Tag Archives: Book

There is too much internet and our attempts to keep up with the breakneck pace of, well, everything these days — it is breaking our brains.

By Andrew Tarantola | @terrortola | March 5, 2023 10:30 AM

Parsing through the deluge of inundating information hoisted up by algorithmic systems built to maximize engagement has trained us as slavering Pavlovian dogs to rely on snap judgements and gut feelings in our decision-making and opinion formation rather than deliberation and introspection.

Which is fine when you’re deciding between Italian and Indian for dinner or are waffling on a new paint color for the hallway, but not when we’re out here basing existential life choices on friggin’ vibes.

In his latest book, I, HUMAN: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique, professor of business psychology and Chief Innovation Officer at ManpowerGroup, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic explores the myriad ways that AI systems now govern our daily lives and interactions.

From finding love to finding gainful employment to finding out the score of yesterday’s game, AI has streamlined the information gathering process. But, as Chamorro-Premuzic argues in the excerpt below, that information revolution is actively changing our behavior, and not always for the better.

Source: Hitting the Books: AI is making people think faster, not smarter | Engadget

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Love & Relationships, Pleasures, Science & Health

Gillian Anderson is curating a book about sex and wants your anonymous stories | Mashable

February 6, 2023 DrWeb

“What do you think about when you think about sex?”

By Rachel Thompson on February 1, 2023

*Gillian Anderson attends “The Crown” Season 5 premiere in November 2022 in London. Credit: Samir Hussein / Contributor*

Gillian Anderson wants to talk about sex. Your innermost fantasies and fears.

Who you’re sleeping with.

To be clear, the Sex Education star (who plays sex therapist Dr. Jean Milburn in the Netflix show), wants you to write her an anonymous letter all about sex for a “generation-defining book”.

Announced on Wednesday, the project is currently called Dear Gillian and the book will be published by Bloomsbury.

Source: Gillian Anderson is curating a book about sex and wants your anonymous stories | Mashabl e

Arts & Humanities, Current Affairs, Memories & History, Music

Linda Ronstadt on her new book ‘Feels Like Home’ : NPR

October 10, 2022 DrWeb

Published October 8, 20228:00 AM ET, Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday, Scott Simon Twitter

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Ronstadt*

NPR’s Scott Simon speaks to singer Linda Ronstadt about her new book, “Feels Like Home,” which looks back at her family’s deep Southwestern roots.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Linda Ronstadt’s “Feels Like Home” is an album of loves for the high desert of Sonora and her hometown of Tucson, shown through photos by Bill Stein and pages of her own recollections of family and friends and even – or maybe that’s especially – recipes that bring family and friends together with echoes of each other.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “IT’S SO EASY”)

LINDA RONSTADT: (Singing) It’s so easy to buy love. It’s so easy to fall in love. People tell me love’s for fools. Here I go, breaking all the rules. It seems so easy. It’s so easy. It’s so easy. Yeah.

SIMON: That’s just one of her 38 bestselling singles over a career that encompasses 24 albums, Grammy Awards, honors and big-time collaborators. “Feels Like Home” is written in collaboration with Lawrence Downes. And Linda Ronstadt joins us now. Thank you so much for being with us.

RONSTADT: Thank you for having me.

SIMON: I am dazzled by your description of what the sun feels like in Sonora.

RONSTADT: Feels like needles.

SIMON: Just really bores into you, doesn’t it?

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item…

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/08/1127631118/linda-ronstadt-on-her-new-book-feels-like-home

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Food & Drink, Memories & History, Television

Unauthorized Anthony Bourdain Biography Publishes His Final Texts

October 10, 2022 DrWeb

“I hate my fans, too. I hate being famous. I hate my job,” Bourdain wrote to his ex-wife, Ottavia Busia-Bourdain.

By Brady Langmann, Published: Sep 27, 2022

*From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bourdain*

More than four years have passed since the death of Anthony Bourdain, who died by suicide in June 2018 while on location in France filming his CNN series, Parts Unknown. Since then, questions about his death have fueled explorations of the late chef’s life and work, from the documentary film, Roadrunner, to Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography, both released last year.

