“Book Reviews”, Gwern2013-08-23 (literary criticism; backlinks)⁠:

A compilation of books reviews of books I have read since ~1997.

This is a compilation of my book reviews. Book reviews are sorted by star, and sorted by length of review within each star level, under the assumption that longer reviews are of more interest to readers.

See also my anime/manga film/TV, & opera reviews.

• 5 Stars
  • Like Engend’ring Like, Russell1986
  • Cat Sense, Bradshaw 2013_11ya: Are We Good Owners?
  • The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T., Brand1988
  • Radiance, Scholz2003
  • Stories of Your Life and Others, Chiang2010
  • Worm, Wildbow2013
  • Quantum Thief Trilogy, Rajaniemi2014
  • Urne Burial, Browne2005
  • The Discovery of France, Robb2007
  • Selected Non-Fictions, Borges1999
  • The Wages of Destruction, Tooze2007
  • Lords of Finance, Ahamed2009
  • Bias in Mental Testing, Jensen1980
  • The Notenki Memoirs, Takeda2005
  • The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro2005
  • The Book of Lord Shang—A Classic of the Chinese School of Law, Yang2011
  • The Origins of Political Order, Fukuyama2011
  • The Histories, Herodotus2003
  • Genius, Gleick1993
  • The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker2011
  • The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, Mitchell2010
  • Collapse of Complex Societies, Tainter1990
  • Star Maker, Stapledon1999
• 4 Stars
  • ARPA and SCI: Surfing AI, Roland And Shiman2002
  • Past, Present, and Future of Statistical Science, Lin2014
  • The Cultural Revolution, Dikötter2016
  • The Genius Factory, Plotz2006
  • Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes, Everett2008
  • McNamara’s Folly, Gregory2015
  • The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Swanwick2012
  • Bad Blood, Carreyrou2018
  • A History of Life-Extensionism in the Twentieth Century, Stambler2014
  • Moondust, Smith2006
  • The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III, Byrne2010
  • Unsong, Alexander2017
  • Fortune’s Formula, Poundstone2006
  • Digital Gold, Popper2015
  • Playboy Interview II, Golson1983
  • Spec Ops, McRaven1996
  • Excuse Me Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide?, Gergel1979
  • Titan, Chernow2004
  • A Perfect Vacuum, Lem1999
  • Fujiwara Teika’s Hundred-Poem Sequence of the Shōji Era, 1200, Brower1978
  • Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Márquez2003
  • Stallings2019’, Gwern2013” id=”toc-the-battle-between-the-frogs-and-the-mice-stallings-2019”>The Battle Between the Frogs and the Mice, Stallings2019
  • Singularity Rising, Miller2012
  • The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq, Blasim2014
  • Savage Continent, Lowe2012
  • Quantum Computing Since Democritus, Aaronson2013
  • A Life of Sir Francis Galton, Gillham2001
  • The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, Luttwak2016
  • The Machiavellians, Burnham1988
  • The Vaccinators, Jannetta2007
  • The Black Company, Cook1992
  • Life in Our Phage World, Rohwer2014
  • Tombstone, Jisheng2012
  • Pact, Wildbow2014
  • Drugs 2.0, Power2013
  • The Hall of Uselessness, Leys2011
  • Packing for Mars, Roach2010
  • The Windup Girl, Bacigalupi2009
  • Haikai Poet Yosa Buson And The Bashō Revival, Crowley2006
  • Turing’s Cathedral, Dyson2012
  • Web Typography, Rutter2017
  • Echopraxia, Watts2014
  • Ketamine, Jansen2004
  • Clear and Simple As the Truth, Thomas1996
  • In the Plex, Levy2011
  • Ready Player One, Cline2011
  • Cool Tools, Kelly2013
  • Proving History, Carrier2012
  • Wired Love, Thayer1879
  • The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field, Hadamard1954
  • The Devil in the White City, Larson2003
  • The Mask of Sanity, Cleckley2003
  • The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama2006
  • Hyperbole and a Half, Brosh2013
  • Declare, Powers2002
  • A Shropshire Lad, Housman1990
  • Chased by the Light, Brandenburg2001
  • The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald2004
  • The Signal and the Noise, Silver2012
  • The Theory That Would Not Die, McGrayne2011
  • The Man Who Knew Infinity, Kanigel1992
  • Debt, Graeber2011
  • Red Plenty, Spufford2010
  • The Metropolitan Man, Wales2014
  • The True Believer, Hoffer2010
  • Dreams of Steel, Cook1990
  • On China, Kissinger2011
  • The Master Switch, Wu2010
  • The Circus of Dr. Lao, Finney2002
  • The Kindly Ones, Littell2009
  • The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Bailyn1992
  • Friendship Is Optimal, Iceman2012
• 3 Stars
  • Pioneers of Soviet Computing, Malinovsky2010
  • The Operations Evaluation Group, Tidman1984
  • Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Quincey2003
  • The Unholy Consult, Bakker2017
  • A Troublesome Inheritance, Wade2014
  • The Recollections Of Eugene P. Wigner, Wigner2003
  • Donald Michie, Michie2009
  • Average Is Over, Cowen2013
  • New Legends, Bear1996
  • Perseverance Island, Frazar2009
  • Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders, Buffett2013
  • A Memory of Light, Jordan2013
  • Tokyo, Tsuzuki1999
  • 1000 Poems from the Manyōshū, Yakamochi2005
  • Double Entry, Gleeson-White2012
