All Reviews
Reviews are listed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent review appearing first in the list.
Crying in H Mart
Michelle Zauner is the main force behind the band Japanese Breakfast.Their first album was Psychopomp, 9 songs in just 25 minutes. It was released in 2016, soon after her mother died of cancer. One of the women on the album cover is her mother. Fans of th
Ignite Your Light
There is a new trend in wellness and self-improvement books on the shelves each telling us how to be successful in life and in our careers, how to bring meaning to our lives, what to do, what not to do, what to eat, what not to eat and so on. This new tre
Ars Erotica
Richard Shusterman first coined the term, “somaesthetics,” in the 1990s and wrote two book length studies of the concept: Body Consciousness (2008), and Thinking through the Body (2012). As he explains it in Ars Erotica, somaesthetics is “the critical st
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology
The Philosophy of Psychology, as a subject area, is not altogether easy to define. I can think of at least three ways that one might define it. First, as a branch of the Philosophy of Science: i.e., something like a second-order inquiry into the methodolo
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The Psychopath
Mary Turner Thomson published The Bigamist in 2007 (first with the title “The Other Mrs Jordan.”). It tells the story of her marriage to Will Jordan, a man from New Jersey. She was from Scotland. She had two children with him but then discovered that he w
The Last Bookshop in London
Action and Interaction
Overall, Action and Interaction is an engaging and empirically sophisticated book. Gallagher makes use of a wide array of literature on human social development, and so those who are interested in human action from developmental, psychological, and philos
With You All the Way
Ada is 16. She lives in San Francisco, California with her family: her mother, step-father, elder sister Afton and her 5 year old sister Abby. As the novel opens, she is at her boyfriend Leo’s place and he says they have the whole night along, so they can
Baseball Dreams, Fishing Magic
A talented pitcher and cocksure small-town kid with big dreams, Nick Grimes is certain his blazing fastball will send him straight to the Major Leagues. And he’s not the only one with big dreams. Jess, a young waitress who captures his heart, dreams of be
In Plain Sight
Marion Todd is a new figure in crime fiction. Her series featuring Detective Clare Mackay is nicely done. Mackay has recently moved to the university town of St Andrews, on the coast, just south of Dundee. She has moved to get away from her former world,
Body and Soul
In Body and Soul, Ellis Amdur gives us a profound understanding that therapy is first of all a dialogue where the therapist “attends to another.” Amdur’s 98 page book shows us the importance of existential and phenomenological psychology as it teaches us
The Price of Health
There are many books about why the pharmaceutical industry is in the state it is. The notable features are that a great many prices for medications are very high, and very few new notable medications are being developed. Instead, there is far more focus o
Information Hunters
This book tells a story that has not been told before. It tells the story of the many people who saved the documents, books and pictures produced by the Nazis in WWII. As the author tells us in the Prologue “This book grew our of a chance discovery of an
Pain and Prejudice
Gabrielle Jackson is an editor and writer for The Guardian in Australia. Pain and Prejudice addresses how the medical system has discriminated against women. There’s overlap with two other recent books, Sex Matters by Alyson J. McGregor and Doing Harm by
Just Words
The relationship between speech and harm is an intriguing and timely topic, presenting complex theoretical challenges with remarkable political implications. Although it is widely recognized that speech can be harmful in different ways, it is by far not u
Lost Boy
The best works of fiction reveal truths that are concealed by the often repressive and oppressive structures of culture. Ellis Amdur’s new book Lost Boy opens a portal into a horror-filled world where survival is a matter of skill, luck, resilience, co
Neuroethics
Neuroethics: Anticipating the Future, edited by Judy Illes gathers together a distinguished group of theorists and researchers to explore the critical issues raised by the field of neuroscience. The book is divided into four main sections. These are: 1. N
Combating Physican Burnout
When this book first appeared, in early 2020, just before news of the COVID epidemic emerged, this book about physician burnout seemed so timely. I never imagined that it could become even timelier, yet that has happened, yet again.
The Price of Peace
A 2006 poll, associated with George Mason University, posed a question. Which 20th century economist made the greatest contribution to the understanding of how economies work? John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was ranked number 1, defeating Friedrich Hayek,
House of Correction
“Nicci French” is the British husband and wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. Since 1997 they have written at least 24 crime novels together, plus several other books individually. House of Correction is a long book – over 500 pages and over 11 hours
Human Flourishing in an Age of Gene Editing
The issues raised in the volume are then multidisciplinary. These centre on tensions between the sciences and normative studies, in particular, recent and emerging issues in bioethics (especially prescient in a post-COVID world). Nonetheless, they are cru
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Search for Her
On first look, Search for Her might look like a regular mystery, formulaic and with massive implausibilities in the plot. But Jennifer Jill Araya’s performance of the audiobook shows that the novel is better read as a dark satire of contemporary life in A
The Searcher
Like Tana French’s previous novel, The Witch Elm, The Searcher is a standalone novel. French is best known for her Dublin Murder Squad series, and it seems that fans of that series may have a harder time with her standalone works. The Witch Elm was a tour
A Fatal Lie
It turns out that this is the 23rd volume in the Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries. I only discovered this after finishing the book — it does not give its own history away. It also turns out that author “Charles Todd” is actually two people, Charles Todd
Emotion
This pocket presentation of emotion includes Introduction, five chapters, Glossary, Bibliography, and Index. There are neither footnotes nor endnotes and to each chapter is appended a one-page Further Reading section.