Reading Lists

Nexus, Harari’s Next Book

With Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari changed the way humans think about history. With that framework in place, the historian-philosopher turned our attention to what happens next in Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Now, I’m looking forward to his upcoming book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.

From the book blurb:

“Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.”

Release date September 10. Pre-order now.

Disclaimer: The links on this page go to Bookshop.org, of which Stephen is an affiliate. All book sales made through Bookshop.org directly benefit independent bookstores, and when you click through and make a purchase, Stephen earns a commission. Thank you for your support.

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Bookshop Gift Cards

Looking for a gift for a book lover? It’s difficult to know what book they might enjoy. Plus, most book lovers already have a whole slew of titles on their To-Be-Read list. A gift card is often the best solution.

Now you can send a gift card and support independent bookstores with Bookshop gift cards!

Bookshop gift cards never expire and have no hidden fees. All book sales made through Bookshop directly benefit independent bookstores.

A Peregrine Reads is Stephen’s storefront on Bookshop. When you click through and make a purchase from Bookshop’s extensive catalog, Stephen earns a commission. What’s more, you select which independent bookstore gets the profit from your purchase. Thank you for your support.

Bookshop Gift Cards

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Your Local Independent Bookstore: Online!

“Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores.”—Bookshop.org

Exciting news for book lovers: You can buy books online and get them delivered to you in a couple days—just like buying on Amazon. But it isn’t Amazon—it’s your local brick-and-mortar independent bookstore.

“We believe that bookstores are essential to a healthy culture. They’re where authors can connect with readers, where we discover new writers, where children get hooked on the thrill of reading that can last a lifetime. They’re also anchors for our downtowns and communities.”—Bookshop.org

The Bookshop.org About page explains very well how it works in a dozen sentences, five of which I quote here. Below I summarize the essentials.

Shop online

You browse the Bookshop.org book catalog or find the book you want using the search bar. At check-out, you tell Bookshop.org which independent bookstore* gets credit for the sale.

*To avoid confusion, I use “Bookshop.org” to refer to the online store and the term “bookstore(s)” to refer to the brick-and-mortar shops we know and love.

“By design, we give away over 75% of our profit margin to stores, publications, authors and others who make up the thriving, inspirational culture around books!”—Bookshop.org

Independent bookstores

Bookshop.org distributes 10% of regular sales to independent bookstores every six months. Currently, the amount is over $7 million.

What’s more, an independent bookstore can become an affiliate, promoting and selling books online through Bookshop.org with affiliate links. In which case, the bookstore earns 30% of sales generated through its affiliation, which is the entire profit margin—Bookshop.org doesn’t make any money from these sales.

All the books

Bookshop.org gets its catalog from Ingram Content Group, a major US book distributor, which is used by most US publishers. So, you can find books from the “Big 5” publishers, like Simon & Schuster and Random House, to mid-size and small presses, and even from clever self-published authors, yours truly among them, who distribute their books through Ingram.

Print-on-demand and delivery

The bookstore doesn’t do anything more than promote the book. Bookshop.org provides the online interface, and when you place an order, Ingram prints the book and ships it to you.

International

In January 2020 Bookshop.org got started in the US.1,2 They plan to be fully operational in the UK by Christmas3, and they aim to offer similar support for independent bookstores worldwide4.

Centralized

Ingram does all the material work, and they get paid for it, as they should. Printing and shipping costs are included in the price of any printed book we buy anywhere.

Still, Ingram Content Group is a large organization and a subsidiary of an even larger company, Ingram Industries, which earned over $2 billion in 20145—compared to Amazon’s $280 billion (2019)6.

Future awesomeness?

Maybe I’m dreaming here, but wouldn’t it be awesome if our local independent print shops could print books on-demand? I’m guessing it comes down to economics. When the local demand for print-on-demand comes up to meet the cost of the print machine, such as an Espresso Book Machine, small print shops around the world might replace the centralized printer.

By providing the platform, Bookshop.org may be an important step to making the dream a reality. By buying books from our local independent bookstores online, we provide the demand. We make the future awesome.

Bookshop - Support Local Bookstores

1 This Startup Wants to Help Indie Booksellers Take on Amazon

2 The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Changing How People Buy Books

3 Bookshop Opens in the U.K.

4 Bookshop.org FAQ

5 Ingram Industries

6 Amazon

 

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The Strange Case of Monsieur Bertin

I subscribe to writers’ newsletters to see how they do it, to incorporate aspects I like into my own. One of my favorites is Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Pendergast File. It’s informative, concise, and infrequent. Each issue also contains an extra something for the reader.

In June, current subscribers receive a short story that delves into the past of one of Preston and Child’s most loved characters: A. X. L. Pendergast, FBI Special Agent and main character of the Pendergast novels. “The Strange Case of Monsieur Bertin,” which Douglas Preston describes as “not so ‘short’ at all,” goes out to The Pendergast File subscribers in June.

If you enjoy a good thriller and haven’t yet encountered Agent Pendergast, this is an opportunity to meet him. And if you like him, as I do, a growing series of page-turning novels is in your future.

To get the story, subscribe to The Pendergast File before June 1.

Relic - Preston and Child
Cover of Relic, the first novel in which Pendergast appears.

 

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links to Bookshop. All book sales made through Bookshop directly benefit independent bookstores. As a Bookshop affiliate, Stephen earns a commission when you click through and make a purchase. Thank you for your support.

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Learn How to Learn

“Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.”—proverb

Learning How to LearnNow you can learn how to learn from a book! Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens is available in Kindle, paperback, and audio CD.