  • Renaming of the Birds, Troupes2013
  • Drop Dead Healthy, Jacobs2012
  • Spam Nation, Krebs2014
  • On the Historicity of Jesus, Carrier2014
  • Mathematical People, Albers2008
  • The Riddle of the Labyrinth, Fox2013
  • Pirate Freedom, Wolfe2007
  • Japanese Love Hotels, Chaplin2007
  • The Life of Samuel Johnson, Boswell1993
  • Selected Poems, Celan1972
  • Moby-Dick Or, the Whale, Melville2003
  • Japan As Number One Lessons for America, Vogel1999
  • Goldthwaite1968’, Gwern2013” id=”toc-private-wealth-in-renaissance-florence-goldthwaite-1968”>Private Wealth in Renaissance Florence, Goldthwaite1968
  • Before the Storm, Kube-McDowell1996
  • Uncontrolled, Manzi2012
  • Research Fraud in the Behavioral and Biomedical Sciences, Miller1992
  • 空ろの箱と零のマリア 1, Mikage2009
  • Game Programming Patterns, Nystrom2011
  • The Dark Side of the Enlightenment, Fleming2013
  • Drift into Failure, Dekker2011
  • The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hopkins1976
  • Possible Worlds, Haldane2001
  • Hanging Out With the Dream King, McCabe2005
  • Theological Incorrectness, Slone2004
  • Shikishi1993’, Gwern2013” id=”toc-string-of-beads-complete-poems-of-princess-shikishi-shikishi-1993”>String of Beads: Complete Poems of Princess Shikishi, Shikishi1993
  • On the Road, Kerouac1976
  • Handbook of Intelligence, Goldstein2015
  • The Secret History of the Mongols, Rachewiltz2006
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Gaiman2013
  • A Confederacy of Dunces, Toole1994
  • Bitter Seeds, Tregillis2010
  • Modern Japanese Diaries, Keene1999
  • Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin1989
  • Indiscrete Thoughts, Rota1998
  • Inside WikiLeaks, Domscheit-Berg2011
  • The Bridge to Lucy Dunne, Exurb1a 2016
  • The Japanese Family Storehouse, Ihara1959
  • The Pillow Book, Shōnagon2006
  • Robert Bakewell And the Longhorn Breed of Cattle, Stanley1998
  • Hive Mind, Jones2015
  • The City of Falling Angels, Berendt2006
  • Structural Equation Modeling, Lee2007
  • The Autobiography Of Benvenuto Cellini, Cellini1999
  • Newton and the Counterfeiter, Levenson2009
  • Drug Interdiction, Steffan2010
  • Daemon, Suarez2009
  • The Midas Paradox, Sumner2015
  • Clever Hans, Pfungst2011
  • Hyecho1984’, Gwern2013” id=”toc-the-hye-cho-diary-memoir-of-the-pilgrimage-to-the-five-regions-of-india-hyecho-1984”>The Hye Ch’O Diary: Memoir of the Pilgrimage to the Five Regions of India, Hyecho1984
  • Un Lun Dun, Miéville2007
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thompson1998
  • Curves and Angles: Poems, Leithauser2006
  • An Introduction to Japanese Court Poetry, Miner1968
  • More Poems, Housman1936
  • Tau Zero, Anderson2006
  • The Buried Giant, Ishiguro2015
  • Matter, Banks2008
  • 50 in 50, Harrison2002
  • Shadow Games, Cook1989
  • Silicon Snake Oil, Stoll1996
  • Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, Lem1986
  • IWoz, Wozniak2006
  • House of Leaves, Danielewski2000
  • Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, Ingram2008
  • The Judging Eye, Bakker2009
  • No Country for Old Men, McCarthy2006
  • Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, Lipsky2010
  • The Rapture of the Nerds, Doctorow2012
  • Chinese History in Economic Perspective, Rawski1992
  • The Wallet of Kai Lung, Bramah2002
  • Portfolios of the Poor, Collins2009
  • A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Malkiel2004
  • Kim, Kipling1981
  • Cognitive Surplus, Shirky2010
  • Genius Revisited, Kassan1993
  • Everything Bad Is Good for You, Johnson2006
  • Spice and Wolf, Vol. 01, Hasekura2009
  • The Art of UNIX Programming, Raymond2003
  • Psychiatry And The Human Condition, Charlton2000
  • The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, Appelbaum1980
  • Being Wrong, Schulz2010
  • Silently and Very Fast, Valente2011
  • The Cinema of George Lucas, Hearn2005
  • Practical Criticism, Richards1930
  • Shame: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb, Cohen2000
  • The Man Who Would Be Queen, Bailey2003
• 2 Stars
  • Solid Fool’s Gold, James2011
  • Existence, Brin2012
  • The Master Algorithm, Domingos2015
  • Intellectuals and Society, Sowell2010
  • The Simple Men, Troupes2012
  • The Fountain, Troupes2014
  • Fascinating Mathematical People, Albers2011
  • Soldiers Live, Cook2001
  • The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, Tolkien2009
  • Tales of Ise, Anonymous1968
  • The Mature Optimization Handbook, Bueno2013
  • Light, Harrison2004
  • Puzzles of the Black Widowers, Asimov1991
  • The Thousandfold Thought, Bakker2007
  • Good Thinking, Good2009
  • The Lady Tasting Tea, Salsburg2002
  • Conversations With Goethe, Eckermann1906
• 1 Stars
  • Rosenthal1976’, Gwern2013” id=”toc-experimenter-effects-in-behavioral-research-rosenthal-1976”>Experimenter Effects In Behavioral Research, Rosenthal1976
  • 100 Years of Nobel Prizes, Shalev2002
  • The Complete Poems, Jarrell1981
  • Left In The Dark, Gynn2008
  • Reflections on Violence, Sorel2004
  • Dhalgren, Delany2001
  • Eragon, Paolini2005
  • Planning for Empire, Mimura2011
• Visual Novels
  • Umineko No Naku Koro Ni

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