The following is a list of the most recent books i’ve been reading
- Triumph of the city. A fascinating look at the role cities play in human development and creativity
- Built, Roma Agrawal, explores the engineering behind buildings in an engaging accessible way.
- Underland by Robert Macfarlane. A fascinating exploration of the world beneath our feet that we often rarely think about.
- The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel – a thought provoking consideration of the limits and problems with meritocracy.
- The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman – a entertaining a light murder mystery set around a retirement village
- Why we sleep, Matthew Walker, great little animation from RSA animate gives a good overview of the book.
- Mastermind by Maria Konnikova – a fun book about to think like Sherlock Holmes
- How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain Lisa Feldman Barrett
- The shepherds Hut, Tim Winton
- Quicksand, Malin Persson Giolito
- The Brain’s Way of Healing, Norman Doidge – a fascinating discussion about neuroplasticity and therapies employing neuroplasticity principles.
- The equations of life, by astrobiologist Charles Cockell, explores how physics makes evolutions outcomes predictable.
- Capital in the 21st century, by Thomas Piketty, an analysis of the past 200 years of economics and a discussion of the effects of r>g (rate of return on capital > economic growth).
And my Favourite Podcasts:
- Freakonomics hosted by Steven Dubner – inspired by behavioural economics
- Hidden Brain, from NPR with Shankar Vedantam, exploring the unconscious influences that shape our behaviour
- Ologies with Alie Ward – a fun science podcast about acoustic ecology, agnotology, cervidology, urban rodentology and so many more ologies
And my favourite educational video collection:
- RSA Animate series, which includes an animation of the book by Matthew Walker “why we sleep”