On October 11, we’ll see the release of what’s reportedly the first unauthorized biography of Bourdain: Charles Leerhsen’s Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain, published by Simon & Schuster. On Tuesday, The New York Times published a preview of the book, which details Leerhsen’s reporting of the biography, many of the sources who spoke to the author for the book (and some who refused), and texts Bourdain sent in his final days. According to the Times, Bourdain’s family is already unhappy with the book, with his brother, Christopher, emailing the publisher in August, “calling the book hurtful and defamatory fiction, and demanding that it not be released until Mr. Leerhsen’s many errors were corrected.”

Source: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a41412445/anthony-bourdain-unauthorized-biography-texts/

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Love & Relationships, Politics, Religion & Spirit, Science & Health, Times They Are A-Changing

American boys and men are suffering — and our culture doesn’t know how to talk about it | Salon.com

September 18, 2022 DrWeb

Author Richard Reeves explains why he thinks terms like “toxic masculinity” are “profoundly unhelpful”

By Mary Elizabeth Williams, Senior Writer, Published September 16th, 2022, 4:00PM (EDT)

**Sad Boy (Getty Images / Sian Cox / EyeEm)**

Our men and boys are in trouble. In the U.S., nearly four times more likely than women to die by suicide. They have more emergency department visits and deaths due to overdoses.

They are less likely to receive treatment for mental health issues. They have a lower rate of participation in the workforce. They are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and autism. They are more likely than females to drop out of high school, and the ones who do go on to college are less likely than their female peers to graduate. They are barraged with constant and conflicting messages about what it means to be a man, and the consequences of failing to live up to other people’s ideas about modern masculinity can be severe. And all of this is difficult to talk about because the simultaneous culture of misogyny and the war on women’s rights is so intense, it has created a zero sum game expectation around our basic humanity.

But acknowledging the crisis in males takes nothing from the ground women are fighting to gain. And accepting that gender is only one element in a social strata that is also incredibly unbalanced around race and class is the only useful way forward for all of us.

In his provocative new book “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It,” Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard V. Reeves peels back the misconceptions that are holding back meaningful gender equity, shows how both liberals and conservatives have made existing divides even worse, and offers simple, practical solutions for a brighter, more balanced future for all of us and our kids.

Source: https://www.salon.com/2022/09/16/american-boys-and-men-are-suffering-and-our-culture-doesnt-know-how-to-talk-about-it/

Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Love & Relationships, Memories & History, Politics, Science & Health, Times They Are A-Changing

How to Get Men to Share the Mental Load – The Atlantic

July 3, 2022 DrWeb

In many households, men think like helpers and women think like managers. A gender expert’s new book suggests ways for couples to escape that dynamic.

By Joe Pinsker, June 28, 2022

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.

One of the exasperating features of everyday gender inequality is that couples can be aware of imbalances in doing housework, state a dislike of them, and yet fall right into them anyway.

The discrepancy shows up most obviously in the amount of time men and women spend on tasks such as cleaning and caregiving, including when both work full-time.

Yet even many couples who pride themselves on a fair distribution of duties aren’t so balanced when it comes to carrying the harder-to-quantify “mental load,” the taxing work of managing a household and anticipating its many needs.

(Same-sex couples tend to be more egalitarian, but can end up in lopsided arrangements as well.)

Today, men in different-sex relationships contribute more than they did in the 1960s and ’70s (a low bar), but often take on a “helper” role under the “manager” role of their female partner, who’s saddled with noticing what must be done.

The job of noticing is a recurring theme of Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home, a new book by Kate Mangino, a gender expert who works with international nonprofits. Mangino is aware of how American society could be made more equitable among genders—say, with paid parental leave and universally affordable child care. But she recognizes that individual couples have households to oversee now, and offers tactics for couples to bust out of that irksome helper/manager dynamic.

Source: How to Get Men to Share t he Mental Load – The Atlantic

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There is too much internet and our attempts to keep up with the breakneck pace of, well, everything these days — it is breaking our brains.

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“What do you think about when you think about sex?”

For Sharing

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“I hate my fans, too. I hate being famous. I hate my job,” Bourdain wrote to his ex-wife, Ottavia Busia-Bourdain.

For Sharing

Author Richard Reeves explains why he thinks terms like “toxic masculinity” are “profoundly unhelpful”

For Sharing

In many households, men think like helpers and women think like managers. A gender expert’s new book suggests ways for couples to escape that dynamic.

For Sharing

all things library and life.. from a librarian