I have a suggestion

The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes
https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Sug ... 0307701646

Here is my review, just posted at Amazon

This book tells the tale of the scientific paradigm shift from blaming fat to blaming sugar as the main cause of disease. The noncommunicable lifestyle illnesses of modern sedentary society include diabetes, cancer, heart attack, hypertension, tooth decay, obesity, gout and senility. Sugar is the main culprit for the epidemic explosion of these conditions in recent years. The science behind this discovery, and the social failure to see and address it, is laid out by Gary Taubes in forensic detail. It is a story of grand corruption and stupidity, both moral and political. The sugar industry, hand in glove with its close partner the tobacco industry, has systematically deceived and suborned public health in its pursuit of filthy lucre, at massive avoidable cost in health expenditure and quality of life.

Starting with the key role of sugar in slavery, Taubes explains how the depravity continued with the key role of sugar in making cigarettes so pleasant and addictive by enabling easy inhalation of their smoke. Gross conflict of interest was then allowed by government, allowing so-called scientists paid by the sugar industry to systematically deny and conceal the ghastly and obvious criminal role of sugar in driving avoidable suffering. Like drug pushers, the sugar industry has tried to hook its addicts when young, for example with the lying portrayal of breakfast cereals as health foods, while concealing the scale and effect and coordination of its assault on our health.

The toxic cocktail of Coca-Cola and cigarettes given to American servicemen in World War Two was one example of Big Sugar’s cynical marketing exercise that destroyed health while repaying the advertising investment many times. The marketing of high sugar foods as “healthy” should be a criminal offence. Its continued occurrence shows how badly our politics are corrupted by money and stupidity.

For decades, sugar pushers promoted the baseless false claim that dietary fat is the main cause of bad health, a message enabled by direct conflict of interest for sugar industry employees making decisions on public policy. Without the sugar industry corrupting the research, the false theory that eating saturated fat is bad would have been destroyed long ago. Like the astoundingly impudent attack by the sugar industry on artificial sweeteners, Big Sugar’s war on fat has been a Big Lie. They have successfully displaced sugar’s own cancerous effects, seen in how insulin causes metabolic syndrome, onto innocent products such as saccharine and cyclamate.

As Taubes well explains, sugar and fat are digested very differently, meaning sugar causes diabetes and other noncommunicable conditions while dietary fat does not. The sugar industry has exploited the comfort food factor of its sweet poison, keying into our instinctive desires, while purveying the false but seductive psychological message that eating fat makes you fat. This whole dietary nutrition paradigm of fat restriction is wrong, and has been completely overturned in recent years.

As with other scientific paradigm shifts, those who have vested interests in the old false theory will not give up without a fight, and will remain in denial. The Case Against Sugar is a brilliant summation of the urgent need for dietary change, in the face of the concerted industrial assault that Big Sugar has waged on human health, and the great difficulty of removing its damage.

We can only hope that the information here leads to immediate policy changes of the same type that have been applied to tobacco. Governments should ban companies from advertising sugar products as healthy. They should increase tax on sugar, place health warnings on poisonous sugar drinks, and stop so-called health bodies from promoting sugar. More generally, the public must be informed that the fleeting pleasure of sweetness, especially in sugary drinks, comes at immense price to our health, happiness and prosperity.

LanDroid wrote:I don't know if BookTalk is ready for such a book. To gauge your reaction, you might check out Coates' latest article on Trump.
The First White President.

This is an excellent article. It certainly gives more than a glimpse into his writing style and political views.If you don't have time to read the full article, this paragraph near the end gives us a sense in which to view the Trump presidency and its possible implications for the future of the United States:

"The American tragedy now being wrought is larger than most imagine and will not end with Trump. In recent times, whiteness as an overt political tactic has been restrained by a kind of cordiality that held that its overt invocation would scare off “moderate” whites. This has proved to be only half true at best. Trump’s legacy will be exposing the patina of decency for what it is and revealing just how much a demagogue can get away with. It does not take much to imagine another politician, wiser in the ways of Washington and better schooled in the methodology of governance—and now liberated from the pretense of antiracist civility—doing a much more effective job than Trump."

