Originally published at LonPrater.com. You can comment here or there.

I haven’t read as much nonfiction over the past couple years as I used to.  Another area I’m interested in intentionally  reading more of.  So I figured I’d see what’s new in brain science/psychology, a field in which I’ve always had more than a passing interest

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer is like a toybox full of many interesting things.  Seems like every time I turned the page, new exciting concepts jumped out to amaze me from the emerging neuroscience/psychology intersection.  Highly recommended, and on so many different levels.  It validates scientifically many things I have always thought to be true about the way our whole Western reason/emotion dichotomy works, while at the same time shattering that whole paradigm.  Reading this while listening to Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence on audiobook (still in progress) provided something of a lagniappe, as many of the concepts are reinforced between the books, though coming from very different angles of attack.  Not only that, but Lehrer’s no dry science writer.  The lede stories are interesting and his style makes the best use of creative nonfiction techniques where appropriate.

I’ve always been interested in epistemology (the philosophy of how we “know” and “think” things, how can we be certain that what we know is true?).  This book fed my brain and gave me much to think about regarding my own decision making processes.  One of the most fascinating things for me was the analysis of certainty-bias, with absolutely fascinating studies that shed light upon the nature and tenacity of  political partisanship/religious affiliation, as well as the rigorous hoops our brain jumps through to protect what we already believe from any contrary evidence.

Too much here to really even summarize, but I loved every page of this nonfiction book.

Originally published at LonPrater.com. You can comment here or there.

Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand.  A damn fine read.  Features a disturbing (and disturbed) protagonist with “as many words for hangover as the Inuit have for snow”.  There is simply so much going on in this sharply focused (and yet subtly developed) novel, it feels like I’ll still be digesting little bits and pieces of it for weeks to come.  Lyrical and deft in its artfulness, this book simply rocked my world.

Originally published at LonPrater.com. You can comment here or there.

My haibun (a Japanese style poem linking haiku with prose poetry, for those who aren’t poetry nerds) “Banshee” is now up at Chizine.  I’ve also set up a link to it on the Free page of my site.  Go forth and enjoy, plus there’s a lot of other great offerings this month as well.  Take your time, sit and visit with the ChiZiners for a spell.  Guaranteed to unsettle you, if you like that sort of thing.  (And admit it, you do.)