Epic Rants and Raves

...19th century summer reading? How about Abe Lincoln’s favorite non-fiction book, An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, which tells the story of a crew shipwrecked and enslaved by a Saharan tribe (thank you Futility Closet for the tip on that one). And if you’re looking for more seafaring tales there’s always Two Years Before the Mast. Lastly, if you haven’t read Moby Dick, well, what can one say about a book that spends...

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New Slow City

...ven in the heart of the world’s “fastest” city. It’s a beautifully written book, and covers more ground than the previous sentence even begins to suggest. Read it. Bill is in the middle of a book tour right now, so I wanted to put up his schedule so you can catch him if he comes to your town. He’s an engaging speaker, so do get out and see him if you can. See his events page for details on each event. Wednesday, Sept 30 – SAN FRANCISCO Friday, Oct...

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How I Learned to Stop Hating and Love the Vegan Cheese

...on fermentation that will include his vegan cheese recipes. Look for that book next year. In the meantime you can enjoy his two previous books, The New Wildcrafted Cuisine: Exploring the Exotic Gastronomy of Local Terroir and The Wildcrafting Brewer: Creating Unique Drinks and Boozy Concoctions from Nature’s Ingredients. On that second book–Pascal brought some of his home concocted beer to the class and it was delicious. His brewing method is sim...

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063 New Slow City with William Powers

...ld Policy Institute and is on the adjunct faculty of New York University. In addition to his books he writes for the Washington Post and the Atlantic. During the podcast we discuss: micro-apartment living living in Liberia and Bolivia Josef Pieper book Leisure the Basis of Culture 350 Vicki Robin’s book Your Money or Your Life David Abram’s book The Spell of the Sensuous John De Graaf If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast ple...

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The Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour

...ding, The Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour. The central thesis of the book is that we are all writing more than we ever have in history in the form of tweets, Facebook updates, texts, emails etc. Seymour contends, however, that we are not so much writing as being written by the platforms we use and that we all have a propensity for trolling and narcissism that tech companies exploit with a kind of algorithmic agnosticism. Seymour chronicles t...

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