First, it was a free Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) on Coursera offered by the University of California, San Diego. When I followed the second session in early 2015, it was a four-week course. Each week I watched a series of short lectures by Drs. Barb Oakley and Terry Sejnowski, an educator and a neuroscientist respectively, about the human brain, how it learns, and how I could more easily turn instruction into knowledge.

Then, Coursera turned it into an always-available, self-paced course. Still free and with the same content, you can sign up any time and follow the lectures as your schedule allows.

Since taking the class, I use what I learned in Learning How to Learn every day, and I recommend it to everyone, no matter your age, no matter how smart I think you are already.

Find out how exercise and sleep clean your brain and help make new brain cells (at any age!), how and when to use different modes of thinking to solve problems more easily (did you know there are different modes of thinking?), how to let your subconscious do some of the work for you (that lazy bastard!), and my personal favorite, how to beat procrastination!

Ranked the most popular online course of all time by Online Course Report, at the end of its first year it had over a million students enrolled.

In a 2015 interview for the New York Times, Dr. Sejnowski said the course’s completion rate was more than 20 percent, two times better than the average MOOC.

This week, Drs. Oakley and Sejnowski, with Alistair McConville, released Learning How to Learn in book form, aimed at children aged 10 to 17, parents, and teachers.

In their “Cheery Greetings” newsletter this week, Barb and Terry wrote:

“In some ways, this seemingly simple book goes deeper into how we learn than even our MOOC Learning How to Learn. You’ll find that this is also a great book to read together as a family. And you’ll see that even if your children are in the toddler stage, you’ll get some powerful insights on learning that will help you guide your kids in their learning as they mature.”

For adults who wonder if you've still got it in the attic, take the free self-paced course or get the book. You'll see that your neurons are in better shape than you might think, and you'll learn how to make them even better.

Give yourself a gift of learning you’ll use for the rest of your life; give your kids a gift they’ll use for all of theirs.

Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens by Barbara Oakley, PhD, Terrence Sejnowski, PhD, and Alistair McConville, New York: TarcherPerigee 2018
Kindle | Paperback | Audio CD

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From Here to Paris

From Here to ParisLaid off from his Silicon Valley job, Cris Hammond bought an old barge in the south of France. He and his wife, Linda, brought it along rivers and canals all the way to Paris. You can read an account of the entire voyage in the book Cris wrote about the experience. You'll also learn about the Phaedra, an adorable 1920's Dutch barge. From Here to Paris is an entertaining ride through the locks and canals of southern France. Bill Bryson might have titled it, Up the River.

For this weekend's adventure, "Here" is the Port of Cergy. End of last spring, I went with Cris and crew to take the Phaedra from Paris to her summer berth 40 nautical miles down the winding course of the Seine. Summer's over and Cris is back in wine and cheese country. So I'm helping him with the return trip.

We have a fueling operation today. If all goes well, I hope we'll have time to visit Auvers-sur-Oise. Back in the 1860's, one of the Barbizon painters, Charles Daubigny, went up there and attracted his own group of landscape artists. Van Gogh was one. Though he lived there for only a few months before his death.

Cris and I will spend the night like sailors in port, then we cast off tomorrow for the voyage to the Port de l'Arsenal at Bastille. Cris will pilot, of course. I'm navigator. Navigator, in this case, is a big word for counting bridges and making sure the river is flowing the right direction. I get to look at the map, though, so I'm okay with that.

The Phaedra, Port de l'Arsenal

Phaedra, Port de l'Arsenal, Bastille, Paris, June 2016

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James A. Owen’s Meditations Trilogy

Every now and again as we go through life, something comes along to change the way we look at it. It might be a book we read or something someone says to us or a mountain-top revelation that gives us a fleeting glimpse of something bigger than we might have imagined or had ever thought possible.

Those who make miracles happenThat happened to me again last month when I heard this guy's talk at a seminar. James A. Owen is a graphic artist who has had some tough breaks in his own life. By tough breaks, I mean life-threatening breaks and breaks that might have been career-ending for a normal human. Despite multiple challenges, James is still living and he's still an artist.

Among other works, he makes graphic novels for children. When his publisher sends him out to talk to kids about his books, he talks instead about some of the obstacles he has faced, how he overcame them and what lessons he learned from the experience.

Lessons like: What we really need in life is for someone to believe in us, someone who will support us, someone who will catch us when we fall.

Lessons like: If you really want to do something, no one can stop you. But if you really don't want to do something, no one can help you.

That's the talk I heard and when I heard James tell his story, I didn't get just a fleeting glimpse of something bigger; I got a panoramic view. And it wasn’t fleeting, the view is persistent. A door opened and I stepped through it.

I see now, in very real, concrete terms, that life is not a straight line that we have to go through. It's a wide open field that we get to explore. And if we really want to do that, we just have to recognize and acknowledge our fears — those fears that keep us going along the obligatory straight line — then pluck up our courage and believe in ourselves to overcome those fears and strike out on our own. We also have to believe in, encourage and support the people we choose to go exploring with. Because those people will believe in us, they'll support us, and they'll catch us when we fall.

That's what heroes do. And we can all be heroes, if we really want to.

James has been giving that talk for several years now. A few years ago he wrote it all down in a book of meditations, called Drawing out the Dragons, which is available in paperback and ebook. Since then, he has written two more books of meditations, The Barbizon Diaries and The Grand Design. These last two have previously only been available in ebook.

James is currently running a kickstarter project to put out all three books in a nice hardcover set. At different reward levels you can get one, two or all three of them for a reasonable price.

Through Monday, you can download all three ebooks for free on Amazon (links above). Have a look at them and consider supporting James's kickstarter: The Meditations Trilogy.

And if you ever get a chance to go hear James speak, do go — and take your kids. He's a great guy to go exploring with.

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