Books - Olivier Bruchez

A list of books I read. 207

Currently reading

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
	Ray Kurzweil	The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI	2024
	Chris Jones	The Tripods: All For Nothing?: The Secrets and Stories Behind the BBC Series	2024

2024 7

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating
2024-12-15	David Le Breton	La fin de la conversation ?: La parole dans une société spectrale	2024	(2.5)
Le second et probablement dernier livre de Le Breton que je lis. J'aurais probablement dû relire ce que j'avais pensé du premier livre que j'avais lu de lui... Ça se répète quand même beaucoup. On est dans la généralité. Il y a peu de nuances. Et surtout peu de pistes de réflexion, de solution. A part... marcher ?
2024-11-30	Daniel Pennac	Comme un roman	1992	(4.0)
C'est la première fois que je relis ce livre depuis 1996. C'est un bon rappel pour moi. Désacraliser la lecture, c'est important. J'ai trop tendance à vouloir lire "utile". Lire des classiques. Il faut que je me donne plus de liberté. C'est aussi l'occasion de lancer une réflexion à propos de notre fils de 6 ans, qui adore qu'on lui lise des livres. Il faut que nous trouvions un moyen de conserver ce rapport enthousiaste qu'il entretient avec les livres. Sans tomber dans les pièges que décrit Pennac (le dogme - "il faut lire").
2024-11-14	Georges Perec	Les Choses: Une histoire des années soixante	1965	(3.5)
Le style de Perec (en tout cas dans ce livre, je ne connais pas les autres) est déconcertant. Il n'y a pas vraiment d'action, d'intrigue, presque uniquement des descriptions. Pas de dialogue non plus. Les longues énumérations sont fréquentes. Toute la partie consacrée à Sfax est spéciale également. Je l'ai lue/ressentie comme une sorte de rêve.
2024-10-17	Françoise Sagan	Bonjour tristesse	1954	(3.5)
J'étais familier avec le titre de ce roman, mais je n'en connaissais rien. Une lecture très prenante. Une belle écriture. Une histoire qui me touche néanmoins relativement peu.
2024-09-23	Jean Giono	L'Homme qui plantait des arbres	19553	(4.0)
Un très court récit. J'en avais besoin, après Les Frères Karamazov. Cela m'a aussi fait du bien de lire quelque chose d'aussi positif. C'est une parabole, mais l'idée même de planter des arbres, en soi, est captivante. Je devrais le faire aussi. Littéralement, comme figurativement.
2024-09-19	Fiodor Dostoïevski	Les Frères Karamazov	1879	(4.0)
Un classique. Un long livre. Je dois admettre que j'ai eu un peu de peine à le lire. A coup de 10-15 minutes par soir, ça n'était pas suffisant. C'est vraiment lorsque j'ai commencé à dédier de plus grandes tranches de temps à ce livre que j'ai pu véritablement entrer dans le récit. La partie dédié au procès est captivante.
2024-02-11	Paul Bloom	The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning	2021	(3.5)
There's a subtle relationship between suffering, meaning, and happiness. I still don't know what it is, but I guess this book is raising a few useful questions. To quote The Guardian: "Bloom endorses motivational pluralism: we're all a tangled mess of complicated drives and enthusiasms, and finding the sweet spot that includes just the right mix of suffering and value and satisfaction is, as the book's subtitle puts it, the "key to a good life"."

