Brian

This book is impossible to categorize, summarize or write a simple description of, but I'll try anyway.
Infinite Jest takes place in in a dystopian near future. A future where to help alleviate budget shortfalls, the naming rights to every year are up for auction to the highest bidder. The story mostly takes place in “The Year of Depend Adult Undergarment” (YDAU) at a tennis academy. But the story isn't really about tennis, or the new political structure of the Organization of North American States, or film theory or any of the other wide ranging topics that the book covers. It seems to mostly about horrible, substance addicted broken people not really getting by, just kinda dragged along the road of life, leaving a bloody trail as they go.

Infinite Jest is wonderfully written but horrible. It's very funny and funk inducing. Very much worth the read if you can bear it.

Good overview of what's wrong with math education in the US, and what can be done to fix it. The writing and structure of the book could be better. If you are willing to dig in and take the time to go through the notes and referenced works it's an excellent resource. I was reading this as a parent and that's not really the focus of the book but it's still relevant for those wanting to raise math loving kids.

A Manual for Creating Atheists offers a practical perspective on how best to talk to people about faith and religion. Unlike other recent authors (Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins etc..) Boghossian's book concentrates on how to separate people from their faith and not just why it's a good idea. I'm excited to try out Boghossian's methods as he makes an excellent case for why they are effective and I'm expecting them to be superior to my former techniques. The main thing that I'll be doing differently is only addressing faith as a bad system of knowledge (via the socratic method) and avoiding the specifics of any religion or claim. Boghossian isn't the best writer of all time, but his writing doesn't get in the way of his message. I did find the unelaborated references to classic philosophy to be a little off-putting. A long list of greeks doesn't really help me.

Overall I enjoyed it and it's given me a bunch of new tools for dealing with the faithful.

This is what journalism should be about, telling a story from a different perspective and digging into the details. Most reporting on education is pathetically superficial and simply rehashes the common narrative. Amanda Ripley takes on the topic with analytical rigor and good personal story telling. This isn't a wishy washy book lamenting the state of United States failing school system. It's full of hope and actionable information on what makes schools good and what doesn't. Ripley does dispel with most of the normal excuses given for why the US does so poorly like poverty, diversity, etc. While these are factors they aren't the main problem.

The main takeaways are that good education systems:

1) Expect a great deal from their students, regardless of background. They don't care about self esteem, just results.
2) Are very selective about teacher quality. In Finland you have to be in the top of your class to go to school for education.
3) Have a consistant curriculum that covers less but much more thoroughly.
4) Have fewer test and less homework.
5) Don't put students into different tracks (gifted, vocational etc), or do so much later.
5) Don't spend much on technology. Plain blackboards and good teachers are what's needed.

There is also a good deal of history on how those school systems got to be where they are and what they are like today. The stories from the exchange students are particularly good bits of data.

If you care about education, this is an important book worth reading.