that will benefit society and not the tech companies and/or criminal organizations. | |
|
The Joy of X: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity | Steven Strogatz | This is a book on Mathematics for the general public. It is written is a very clear way that allows regular individuals to enjoy the subject of Math. The author writes about different aspects of Mathematics starting with Numbers and ending with the concept of infinity. I, for one, think that this is a great book for anyone that is curious about Math that has or doesn't have higher level Mathematical training. Still, this book will still be interesting for individuals that have higher Mathematical training. | |
|
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection | John Green | This was an interesting book about Tuberculosis (TB). Its history and the current state of this disease around the world today. The fact that we as a human race can save so many individuals that have TB. Yet, we don't because of them being poor or because of racism. Why do we not understand how lucky we are living within a developed country. With all of its conveniences and benefits compared to under developed countries that don't have what we have. This book talks about this with respect to TB. It lets us know that we can eradicate this disease if we choose to. Lastly, it talks about how there are groups that are trying to do just that. It is trying to instill a desire to join the cause against TB. | |
| July | ||||
|
Ancient Worlds: A Global History of Antiquity | Michael Scott | This book took a different perspective about Ancient Historical Cultures that included the Roman Empire in the West all the way to China in the East. It describes how the Roman Empire, India, China and others came together through trade and religous pilgrimages from around 800 BC to 400 CE. I really enjoyed the stories that were written about those times, even thou we cannot be certain how exact they are. Nonetheless, these stories were interesting and gave you an idea how the world was functioning during that period in time. | |
|
The Rainbow |
Yasunari Kawabata Translated by Haydn Trowell |
This was a nice story about three sisters that have the same father but different mothers. The three sisters are completely different people that have their own way of life that doesn't agree with each of them. It offered how people from Japan perceive life that is different than how I do. Which, I found this is interesting in and of itself. I also enjoyed the way that the author described Japan from the landscape to their way of life. | |
|
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism | Safiya Umoja Noble | This book gives a really great perspective of how Artificial Inteligence effects our lives in a good and bad way. It talks about the need to be able to vet our models before publishing them to the world. It also reflects on the need to generate policies that companies should follow before releasing these types of products. I find that it isn't trying to criticize but that it asks us to reflect on what we are creating before relasing it to the world. | |
|
Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy | Martha Wells | This short story is part of the "Murderbot Diaries" series about a mission to a planet that doesn't include the main character of the series. It was an alright short story but it felt lacking in substance compared to the other stories that I have read in the series. | |
| August | ||||
|
Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture | Kyle Chayka | This book contained some really interesting food for thought issues with respect to how we as a society are consistently being distracted. The author talks about the different effect that this has on individuals and society. He ultimately talks about his experience trying to control this distraction such that he can live his life without the need to be entertained every second. I highly recommend this book to whoever is interested in how technology is being used to keep our attention for the different companies benefit and not our own. | |
|
The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck | David Spiegelhalter | This book offers a really good representation of how statistics and probability is used currently and how it can be misunderstood. The author offers many examples on how the public can be misrepresented with respect to estimates about different conditions. For instance, how some have use the total number of individuals that have died after getting the vacine compared to the number of individuals that died that didn't get the covid vacine. Yes, more died that got the vacine compared to those that didn't. If you compare the percentage of people who died who got the vacine compared to those that didn't. You would see that a greater percentage of people died who didn't get the vacine compared to those that did. This was just one example where we see how easy it is to misinterpret the data. The author does talk about how much certainty one has with certain set of data compared to others. The more uncertainty there is the greater the range of estimates because of being unable to properly quantify the information. This is a great book for those that want to have a better understanding on how we use Statistics and Propabilty to access the world around us. | |
| September | ||||
|
Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped History | Vidya Krishnan | This is a wonderful book that gives you a great history of our relationship with Tuberculosis. It then describes how our greed for money has created a world that still has to deal with Tuberculosis instead of eradicating this disease. It talks about foolishly ignoring that many poor people around the world are dealing with this disease when we have a means to cure them. What is worse is that we've offered solutions that we known don't work to the poor people around the world. These solutions end up making their lives worse instead of better. On top of that, they require some unreasonable requirements like having to travel long distances to be able to be administered the drugs to fight the disease. It also talks about the struggles of correcting these issues. While, incurring unnecessary deaths along the way. This is a book that is very informative and easy to read that will cause strong emotions for the reader. | |
|
Now and Never | Janet Evanovich | This is a book that I started reading because of it being one of my of mother in-law favorite author. While the story wasn't that interesting to me as I had hoped. I have liked the main character, Stephanie Plum, that always seems to get herself into some kind of trouble. Her bounty hunter job doesn't offer her much cash but it is something that she uses to try to do good. I like the way she has to deal with doing her job and just being a good human being. This is something that we should all aspire to become. It will only make this world a better place for all of us. | |
| October | ||||
|
The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About | Mel Robbins | This self-help book is something that I enjoy reading in general. While this book has many good suggestions. It didn't provide me with anything new. I guess that what happens when someone likes to read these types of books. It is a good book for someone that wants to make better judgement calls that will help themselves and others around them. I do think that this book can benefit others but I also believe that we need to read other similar books to gain more perspective on this subject. The reason is a single method will not work for everyone and we all need to find the right method that can best help us. This book can be one for some of us. | |
|
Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect | John Inazu | This book talks about how things are not always black and white. While, his discussion centers around the law since he is a lawyer professor. It nonetheless does give us some food for thought on how to deal with disagreements between each other. I am one that strongly believes that having disagreements is a good thing. I just would like to see more of us being able to accept our differences with respect. | |
|
Abundance |
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson |
This is a great book that describes how the United States is continuously slowing down progress to a stand still. It offers many an example of how this is be done. While I can understand why that is so. We do need to find a middle ground that allows us to move forward without causing serious consequences. | |
|
From One Cell: A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine | Ben Stanger | This book initially was just telling me things that I have already read. This caused me to put this book down but as soon as I picked it up. It started to talk about recent advancements in stem cell research. It offered some hope that we can really use this technology to provide better care for us all. While, it initially talked about the ethic issues surrounding the initial stem cell research. It then described how scientist were able to remove the ethics issue around stem cell research. This has allow scrientist to make great strides in stem cell research to the point that we are starting to see its benefits. | |
|
Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World | Maryanne Wolf | This was a great book that explained the intricacy of how reading affects us. It was particularly interesting how our digital world is changing the way how we read. It offers a warming that we need to be more deliberate in our teaching of reading that involves not only our teachers but also the parents. Mainly, the importance of minimizing the use of digital media for young children. It also made me realize how much of an impact can have on their children when reading to them consistently through their early younger years. | |
| November | ||||
|
Tokyo Express: A Novel |
Seicho Matsumoto Translated By Jesse Kirkwood |
This is supposed to be Japan's version of Agatha Cristie. I did find this book to be a good mystery novel. I did enjoy how the detective went about looking for to pinpoint the murder on the suspect. I liked how the author writes hiw thought process that is then summaries in the last chapter. | |
| December | ||||
|
The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More | Jefferson Fisher | This book offers a lot of personal advise that the author has gained through his life dealing with different situations that involve communication. He does offer some sound advise that we can all use. While the author does offer these advise and they can be useful by others. I feel that we all need to be able to find our place within his advise. What I mean is that what is said can be useful. We still need to figure out what are our particular way of communicating without incurring any of the difficult conversations. In the end, this is something that each one that reads this book needs to figure out. | |
|
We’ll Prescribe You Another Cat |
Syou Ishida Translated by E. Madison Shimoda |
||
|
The Longing for Less: What’s Missing from Minimalism | Kyle Chayka | ||
|
The Family Dynamic: A Journey into the Mystery of Sibling Success | Susan Dominus | ||
|
The Origin of Others | Toni Morrison | ||
|
Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash | Alexander Clapp | ||