Recursion by Blake Crouch

Quite a good novel. Diverting and a fast read with a creative central theme dealing with the nature of memory, and what actually happens in our brains when an experience is "experienced."

The book also gets you thinking about how you might live your life if you had a chance to re-live it: what things you would do--or not do? And what would be the nature of your experience during that second go-around? Will you be grateful to live it again? Would it teach you that you aren't grateful enough right now, in this go-around of your life?

Speaking of gratitude: I'm grateful this writer doesn't have the flouncing, gamma "I've deliberately inserted something witty here my dear reader, can't you see how funny I am?" tone seen in certain modern sci-fi writers like John Scalzi or Andy Weir.

Finally, critics speak pejoratively about the Macguffin, an item or device used to move a story along--usually when it lacks momentum or direction of its own. The time travel used throughout Recursion is in some ways the mother of all Macguffins: just think what an author can do if he has time travel at his disposal: he can do anything he wants with the story, including giving the characters repeated do-overs! You can turn what's thought of as a literary crutch into your primary tool, if you're writer enough to get away with it.

(speaking of recursion...)

PS: if you're looking for some new fiction sources, read the acknowledgments: you can mine it for quite a few potentially good writers. See for example Helen Smith, Amor Towles (author of A Gentleman in Moscow), F. Paul Wilson, Joe Hart and John Shaw.

How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne

This book is a praxis: a set of real-world practices for navigating reality as it is, rather than how we wish it to be. The language is clear and direct, and the book aggregates into a highly robust and coherent work of practical, livable philosophy. Author Harry Browne developed this philosophy over the course of many years, and it's inspiring to hear him talk about his mistakes, his refinements in thinking over time, and the surprising and often liberating benefits that came his way as he followed his own practices. This author eats his own cooking, and the result is a generous gift to readers. This does not mean you'll agree with everything the author writes! In fact, Browne encourages readers to disagree with him as we sort out our specific values, rules and boundaries. He wants volitional readers, not readers looking to be told what to think and do. We'll come back to this idea. [A quick affiliate link to Amazon for those readers who would like to support my wor...

The Art of War in the Middle Ages by Charles Oman

A wonderful, information-dense book surveying the evolution of warfare across the Middle Ages, and a glorious starting point for readers to contextualize an enormous amount of European history. There's a great deal of historical knowledge here that author Charles Oman assumes in his readers. And so the very act of reading this book (and looking up the author's near-constant historical references) equates to a semester or two--at least--of upper-level undergrad European history. Read this book and spend some time looking things up. Then read several more books like this [1]. Pretty soon, enough osmosis happens such that the various battles and historical figures this author mentions casually will be things you start mentioning casually: Cannae, Adrianople, Brunanburh, Hastings, Robert Guiscard, Durazzo, Tours, Crecy, Agincourt, Arnold von Winkelried, Albrecht von Wallenstein, and so on. (This will be an inner monologue of course, because we all know how much every...

H.R. by Edwin Lefevre

I wouldn't recommend this odd book for its story. But H.R. is interesting for its social and psychological commentary on early 20th century New York society, as the Gilded Age gave way to the so-called Progressive Era. Edwin Lefevre is the author of Reminiscences of a Stock Operator , the famous (at least among investors) pseudobiography of Jesse Livermore. This book, in stark contrast, is a forgotten and comparatively forgettable work. But not totally forgettable. The reader watches the life arc of a young man who catapults himself across several caste barriers, starting as a frustrated New York City bank clerk who quits and, implausibly, starts a union of sandwich-board advertisers. He then uses this sandwich board advertising platform (you could think of it as an early 1900s "new media" platform) to gain influence throughout the city, ultimately parlaying his way into joining New York's social and economic elite. At its heart, this book is about power and influ...

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