Steven D. Ward's Blog, page 7
March 11, 2014
Review: Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients
Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients by Ben Goldacre
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Even though the author is a British physician, as a US citizen, I’d have to say this book is one of those books that everyone needs to read. It’s not just about the system in one place, but about a large industry that operates internationally.
Beyond that, the author takes us on a tour through a corrupted academia that is a problem not just in medicine, but all fields, including the social...
March 8, 2014
Review: The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left
The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left by Yuval Levin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Good book overall. I highly recommend, rather than using an Audible credit on it, purchasing the Kindle edition first, then the audible version at a discount because you’ll want to go back and review certain sections, as well as use it for a reference, which the audible version isn’t very useful for.
I was really excited to read this book, but it didn’t quite meet my high expec...
March 6, 2014
Review: The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance
The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance by David Epstein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Great book for anyone like me that is trying to expand their horizons and learn more about biology and science. This book bridges the gap by starting with a premise that touches on my interest in sports and human performance before taking us into the hard stuff.
March 2, 2014
March Reading List Newsletter
The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver
I almost went with a different book this month because Nate Silver certainly doesn’t need any help from little ‘ol me to plug his books. The reviews of his book are gushing and there are hundreds of reasons why everyone should read it. Most importantly is simply to help you be a more conscientious consumer of the news and a discerning observer of current events. In this way it is very complementary to Antifragile, which I’ve mention...
February 27, 2014
Review: Einstein’s Cosmos: How Albert Einstein’s Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time
Einstein’s Cosmos: How Albert Einstein’s Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time by Michio Kaku
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a short read, but don’t let that fool you; the concepts presented are tough to wrap your brain around. That being said the author does a respectable job of presenting them in an approachable way, replying on the metaphors Einstein himself used to come to an understanding of the universe’s biggest mysteries.
The hidden value of this book, or at least on...
Review: You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself
You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself by David McRaney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you’re like me and your reading list spans an ambitious spread of biology and psychology tomes, leaving you wondering when you could possibly have time to read all of them, much less synthesize and retain the information contained, then this book is for you.
I wouldn’t say this book is a replacement for the o...
February 25, 2014
Review: The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today
The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today by Rob Dunn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The author delivers on the promise of the book description overall, but I couldn’t give a full five stars on account of including areas where the research is still rather far from conclusive. If it had presented slightly differently, perhaps in the context of, “this interesting research is being done suggestion such and such” would have been better. Instead, those a...
February 24, 2014
Review: A Short History of Nearly Everything
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve recently been on a mission to go back and review topics from my long forgotten High School and college days. I followed a liberal arts path from early on to the detriment of the hard sciences, and I’ve regretted it.
In pursuit of having a more well-rounded education, I’ve taken community college courses, MOOCs, and thrown myself into books that I was nowhere near ready for.
A Short History of Nearly Everything sho...
February 18, 2014
Review: The Demon in the Freezer
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book’s predecessor, The Hot Zone, was a great book on it’s own, but in my opinion, The Demon in the Freezer surpassed it.
While Zone is written in a dramatized style, complete with chapter cliffhangers and story threads that are buried and picked up later, leaving you always wondering what details are going to come back later, it did at some times border on caricature. Demon has more subtlety, which perhaps explains why...
February 16, 2014
Review: The Hot Zone
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I couldn’t tell you why, but for some reason in High School I was obsessed with the Ebola virus for maybe about a month after choosing it for the topic of a paper I wrote. So, naturally, in the 18 years that have passed since then I considered myself something of an expert in the topic. Obviously I’m kidding, but I did think I knew more than most people about this horrifying yet fascinating virus. I was wrong. I knew next to nothing. Th...
