Overview Just Mercy chronicles preeminent attorney Bryan Stevenson’s fight against injustice in America’s legal system. The focal point of the work is the case of Walter McMillian, a black man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman in Monroeville, Alabama. Stevenson intersperses Walter’s tale with chapters focusing on […]
Author: Parker
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Overview To begin with, this is probably the most difficult book I’ve ever read. It’s extremely academic and required note-taking to understand. If you decide to read Capital, keep that in mind. Nevertheless, it’s intriguing, well-thought-out (it took fifteen years to write) and somewhat provocative. We all have heard about the dangers of skyrocketing income and […]
The Handmaid’s Tale
The South by Southwest Conference and Festivals (SXSW) is happening in Austin this week and a group of handmaids has been marching throughout downtown to promote Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale. I twice spotted them. I don’t use Hulu, so I won’t be watching, but I can certainly recommend the novel. #handmaidstale procession at #SXSW […]
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
At eighty-one pages, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is indeed brief. I will also be brief. There is a quasi-overarching theme of a physical world our human consciousness cannot comprehend – one of curved space, particles smaller than atoms, and a lack of objective time where all past, present, and future has happened/is happening – and it’s […]
The Inevitable
Technology continues to shape our world. It always has, and it always will. It can be difficult to precisely predict what our devices will be like in ten years, let alone one year. Will wearables like the Apple Watch be a fad? Will our phones become obsolete? I do not know, and neither does Kevin […]
March
Book 9: Seven Brief Lessons on Physics I was a teaching assistant for an introductory management information systems course from 2015-2016. We don’t discuss physics often in this course, as you can imagine. In my office hours, a student once asked something like, “how do electrons flow through devices to deliver information to the user?” […]
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
A few years ago, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, set out to inspire both men and women with her “sort of a feminist manifesto,” Lean In. I can attest that she has done exactly that. Through a mix of humorous anecdotes and informative, compelling empirical evidence, Sandberg demonstrates how society does not encourage women […]
Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five is an absurdist classic and is considered to be a great anti-war novel. It follows Billy Pilgrim, an American prisoner of war during the Second World War who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden. He is able to travel through time after being abducted by aliens (Tralfamadorians). There is no concrete setting; the reader ricochets through […]
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics
What are you: Human or economist (Econ)? Are you rational or irrational? Despite the sacred tenement of economics and, indeed, much of social science, humans are irrational creatures. Not too long ago, trying to understand economics through a psychological lens was a crazy idea. Now, it seems more pragmatic than ever. Richard Thaler, the author […]
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
My bedroom before reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (Sad!) I’m generally a clean, tidy person. My mom is the tidiest people I know and cleanliness is a value she passed on to me. Be that as it may, I’m certainly not as tidy as she is. I figured reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up would […]