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Daniel Issing
Daniel Issing

48 Followers

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Jul 26

2023 By The Books: Q2

4 novels, 14 non-fiction, a lot of development literature. — The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar caused a massive stir when it was (pseudonymously) published in 1963, the same year Plath committed suicide by suffocating herself in her oven. Publication in the US, Plath’s home country, was delayed until 1971, according to the wishes of her husband and mother. …

Reading

20 min read

2023 By The Books: Q2
2023 By The Books: Q2
Reading

20 min read


Jul 14

Book Review: Poor Economics

Economics, as it is traditionally taught, is preoccupied with analyzing processes and institutions that shape modern, industrialized nations. By contrast, scant attention is given to the economic decisions of the world’s poor, presumably because their choices seem so constrained that there simply isn’t much worth studying. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, recipients of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, beg to differ.

Book Review

13 min read

Book Review: Poor Economics
Book Review: Poor Economics
Book Review

13 min read


Jul 5

Via Alpina Vehentem

“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best.” Ernest Hemingway Thru-hiking — the idea of completing a long-distance hiking trail in one go — has become increasingly popular in recent years, especially on popular routes such as the Pacific Crest Trail or the…

Cycling

11 min read

Via Alpina Vehentem
Via Alpina Vehentem
Cycling

11 min read


May 17

How To Read More

Many if not most of the articles I publish here are book reviews, and so sometimes people congratulate me on my “reading stamina” when I share them with my network. …

Reading

8 min read

How To Read More
How To Read More
Reading

8 min read


Apr 16

2023 By The Books: Q1

New year, new batch of reviews! 13 books from P like psychology to P like population genetics. Let’s go: 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology, Scott Lilienfeld, Steven Lynn, John Ruscio & Barry Beyerstein The main issue I have with the book is that it takes 50 theories about human psychology — some batshit crazy, some plausible and some, as far as I can tell…

Book Review

12 min read

2023 By The Books: Q1
2023 By The Books: Q1
Book Review

12 min read


Feb 26

2022 By The Books: Q4

Celebrating half a decade of reviews. — The final installment for this year is in, which means it’s time for a little retrospective. I originally started this series five years ago, and even though the shape of it has undergone some minor transformations, I’ve stayed true to the original idea: Instead of offering concise summaries (which you…

Books

21 min read

2022 By The Books: Q4
2022 By The Books: Q4
Books

21 min read


Dec 4, 2022

Tender Is The Night

On the race of a lifetime. From the southern slopes of the Jungfrau in the heart of the Bernese Oberland, at a junction known as the Konkordiaplatz emerges the Aletsch glacier. Standing at a length of 20 kilometers and a surface of nearly 80 square kilometers, it is Europe’s largest…

Ultrarunning

15 min read

Tender Is The Night
Tender Is The Night
Ultrarunning

15 min read


Nov 13, 2022

2022 By The Books, Q3

Psychology, polarization and an unusual amount of fiction Against Empathy, Paul Bloom Unsurprisingly, the title is pure marketing, and the actual content rather tame by comparison. Some of his quibbles are definitional, but I read him mostly as saying that empathy is a rather specialized device from our emotional toolbox, rather than a versatile…

Books

10 min read

2022 By The Books, Q3
2022 By The Books, Q3
Books

10 min read


Oct 6, 2022

2022 By The Books: Q2

Featuring data science, post-Soviet Russia, altruism and bureaucrats. — The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch The subtitle is “Explanations that transform the world” and honestly, how much more Kurzweilian could you name your book? Fortunately for the reader, the thesis is solid than the title may suggests and goes something like this: Infinity seems like a ridiculous concept when applied outside of mathematics (and even…

Book Review

15 min read

2022 By The Books: Q2
2022 By The Books: Q2
Book Review

15 min read


Apr 3, 2022

2022 By The Books: Q1

Now delivered on a quarterly basis! — By now, most readers of this publication should have seen variations of the theme, so no need for lengthy introductions. The main change for this year is that I’ve decided to release reviews in smaller batches instead of making you wait until the end of the year for one or…

Book Review

9 min read

2022 By The Books: Q1
2022 By The Books: Q1
Book Review

9 min read

Daniel Issing

Daniel Issing

48 Followers

Book reviews, trail running, physics, and whatever else I feel like writing about.

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