I Read Many Things

Tag: Non-Fiction

  • Invisible Women : Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, par Caroline Criado Pérez (fr)

    Avant de lire ce livre, je croyais être un homme particulièrement attentif et préoccupé par les nombreux défis que rencontrent les femmes au quotidien. Tant dans ma vie personnelle que dans le monde professionnel, la vaste majorité des gens qui partagent mon quotidien sont des femmes. Je suis donc assez conscient des normes sociales qui…

  • A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking

    For someone who has read dozens of science books in the past few years, it might be a bit surprising to hear that I hadn’t read Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time” before now. It’s widely considered to be one of the most influential science books – destined to the public – ever written.   Clearly…

  • Faites-les Lire! par Michel Desmurget

    Nul ne sera surpris d’apprendre que je défends avec grande ardeur la lecture comme activité intellectuelle de premier plan. Non seulement j’enseigne à des enfants (de 6 à 9 ans) qui sont en plein dans le processus d’apprentissage de la lecture, du décodage à la compréhension, mais ce présent article est publié sur un blog…

  • Three Ring Circus, by Jeff Pearlman

    I don’t usually write about sports books on this blog, even if they’re a staple of my reading habits. It’s a very niche genre and your average reader is not going to be interested in them, even sports fans. However, this one hit a bit different for a few reasons. First, while the book’s title…

  • 2024 Year in Review

    Here’s a quick recap of the 72 books I’ve read in 2024. Some stats were picked on Goodreads, and from a quick peek they seem a bit incomplete, but it’s still a good summary of the year. As far as rankings go, I’ve decided to exclude re-reads. Non-Fiction books : 45 Fiction books : 27…

  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

    While browsing on various reading forums to get new ideas for future reads, I often came across mentions of this book. Finding the title intriguing by itself, I looked it up online and learned that it was about some extremely resilient cancer cells – called HeLa, for Henrietta Lacks – able to reproduce at a…

  • All Hell Let Loose : The World at War 1939-1945, by Max Hastings

    There’s an expression in French where we describe a relatively small but thick and dense book as a “pavé”, a word that could be translated to “paving stone” or “slab”. That was exactly the word my wife used when she saw me reading this. It’s quite a massive book, but it’s absolutely worth it if…

  • L’Univers à Portée de Main, par Christophe Galfard

    Je suis tombé sur ce livre un peu par hasard dans une petite boutique de livres usagés. Je ne connaissais pas l’auteur, mais ma curiosité et mon amour pour la vulgarisation scientifique m’ont conduit à le “googler” rapidement dans la rangée. Christophe Galfard est un physicien théorique français qui a étudié sous Stephen Hawking à…

  • Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande

    One of the most vivid childhood memories I have revolves around death. Not the death of a loved one or a pet or anything dramatic. One day, at 8 years of age, I simply became aware of the concept of death. I won’t go into the details, but I can tell you it was extremely…

  • The Story of English, by Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil & William Cran

    All languages are fascinating. That much is quite obvious for anyone who has ever stopped and thought about it for a second. With a relatively small quantity of sounds – 44 in English, 36 in French – or small curvy lines on a piece of paper (or screen, in this case), we can communicate anything.…