2023 8

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2023-12-20	Lewis Carroll	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland	1865	(3.75)
It's difficult not to think about Disney's interpretation of the story. The book is quite different. Probably weirder.
2023-12-01	Peter Attia	Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity	2023	(3.75)
I've been listening to Peter Attia's podcast for 4 years now. I like his rather conservative approach to longevity. My personal takeaway is that I should exercise way more and eat more protein.
2023-08-27	Bill Perkins	Die With Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life	2020	(3.25)
I started reading Perkins' book after hearing him on Peter Attia's podcast. Basically, this is a rich guy telling other people to spend more money, earlier in life. He makes some good points, I guess. Invest in experiences and people. Don't plan to do too many things when you're retired, as people's health get worse rather quickly. He's not wrong, but those are not very original ideas. His most interesting idea is that you should really think about the rest of your life and how you're going to spend your money. And maybe - maybe! - you're saving too much money, even if you're not rich. Maybe. I'm not convinced, as I don't live on a yacht, but I'll think about it.
2023-08-05	Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths	Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions	2016	(3.75)
I have a master in computer science, so I often think about the world in terms of algorithms. Some of them are useful on a day-to-day basis. Some of them are useful to better understand the world (so more in a philosophical way, almost). Some of the more advanced concepts coming from machine learning, for example. This book made me realize that there are more links than expected between computer science and the "real world".
2023-05-31	Victor Hugo	Le Dernier Jour d’un condamné	1832	(4.25)
Un livre absolument fascinant et en avance sur son temps, puisqu'il a fallu attendre presque 150 ans pour que la peine de mort soit enfin abolie en France.
2023-05-07	Douglas Adams	So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish	1984	(2.5)
Surprisingly quite boring compared to the previous books in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy franchise.
2023-03-21	Cal Newport	Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World	2016	(3.75)
An important book at this point in my life. I've been implementing Getting Things Done (GTD) for more than 15 years now and I think I've come to terms with the idea that our time is limited (see Four Thousand Weeks and Midlife, for example). The logical conclusion is that we should have a clear set of priorities for all the domains/projects in our lives (e.g. it should be quite clear to anybody that health and the people you love should be at the top of your list) and that when you decide to do something, you should do it with intention and focus, hence the idea that deep work is important. As Newport explains in his book, deep work doesn't come without any effort. You have to decide that you want to work deeply and then make it possible to do it, with strategies such as time blocking, scheduling your days, quitting social networks, etc.
2023-01-28	Kieran Setiya	Midlife: A Philosophical Guide	2017	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
A way better book than Christopher Hamilton's Middle Age, with some relatively actionable pieces of advice.

2022 11

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2022-12-29	Jack Schafer & Marvin Karlins	The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over	2015	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
Part of this book contains useful tips to be more friendly to other people (nonverbal cues, showing empathy, etc.). The rest looks like a guide to become a spy.
2022-11-03	Aldous Huxley	Heaven and Hell	1956	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
An essay included along with The Doors of Perception. I found it to be a bit more accessible.
2022-10-31	Aldous Huxley	The Doors of Perception	1954	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
An intriguing book. A very intellectual take on a mescaline trip, among other topics. Again, I'm not a fan of Huxley's writing. I don't know why exactly.
2022-09-30	Aldous Huxley	Brave New World	1932	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
It's a classic, but for some reasons I found it very hard to enjoy it. Maybe the vocabulary is harder to understand for non-native English readers than in most books? I don't know. I had to read a summary of the story half-way through to get an idea of what was happening.
2022-08-04	Stefan Zweig	Le Joueur d'échecs	1943	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
Un très court roman qui m'a vraiment tenu en haleine. Pratiquant la méditation, j'ai par contre été (un peu) amusé par le peu de tolérance à l'ennui du mystérieux personnage du joueur d'échec, pour qui le quotidien dans sa chambre d'hôtel était intolérable. Je ne dis pas que j'aurais été insensible au manque de divertissements, mais la manière dont il décrit ces moments-là m'interpelle.
2022-07-31	Mark Manson	Everything Is Fucked: A Book About Hope	2019	(3.25)	Kindle highlights
Coming from quite a different angle (meditation, etc.), Sam Harris also thinks that hope is not as positive as we think. It's basically wanting things to be different than what they are, which is often actually a negative thing.
2022-06-19	George Orwell	Animal Farm	1945	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
Another (short) classic I hadn't read yet. I don't know why, but I expected it to be a book for children. I was pleasantly surprised to discover what it really is (i.e. a critique of political systems).
2022-05-28	Jean-Jacques Rousseau	Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire	1782	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
Ne connaissant rien à Rousseau, j'ai mis du temps à entrer dans cette œuvre, en particulier à cause des passages traitant de la persécution dont Rousseau disait être victime (on a rapidement l'impression qu'il y a là une certaine paranoïa). Les différents chapitres ("promenades") sont autant de thèmes distincts qui sont abordés et on se prend rapidement à un jeu qui consiste à se demander de quoi Rousseau va ensuite parler. Éléments biographiques, retraite sur l'Île Saint-Pierre, réflexions philosophiques (qu'est-ce que le mensonge ?), passion pour la nature et la botanique, etc. sont autant de sujets abordés.
2022-04-08	Luke Burgis	Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life	2021	(3.25)	Kindle highlights
A book about mimetic theory.
2022-02-11	Milan Kundera	Jacques et son maître: Hommage à Denis Diderot en trois actes	1981	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
Une variation, au sens musical du terme, de Jacques le Fataliste et son maître, l'un des romans préférés de Kundera. Avec cette pièce de théâtre, plutôt divertissante, j'ai terminé de lire les oeuvres "officielles" de Kundera, c'est-à-dire les oeuvres qu'il reconnaît lui-même comme dignes d'intérêt, le reste n'ayant pas été réédité ou traduit. Je suis prêt pour le prochain livre de Kundera, qu'il est, je l'espère, en train d'écrire malgré son âge avancé.
2022-01-29	Oliver Burkeman	Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals	2021	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
This is a book I really needed to read right now. I tend to commit to too many projects, without completing any of them, which causes anxiety/stress. Life is short/finite. We all have too many things to do compared to the time we have, so we have to get our priorities straight and commit to one important project at a time.

