FiveBooks Newsletter 130
Links to all our original FiveBooks interviews of the week before, plus a pick of the best content on The Browser.
FiveBooks weekly newsletter: Links to all our original FiveBooks interviews of the week before, plus a pick of the best content on The Browser.
(http://thebrowser.com)
FiveBooks at The Browser
FiveBooks News
Randall Grahm on Wine
Friday December 21
The Californian winemaker gives us a fabulously eclectic reading list for understanding and enjoying the world of wine
Continue reading… (http://thebrowser.com/interviews/randall-grahm-on-wine)
Richard Baum on Obstacles to Political Reform in China
Thursday December 20
The late China specialist and UCLA professor said sometimes he felt genuine admiration for China’s technocratic leaders. Other days he shook his head at their obsessive intransigence and China's endemic political insecurity Continue reading… (http://thebrowser.com/interviews/richard-baum-on-obstacles-political-reform-china)
David Edmonds on Ethical Problems
Wednesday December 19
Given the choice between allowing five people to die, and killing one person, what would you do? What is the utilitarian argument for vegetarianism? Should we be able to sell our kidneys? The philosopher suggests some answers Continue reading… (http://thebrowser.com/interviews/david-edmonds-on-ethical-problems)
Scott Turow on Legal Novels
Tuesday December 18
The author tells us about his favourite novels with legal themes and the issues of justice, morality and human mess they bring to light Continue reading… (http://thebrowser.com/interviews/scott-turow-on-legal-novels)
Vlatko Vedral on The Quantification of Everything
Monday December 17
The professor of quantum information theory at Oxford tells us about books that successfully popularise quantum physics and the science of complex systems. Look, no equations! Continue reading… (http://thebrowser.com/interviews/vlatko-vedral-on-quantification-everything)
(http://www.amazon.com/Best-of-FiveBooks-2011-ebook/dp/B007GAM6RC?tag=thebro-21)
Best of the Moment
Utopian For Beginners
Joshua Foer | New Yorker | 17 December 2012
John Quijada, a 54-year-old former employee of the California State Department of Motor Vehicles, invented a language, "Ithkuil". It's a monument to ingenuity and design. And then Ukrainian militants started showing an interest More like this (http://thebrowser.com/best)
Featured Topic
(http://thebrowser.com/reports/after-aurora)
Guns in America
How does one make sense of the killings in Newtown and Aurora? And will Americans, will President Obama do anything to stop it happening again? Read on (http://thebrowser.com/reports/after-aurora)
Book of the Week
Book of the Day
Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit
David Edmonds says (http://thebrowser.com/interviews/david-edmonds-on-ethical-problems) : “It’s beautifully written, incredibly thoughtful and well-argued, with fantastically imaginative thought experiments” FiveBooks Archive (http://thebrowser.com/fivebooks)
Video of the Week
The Mostly German Philosophers' Love Song
(http://thebrowser.com/videos/mostly-german-philosophers-love-song)
Does exactly what it says on the tin More videos (http://thebrowser.com/videos)
Quote of the Week
Michael Mauboussin, on skill (http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2012/12/investing?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/distinguishing_skill_from_luck)
"There's a quick and easy way to test whether an activity involves skill; ask whether you can lose on purpose"
More quotes (http://thebrowser.com/quotations)
Reader Recommendations
@henrylf The Thought Experiment That Proved Light Has A Speed Limit: @io9 on the de Sitter Effect t.co/abEmGSpG #browsings (https://twitter.com/search?q=#browsings) More like this (http://thebrowser.com/browsings)