Book cover of The Chinese Typewriter: A History by Thomas Mullaney
Asia

The Chinese Typewriter: A History

How Chinese characters triumphed over the QWERTY keyboard and laid the foundation for China’s information technology successes today.

Chinese writing is character based, the one major world script that is neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Through the years, the Chinese written language encountered presumed alphabetic universalism in the form of Morse Code, Braille, stenography, Linotype, punch cards, word processing, and other systems developed with the Latin alphabet in mind. […Learn More]

Book cover of Sludge: What Stops Us from Getting Things Done and What to Do about It by Cass Sunstein
Politics & Government

Sludge: What Stops Us from Getting Things Done and What to Do about It

How we became so burdened by red tape and unnecessary paperwork, and why we must do better.

We’ve all had to fight our way through administrative sludge–filling out complicated online forms, mailing in paperwork, standing in line at the motor vehicle registry. This kind of red tape is a nuisance, but, as Cass Sunstein shows in Sludge, it can also also impair health, reduce growth, entrench poverty, and exacerbate inequality. Confronted by sludge, people just give up–and lose a promised outcome: a visa, a job, a permit, an educational opportunity, necessary medical help. In this lively and entertaining look at the terribleness of sludge, Sunstein explains what we can do to reduce it. […Learn More]

Book cover of Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World by Nina Kraus
Biological Sciences

Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World

How sound leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are.

Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. In Of Sound Mind, Nina Kraus examines the partnership of sound and brain, showing for the first time that the processing of sound drives many of the brain’s core functions. Our hearing is always on–we can’t close our ears the way we close our eyes–and yet we can ignore sounds that are unimportant. We don’t just hear; we engage with sounds. Kraus explores what goes on in our brains when we hear a word–or a chord, or a meow, or a screech. […Learn More]

Book cover of Human Frontiers: The Future of Big Ideas in an Age of Small Thinking by Michael Bhaskar
Computers & Technology

Human Frontiers: The Future of Big Ideas in an Age of Small Thinking

Why has the flow of big, world-changing ideas slowed down? A provocative look at what happens next at the frontiers of human knowledge.

The history of humanity is the history of big ideas that expand our frontiers—from the wheel to space flight, cave painting to the massively multiplayer game, monotheistic religion to quantum theory. And yet for the past few decades, apart from a rush of new gadgets and the explosion of digital technology, world-changing ideas have been harder to come by. Since the 1970s, big ideas have happened incrementally—recycled, focused in narrow bands of innovation. […Learn More]

Computers & Technology

The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another

In the bestselling tradition of Stuff Matters and The Disappearing Spoon: a clever and engaging look at materials, the innovations they made possible, and how these technologies changed us. Finalist for the 41st Los Angeles Times Book Award in Science and Technology and selected as one of the Best Summer Science Books Of 2020 by Science Friday.  […Learn More]