Category Archives: Book Reviews

Book Review:  Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller by Alec Nevala-Lee

Reading this book is a natural progression after recently reading Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand by John Markoff. Brand was one of Fuller’s many admirers, so much so that pages three and four of Brand’s The Last … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

I’ve seen the movie The Martian at least half a dozen times, and every time I find it uplifting, enervating, and inspiring. I’ve even written a blog post (called “Staying Alive: or, The Martian as an Allegory of the Human … Continue reading

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Book Review:  A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead by Dennis McNally – Part Four: Music and Dead Heads

As I mentioned before, offstage (and sometimes on) the Grateful Dead were often not exemplary in their behavior. In fact, with few exceptions, their personal lives seemed to stagger from one dysfunctional situation to the next. Although everyone regarded Jerry … Continue reading

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Book Review:  A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead by Dennis McNally – Part Three: Psychedelics and the Gestalt Mind

As I read on in A Long Strange Trip, I realize that it is important to remember that the idiosyncratic behavior of the Grateful Dead and Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, especially concerning drugs and alcohol but also the tendency to … Continue reading

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Book Review:  A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead by Dennis McNally – Part Two: Locale

Although the Grateful Dead eventually toured all over the United States and around the world, their origin story is inexorably linked with the San Francisco Bay Area. The late sixties, when the Dead came to prominence, was a heady time … Continue reading

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Book Review:  A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead by Dennis McNally – Part One: Background

I don’t think I ever heard of the Grateful Dead until in 1970 at the age of seventeen I headed down to Santa Clara University from Seattle for my first and only year of college. I was immature, naive, and … Continue reading

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Book Review:  Sea of Tranquility: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel

Sea of Tranquility is marketed as a mainstream novel but it is in fact science fiction. It is a story of time travel and human colonies on the moon, on other planets and moons in the solar system, and on … Continue reading

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On the Reading and Implementation of Self Help Books: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg, and Others

We all need help. We all have areas of our lives that need improvement. In my case, I find myself living alone in a one-bedroom apartment after having raised five sons overseas (mainly in Greece) in an extremely lively atmosphere, … Continue reading

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Book Review:  I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins

I got it into my head that I have been reading a lot of nonfiction lately and I needed to get into a novel. I conducted an online search to see what my local library had on hand, and if … Continue reading

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Book Review:  A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma by David Eimer

It is oddly appropriate that I am writing this during a rare power cut of several hours (and counting) in my apartment complex – appropriate because normally we here in Seattle can count on having electricity and other utilities twenty-four-seven, … Continue reading

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