I would be happy to discuss "The Case Against Sugar" as someone who has been sugar-free for about 9 months But I would also like to suggest my favorite non-fiction book, "Anatomy of Violence" by Adrian Raine. (I haven't figured out the coding yet https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009Y4I4R4/)

LanDroid wrote:I don't know if BookTalk is ready for such a book. To gauge your reaction, you might check out Coates' latest article on Trump.The First White President.

I agree with LevV. It is an "excellent article".

I have in the past considered Coates' to be a bit of a race-baiter in his writing. With what we have in the white house now, I consider Coates to be spot on.

I would be happy to join in on Tyson's book or Rovelli's book (astrophysics and physics), but I have a Scientific American level familiarity with most of that stuff already. So, okay, but not so enthusiastic.

I would love to have a discussion of Coates' "Between the World and Me."

I would be okay with Raine's "Anatomy of Violence." It sounds interesting and of current interest, even if a bit more focused than I would normally prefer.

Collection of Science and Nature Writing would also be fun.

Has the group looked at Hochschild's "Strangers in their Own Land"? Or "Hillbilly Elegy" by Vance? If not, I would love to go through either one.

Not the sugar book, but go ahead without me if you like.

Greetings all: I just became a new member of booktalk.org and I would like to promote my new book, My Real Hue, a memoir. I have been told by several publishers that the dominant theme in my book, i.e. becoming estranged from one's family, is not a common one. I've come to discover why.......family is sacred in this country and there is stigma about people who sever relations with their families. In my estimation, no matter how sacred family is viewed, there is no reason to let a toxic one ruin your life. I haven't seen or communicated with my family for almost 18 years and I have never been happier. I hope to make people who feel trapped in toxic families realize that they don't have to live that way and they do have options. Becoming estranged from your family is probably the most difficult thing that one can do in his or her life but the trade offs can be more well worth it than one can imagine. If you decide to read my book, I hope you enjoy it and would love to get your feedback. The link to my book is as follows: https://www.amazon.com/Real-Hue-Daniel- ... 1635688353

Thank you so much for inviting me into the group!!

Daniel Yves Eisner

You should read "On the Principles of Social Gravity" by Tobore Tobore. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/16227328 ... ref=plSrch.

Harry Marks wrote:. . . Or "Hillbilly Elegy" by Vance?

This is one of those books on my radar. It sounds like it would help me better understand, at least to some extent, the Trump phenomenon. David Brooks discusses this book in one of his columns.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/opin ... ubz=1&_r=0

What a great bunch of choices! I would be happy with almost any of them, but lean towards either Tyson or Rovelli. I have read a couple of Tyson's books, but not Rovelli's. I have a science background, but unfortunately, am not up to date. So...

Try reading "On the principles of Social Gravity"

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/16227328 ... ref=plSrch.

On the Principles of Social Gravity” proposes a radical new way of thinking about social systems. It explains that all social systems –institutions created of and for human beings e.g. healthcare system, family, military etc., – are held together or governed by nine principles or rules. Using these principles, it examined the problems facing the US healthcare system, criminal justice system, social security, student debt crisis, tax policies, immigration, the political system, and the United Nations. Then, provided novel and unique solutions to them.

It expands on the meaning of social entropy and explains how it affects all social systems. It explains new terms like social gravity, de-entropification, primary and secondary contributors, negative and positive homogeneity, positive and negative homogenous group, homogenization, etc. that many readers will find enlightening and very interesting. It is a book that is likely to spark national and even global discussions about many of the institutions we have created. It’s originality and usefulness makes it very likely that it will find a wide audience and many of its terms may become popular in the wider society.