All Reviews
Reviews are listed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent review appearing first in the list.
The Case against Education
About 75% of Americans favor more spending on education; about 5% favor less. In this thorough, hard-hitting book, Bryan Caplan, a professor of economics…
The Limits of the Self
Thomas Pradeu’s The Limits of the Self: Immunology and Biological Identity aims to reset the traditional boundaries of the organism and biologic…
The Smiling Man
Aidan Waits is a Manchester detective, working on the night shift with his partner Peter Sutcliffe. Together they make a dour pair, investigating the sor…
When Animals Speak
Animals speak, if only we would learn to listen – and learning to listen to them is a crucial first step to taking them seriously in democratic pol…
When She Returned
Some novels are gripping reads, even though you hate them all the way through. Lucinda Berry’s When She Returned has won a good amount of praise, and has…
A Scientific Search for Altruism
The question of whether altruism exists remains a central, if not foundational, issue for a number of disciplines, including philosophy (in particular, m…
A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventures
Let me start by quoting Professor Schwitzgebel’s preface: Preface “I enjoy writing short philosophical reflec…
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Ambivalence
The book is composed of preface, three parts, an appendix, bibliography, and an index. It contains a general introduction – the first chapter of the firs…
Can Animals Be Persons?
The status of nonhuman animals as persons has been the subject of intense debate over the last decades, especially since the dawn of the animal liberatio…
Character Strengths Interventions
This is a set of 50 character strength cards derived from the VIA Character Strengths. These character strengths were initially developed through t…
Psychology of Family Law
The psychology of family law, written by Eve M. Brank, is an informative read for those who are interested in understanding the often obscure re…
Risk and Reasoning in Clinical Diagnosis
Dr. Ryle, a practicing primary care physician, has written a book directed at other practicing physicians and the general public. His goal is to explicat…
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Ten Years a Nomad
Matt Kepnes tells the story of how he got into long term travel, going away for long periods of time, and never coming back for long. He has travelled fo…
The Fall of Language
Hovering over Alexander Stern’s ambitious volume about Walter Benjamin and Ludwig Wittgenstein on meaning is the thesis promoted by Charles Taylor’s 2016…
The Instrument of Science
Almost 60 years ago, Ernest Nagel concluded his meticulous discussion of the cognitive status of theories (The Structure of Science, 1961,…
The Medical Model in Mental Health
Samei Huda, the author of this book, a prolific tweeter @SameiHuda, is primarily a clinical psychiatrist rather than an academic. The book is written to…
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis
With The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (OHPP), Gipps and Lacewing present a rich and well-edited collection that st…
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The Rest of the Story
It is 10 years since I last read a Sarah Dessen book, and it is good to find that she is still a powerful story teller. This is her 14th title in the YA…
The Royal Baths Murder
Relishing in commentary about murder mysteries, The Royal Baths Murder is set at a book festival devoted to murder myste…
Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl
Jeannie Vanasco is a professor of English at Towson University. Things We Didn’t Talk About W…
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Too Close
It’s rare to find a great novel that has received almost no attention, but Too Close is amazingly good. It is a novel of extremely dar…
Understanding the Pelvis
Understanding the Pelvis is a short publication (<100 pp) that has the feel of a handbook. Ultimately, that’s exactly what it is,…
Watching You
I listened to this audiobook over the summer and enjoyed it, but forgot about it. I started listening again recently, and it took me at least half an hou…
Ways to be Blameworthy
For Elinor Mason, a major puzzle for normative ethics concerns how the responsibility concepts of praiseworthiness and blameworthiness are related to the…
Zaitoun
The cover of Zaitoun is beautiful and it will make you want to look inside. It turns out that the dishes that British author …