Leebeck USA

It may be worth reading for the handful of anecdotes about the Justices, but maybe not. Toobin's writing style is not very fresh. Also, the psychology is simple, and his legal and political analysis is not very interesting. I was expecting more than a Democrat's psychology-injected play-by-play of d ... (continue)

I like the personalities, the food wisdom, perspective, and humor. Not so great were the passages where Buford tries to write scholarly history. It's 30% too long, but I recommend it.

I like the author's chatty but erudite style. The chapters on Christian and Bohemian solutions to status anxiety are especially enlightening. Sprinkled throughout the book are some really great quotations from philosophers and aphorists. I'm going to read more of his stuff.

I like these Nietzschean genealogies of influencial ideas---liberalism in this case. It's pleasantly upsetting to consider the contingency and incoherence of the projects to which we're most committed. (Beware the sections that are heavy on analytic word-chopping, though.)

A very gentle, subtle, and slow history of and introduction to the basic notions and controversies of probability theory. I am always interested to hear what Hacking has to say, but I picked this particular book up to get some grasp on Bayesian school of probability. The intro to Bayes was short, bu ... (continue)

Deep, humorous, eclectic, and convincing---this is my favorite kind of philosophy reading.

My introduction to serious, from-the-ground-up, rigorous mathematics. It was used as a textbook for an undergrad course in real analysis I took. Highly recommended. I cannot say I understood any higher courses in math with the same clarity.