BookTalk.org

What non-fiction book would you like to read and discuss, as a group, in December and January?

Please only make suggestions if you have 25 or more posts on our forums AND you plan to actually participate in the book discussion.

Give us the title, author and maybe a review or your own explanation for why you think your non-fiction book suggestion would be great for our December 2011 and January 2012 discussion.

Again, don't make suggestions if you don't have 25 or more posts on our forums.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slo ... 93ACAPET5P

In the highly anticipated Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.

“Daniel Kahneman is among the most influential psychologists in history and certainly the most important psychologist alive today. He has a gift for uncovering remarkable features of the human mind, many of which have become textbook classics and part of the conventional wisdom. His work has reshaped social psychology, cognitive science, the study of reason and of happiness, and behavioral economics, a field that he and his collaborator Amos Tversky helped to launch. The appearance of Thinking, Fast and Slow is a major event.” —Steven Pinker, Harvard College Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works and The Better Angels of our Nature

“This book is a tour de force by an intellectual giant; it is readable, wise, and deep. Buy it fast. Read it slowly and repeatedly. It will change the way you think, on the job, about the world, and in your own life.” —Richard Thaler, University of Chicago Professor of Economics and co-author of Nudge

“Daniel Kahneman is one of the most original and interesting thinkers of our time. There may be no other person on the planet who better understands how and why we make the choices we make. In this absolutely amazing book, he shares a lifetime’s worth of wisdom presented in a manner that is simple and engaging, but nonetheless stunningly profound. This book is a must read for anyone with a curious mind.” —Steven D. Levitt, William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago; co-author of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics.

Excellent suggestion, Dexter. And Steven Pinker endorses this one. Thank you!

I try my hardest to be a System 2 thinker as much as possible but sometimes I slip.

Chris, can we take a look back at some of the books that were proposed for the last read. I remember that there were some good nominees last time that we might want to reconsider.

Yes, we certainly can. Do you want to look through them and post the ones you personally liked.

I don't think we should just grab them all because the people that suggested them may no longer be active and may not plan to participate. It would be better if we only grabbed the ones that we personally like. Anyone can go to older suggestion threads and repost past book suggestions.

I think that Chris proposed this book for our last read. I think it should be nominated again, so here it is.

Death by China: Confronting the Dragon - A Global Call to Action by Peter W. Navarro and Greg Autry

Book Description
China is now the #1 danger facing America. Best-selling author and economist Peter Navarro exposes every form of "death by China"—from lethal products to espionage, imperialism, and nuclear proliferation through China's relentless attack on the U.S. economy. A must-read book for every American, by the best-selling author of The Coming China Wars.

China is now the greatest threat to America.

Soon to be the world’s largest economy, China is attacking on every front, with every available weapon—from protectionism and currency manipulation to cyber attacks and espionage. Around the globe, China is also doing whatever it takes to capture crucial resources—even if it means promoting nuclear proliferation by the world’s most dangerous regimes. Inside the United States, Americans are being injured or killed by the Dragon’s dangerous exports: poisoned food, spiked drugs, toxic toys. Meanwhile, huge U.S. corporations have allied with China’s state-owned enterprises to destroy American manufacturing—and, ultimately and ironically, destroy themselves.

It’s an incredible and incredibly shameful story, and Death by China tells it all. But understanding the reality of China’s assault on America is only the beginning. Leading economists Peter Navarro and Greg Autry offer a complete plan for surviving the global power shift China has already engineered—and halting the Dragon’s onslaught before it’s too late.

I nominated this one last time and now propose it again. I thought that we had several very interesting nominations last time. If any of you who did nominate would like to bring your book up again for consideration, please do so.

"Life As Politics" by Asaf Bayat.
"Life as Politics provides a strategy through which to recognize the multiple ways that large numbers of urban residents across the Arab World deploy common practices to reshape the everyday conditions of urban life and re-socialize prevailing institutions of governance. Bayat tunnels across the familiar demarcations of territory, social attribution, and political identity to detail collective forces of 'ordinary people' using assumptionsof shared interests and background to implicitly act in concert, and without self-conscious mobilization. Instituting themselves in urban public spaces with the courage to act despite constraint, these forces materialize incremental openings and opportunities for residents to demonstrate ways in which disparate facets of life can be assembled, particularly through thediverse ways in which Islam is put to work. As such this is an enormously valuable contribution to how we think about urban life and what it ispossible to do with it."—AbdouMaliq Simone, Goldsmiths, University of London
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Politics-Ord ... 972&sr=1-1

Where is everyone? We have very few people participating in this book suggestion thread.

Hi Chris. We are only one third of the way through Arguably by Christopher Hitchens, and I would prefer we keep it as the only non-fiction book for December.

The book proposed earlier which I think would be best for January-February is Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Amazon wrote: http://www.amazon.com/Infidel-Ayaan-Hir ... 0743289684

Book Description
Publication Date: February 6, 2007
Ayaan Hirsi Ali captured the world’s attention with Infidel, her coming-of-age memoir, which spent thirty-one weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of today’s most admired and controversial political figures. She burst into international headlines following the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist who threatened she would be next; and she made headlines again when she was stripped of her citizenship and forced to resign from the Dutch Parliament.

Infidel shows the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished—and sometimes reviled—political superstar and champion of free speech—the development of her beliefs, iron will, and extraordinary determination to fight injustice done in the name of religion. Raised in a strict Muslim family, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female circumcision, brutal beatings, an adolescence as a devout believer, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four countries under dictatorships. She escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she fought for the rights of Muslim women and the reform of Islam, earning her the enmity of reactionary Islamists and craven politicians.

http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-U ... 768&sr=8-1

A People's History of the United States (P.S.) [Paperback]

A classic since its original landmark publication in 1980, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is the first scholarly work to tell America’s story from the bottom up—from the point of view of, and in the words of, America’s women, factory workers, African Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. From Columbus to the Revolution to slavery and the Civil War—from World War II to the election of George W. Bush and the “War on Terror”—A People’s History of the United States is an important and necessary contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history.




I think this may be worth reading to push ourselves in the direction of the new enlightenment.