By Any Other Nerd

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes I went into Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought thinking it was The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis. That is, I thought it was a biography about Barbara Tversky’s husband and his work. And then, I realized it was her work--her phenomenal breadth of work-- and that made the book more exciting to me. It also did make me aware of the ignorance of my own ignorance. I knew there was a world of cognition research around Tversky, but I had not really understood this Tversky, this body of work, this way of thinking about how action shapes thought. The book is just incredibly rich.  What I’m still sitting with most is this idea of how much our spatial reasoning shapes our mental reasoning, which then shapes the way we build the world around us. Tversky makes it feel obvious in the best way: of course our sense of physical awareness, our sense of spatial awareness, plays into our minds. Of course the physical w...

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes The Solace of Open Spaces is a reflective, contemplative book, one that tries to be earnest about hard but beautiful and deeply felt lives in the Wyoming in the 1970s,  particularly what we tend to think of as cowboy or ranch life. Ehrlich paints vivid pictures of that world, and most of the time I think she succeeds in giving the readers true glimpses into those worlds. But there are also moments where that vividness tips into something a little romantic or nostalgic. There are hints of mourning in the book, as if she is not only describing this world but grieving the possibility that it is slipping away. That tension made the book interesting for me. Ehrlich is at her best when she is sitting deeply with the place she has entered (moving from urban surroundings to the big wide open environments of Wyoming) and, in many ways, become part of. She notices the everyday challenges and rituals: the rituals of people, the rituals of animals, the ritua...

Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes I supported Doctorow’s Kickstarter for the audiobook,  The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI , because I believe deeply in Doctorow’s work and ethic around publishing but also I regularly his work because feels like an inoculation against the tech bro BS that surrounds so many conversations about technology. The book continues his work and connects directly to Enshittification , Chokepoint Capitalism , The Internet Con , and How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism . In many ways, it feels like the AI-specific version of the same larger project: look past the gadget, look past the hype, and look at the larger techno-social capitalist system that decides who benefits and who gets used up. That is Doctorow at his best. He does not treat AI as magic, or as an inevitable apocalypse, or as a neutral tool that just happens to exist outside power. He keeps asking the better question: who does this technology do things for, and who does it do things...

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes What I like about The Great Gatsby at 100 is what I often like about The Great Courses in general: it gives you a deep dive into a particular topic in a way that feels accessible, but not shallow. Sheila Liming takes The Great Gatsby and looks at it through economic, class, gender, race, and cultural lenses, and the result is the exact thing I want from a book—or course—about a book: it made me want to go back and read The Great Gatsby again. Does this give me new insights into the thing? In this case, it certainly did. I have read The Great Gatsby a few times, and I have taught it at different points in the past, so this was not a first encounter with the novel. But Liming’s course felt like a refresher and a set of newer insights into the text. I especially appreciated the way she moves between specific details in the novel, details from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life, and the larger cultural world around the book. There are moments where she draws...

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk My rating: 4 of 5 stars It's cliche to say everyone should read "this" book. I know--and yet, I can't help think that van der Kolk's work needs to be in front of all of us.  So maybe not this book, but the TED Talk of this book or something.  His work is both a partial history of his work as a psychiatrist over the last 50 years exploring and extending our understanding of what trauma is, how it manifests in people and the current scientific understanding of the different ways to treat trauma.  On all of these levels, van der Kolk's writing is informative, accessible, and insightful for readers. He provides a range of examples from the culture's more traditional examples of trauma to lesser-known and understood forms. His most powerful contribution is embedded in the title--how the body keeps score of trauma.  That is, ...

Speaking of Race: Why We Need to Talk About Race-and How to Do It Effectively by Celeste Headlee My rating: 5 of 5 stars A great deal of people know that racism--individual, cultural, and structural--exist in numerous ways within the United States and have known this for a long while. But having effective conversations about racism to build understanding, empathy, and even action, rarely occur. There are many reasons for this from current politics and political discourse, to mediums of communication, to conceptions about how the world works and history.  But a big inhibitor to genuine conversations and possible change resides in how we have those conversations and Headlee lays down the different elements that we need if we plan to have conversations about racism rather than talk about racism.  Throughout her book, she points to research-based approaches that enhance the ability for people to engage in complex conversations around cont...

How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism. by Cory Doctorow My rating: 4 of 5 stars Doctorow delivers another great exploration and distillation of the challenges, problems, and issues that are embedded in technological and economic systems in our world today. In particular, he looks at the complexities and misunderstandings about how surveillance capitalism thrives in the 21st century but not as a new threat but as an extension of corporate attempts at monopolies that have long been a threat to democracy and any meaningful and reasonable forms of capitalism.  Doctorow's at his best when breaking down these relationships and offering an insightful critique of those who think surveillance capitalism is acceptable or inevitable. It's clear he's drawing on both his own experience, as an author who has made a living writing and not being as restrictive about intellectual property as many of the software companies are (and the problems wit...

Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin My rating: 5 of 5 stars At the center of Benjamin's book is a very simple premise: technology is not neutral and when we pretend otherwise, it will amplify the biases and inequities of the society that produces the technology. Benjamin then shows through a variety of spaces and contexts how this proves to be true time and again.  In particular, she examines how racism creeps into technological structures both as a result of unquestioned bias in creators and programmers (e.g. the fair of facial recognition to recognize darker-skinned faces) but also as a direct result of historical racism that becomes culturally encoded in the physical world and unquestioningly transformed in the digital world (the overabundance of using facial-recognition programs on brown and black faces). A particular approach she uses regularly throughout the book is to show readers how the ...

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones My rating: 5 of 5 stars The old adage that history is written by the victors while not always true definitely has enough truth to it that one should always be concerned and critical of histories that reinforce a largely harmonious, homogeneous, and heartening history.  This is why The 1619 Project is so refreshing and powerful because it amply challenges the conventional history told in schools and popular media that centers white men's striving for more freedom (which often translates into wealth and power for everyone but is still concentrated among white men).  In its place, the writers center the enslavement of black people as the economic, intellectual, social,  medical, cultural, and legal center of the U.S.'s history. It does this effectively, drawing amply on substantial and wide-ranging established historians and primary sources to illustrate this picture. ...

Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education by Jay Timothy Dolmage My rating: 4 of 5 stars Dolmage explores the structural and institutional aspects of ableism that permeate throughout higher education's present and past. Simply put, the academy does little to include people with disabilities. At the core of this exploration, he illustrates how some bodies are upheld by these aspects and therefore, granted the means to study and pursue knowledge while other bodies are devalued and meant to be the objects of study, often with an insistence to dismiss or cure.  It's a brilliant critique that first discusses how the rhetoric of institution spaces highlight the ways institutions create and maintain their spaces as spaces that are not accessible or made accessible through measures that draw attention to those in need of accessible measures (rather than a natural part of structures through practices like universal design).  He pivots ...

Reading, Writing, and Racism: Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher Education and in the Classroom by Bree Picower My rating: 4 of 5 stars At a time when pundits rage about critical race theory being taught in K-12 with no real understanding of what that is, nevermind its near-utter absence from K-12 teaching and learning, Picower's book is both a breath of fresh air and a call to teachers, parents, and most critically important, teacher-education programs.  The book highlights the framework of racism through institutional, interpersonal, internalized, and ideological approaches.  From there, she highlights the presence of these different racist approaches embedded within the curriculum, classroom practices, and mindsets by educators.  In this first section, she draws upon example upon example of how blatant acts of racism are present throughout the curriculum or show because people have caught and challenged them.  These examples...

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez My rating: 4 of 5 stars If one ever sought to understand the particular recipe of religious fervor, politicking, and hypocrisy that represents much of Evangelical Christianity in the United States over the past 100 years, they would do well to read this book.  Kobes Du Mez illustrates how evangelicals in the 20th century embraced a particular mixture of traits including dominance-informed masculinity, advocacy for wars of assertion and profit, a xenophobic and religiously bigoted disregard for others, and political maneuvering that forfeited their believes and practices in the name of power. She also shows how evangelicals used radio, television, and social media over the decades to offer up a version of Christianity that was somehow always on the cusp of being destroyed in the US (despite overwhelming evidence otherwise) while sim...

Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm by Robin DiAngelo My rating: 4 of 5 stars There are a lot of ways one can tackle this book and I'm sure there are myriads out--I've even read a few. Some clearly come from a disposition that they would immediately dismiss anything that DiAngelo says from the start. They often do so because they are blatantly racist (white supremacists like those who participated in the march in Charlottesville, Virginia), they buy into the idea that those seeking racial and social justice are "the problem" (folks who drink up unquestioningly their information from Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Fox News, The Blaze and the like), or those who are deeply involved in owning the game of internecine battles around racial progress and equity (Bill Maher, John McWorter, and Matt Taibbi to name a few). It's strange to see so much ire for this book because the intended audience is larg...

Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success by Andratesha Fritzgerald My rating: 4 of 5 stars Fritzgerald proposes a tall order in tackling both antiracism and universal design for learning in one book--at least that might be the initial reaction for readers. But in truth, the two are a strong overlapping Venn Diagram when to comes to thinking about teaching, learning, engagement, and inclusion in our classes. Using a mixture of personal experiences, classroom situations, analogies, and reflection prompts, Fritzgerald moves through the primary pieces of universal design for learning to illustrate how each is mapped onto ideas and practices of anti-racism. Her book is not a polemic or a how-to with lots of supporting materials or exercises (for classes) per se.  Rather, she provides an earnest, well-grounded, and genuinely caring exploration of why thinking of UDL and anti-racism in tandem is so central to the success of...

Writing for Audio by Katie O Connor My rating: 2 of 5 stars This was a quick and dirty exploration of the topic that doesn't go into a lot of depth. It felt like a throw-away work for Audible ultimately that could have a lot more potential but seemed to just be put out to be put out.  Is it worth the listen?  Sure, there are a few tips and insights to consider if you are looking to write for a listening audience (or even if writing text but anticipating an audio adaptation of some sort). Some of it is to be mindful of the speaking tags (he said, she said) or think about how to make the sound more evident in your writing or how actions, personalities, etc can be translated into sound.  O'Connor interviews a handful of authors who have written Audible Originals, sharing brief snippets with each and while entertaining, I feel like it served more as a teaser than getting into a deeper conversation amongst the different writers about ...

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam M. Grant My rating: 4 of 5 stars Grant takes a deep dive into the disconnect between human confidence and human knowledge; particularly how humans grapple with the Dunning-Krueger effect.  This dynamic, found in many founds, leaves us to be way more confident about what we know about something, especially, if we have only a basic understanding of it. In many circumstances, we assume we know more than we do and we live in a society that often encourages that. Thus, many of us believe we're all above average on a variety of things, but have no real basis to come to that standpoint.  So Grant explores how this happens in individuals and in groups, while then identifying ways of undoing the potential harm such views can have on us as individuals and throughout society. His goal is not to prove any individual or group wrong but to give them the tools and mechanisms to check to s...

We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans and Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff My rating: 4 of 5 stars Nesteroff challenges the stereotypical depiction of Native Americans in the US and Canada as being stoic and serious with this history of comedy among Native Americans over the last few hundred years.  The book proves this fascinating slice of history, humor, and cultural exploration that many will find interesting.  Nesteroff works hard to draw the parallels of Native Americans and other marginalized groups that have leveraged humor to navigate their trauma and also re-introduce it to larger audiences, including the Black and Jewish experiences in North America. In particular, he draws out the mixture of violence, theft, and cultural destruction that US and Canadian governments and companies have exerted on Native Americans while simultaneously, considering how such things both influence many Native Amer...

Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion by Neil Gaiman My rating: 4 of 5 stars I'm a bit surprised that it took me this long to pick up this book.  Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was the book that turned me into an audiobook listener and I have read almost all of his work (ok, Last Chance to See, still doesn't grab me).  He was the first author death that I really felt and was sad about--and all that was before I even started enjoying Neil Gaiman.  A biography of Douglas Adams by Neil Gaiman should have been a book I read a long time ago and well, since "time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so," I finally got around to listening to this and I am overall, happy with what I heard. It's not a particularly deep biography but Gaiman does bring a share of insights and connections about Adams' work that I enjoyed.  Starting with his early life in school and t...

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green My rating: 5 of 5 stars In general, John Green is a thoughtful and engaging writer of fiction and a highly amusing and fascinating YouTube star with his brother, Hank Green (seriously, the videos back and forth between these two are amazing, amusing, and authentic that demonstrates a positive form of white masculinity that is so needed today) and in this book, Green takes on an interesting idea; what would 5-star reviews look like if one were to review artifacts of the Anthropocene age (the time in which humans are impacting the Earth in clear--and somewhat irrevocable ways). The book is wide-range of reviews from songs to psychological states to geographic locations to events to food and beyond but it's so much more than that. Each review is an essay that reflects on the human nature embedded into the things that are being reviewed.  They can sometimes be deeply personal and connected to Green's...

Distracted: Why Students Can't Focus and What You Can Do About It by James M. Lang My rating: 4 of 5 stars I approached this book with some hesitancy. I'm familiar with and have read other works by Lang and generally like his writing in the Chronicle of Higher Ed and previous books. But I have a bias towards works that frame students as the problem and this book's title does that to some degree. However, overall, it was an insightful book, for the most part, exploring the challenges of distractedness and pedagogically approaches to keep students engaged in the classroom. Early on, Lang does what I think is not done enough and that is, contextualized distractedness as something that has been a concern for society for millennia. He calls out the idea that there was some mythic "before" when we all concentrated perfectly but then technology came along and ruined it for us and now youth is stupider as a result. He largely throws that out t...