2021 11

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2021-12-30	Milan Kundera	L'Immortalité	1988	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
Un roman rempli de thèmes qui me touchent : la musique, la pollution sonore (les motos, etc.), la pollution visuelle (les voitures dans les villes), le concept de chemin (qui permet une forme de méditation en marche) vs celui de route (qui permet d'aller d'un point A à un point B), vivre vs être (encore un appel à la méditation au sens moderne du terme, bien que Kundera ne semble pas très familier avec le concept), etc. Kundera oppose toujours assez naïvement la "grande musique" (i.e. la musique classique) et la "musique rock". C'est son côté vieux con, qui me plaît bien, au final. Je prends encore une fois conscience que les romans de Kundera sont difficiles à résumer. Les personnages se croisent. Le récit n'est pas linéaire. Les parenthèses sont nombreuses. Chacune d'entre elle est l'occasion de s'arrêter, de se questionner, de contempler. Oui, il y a définitivement un appel à la méditation et à la contemplation chez Kundera.
2021-11-25	Ray Bradbury	Fahrenheit 451	1953	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
A classic I hadn't read yet. I don't know why, but it evoked eerie and dream-like images in my mind, instead of futuristic ones. I could see David Lynch working on an adaptation. Strangely, it was François Truffaut who directed an adaptation of it in 1966, which I'll probably see soon, out of curiosity.
2021-10-29	Umberto Eco	Le Nom de la rose	1980	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
I watched the movie a long time ago (probably in the 90s). I still remember some aspects of it, which influenced my reading (e.g. picturing William of Baskerville as Sean Connery...). The book itself is brilliant, full of long parts about specific elements, such as a dream Adso had, inspired by the Coena Cypriani, which I really liked (it's very Rabelaisesque at times). Probably a book I'll read again in the future.
2021-08-03	Duane Tudhal	Prince and the Parade and Sign O' The Times Era Studio Sessions: 1985 and 1986	2021	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
A brilliant book, even better than the previous one. I could almost copy-paste my comments for the book about 1983-84. At the time, I concluded: "He was a really hard-working artist." Yes, Prince was a genius, but he was also very lonely. And weird. It's quite obvious that he worked so much because he didn't really know what to do when not playing music. I hope more books will be released, especially about the 1987-88 years.
2021-06-16	Tara Brach	Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN	2020	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
I'm quite convinced by the RAIN method described in this book, which itself was quite average (i.e. too long for the actual amount of information it contains).
2021-05-24	David Whyte	Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words	2014	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
My second David Whyte collection. I really like his writing. I'm also currently listening to him reading his essays in Sam Harris' Waking Up app.
2021-05-05	Ted Chiang	Stories of Your Life and Others	2002	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
Another excellent short stories collection. The movie Arrival, which I really like, was based on one of those stories. The only frustrating thing is that I've now apparently read pretty much everything Ted Chiang ever wrote...
2021-04-30	The School of Life	The Joys and Sorrows of Parenting: 26 Essays to Reassure and Console	2019	(3.25)	Kindle highlights
A bit too short/light, but not bad. I should probably read some of those essays again from time to time.
2021-03-09	Milan Kundera	La vie est ailleurs	1969	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
J'ai lu ce livre il y a 21 ans. Je ne m'en souvenais quasiment plus du tout. Un roman réussi à propos de la poésie, du communisme, de l'art, de la politique, de l'amour (y compris maternel), etc. J'ai bien aimé les passages oniriques, en particulier au début. Ce mélange rêve/réalité - qu'est-ce que la réalité ? - est aussi un thème/style que j'apprécie chez David Lynch.
2021-02-07	Phoenix Kaspian	MDMA solo	2020	(2.0)	Kindle highlights
This was a weird read. There are some good things in this book, obviously inspired by the Internal Family System (IFS) model and Self-Therapy book, but it sounds like it was written by someone who's really paranoid and anti-authority.
2021-01-15	Ted Chiang	Exhalation: Stories	2019	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
I discovered Ted Chiang thanks to the Very Bad Wizards podcast. This is the kind of science fiction I like. I've already bought another collection, Stories of Your Life and Others.

2020 15

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2020-11-27	Milan Kundera	La Valse aux adieux	1972	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
J'ai eu un peu de peine à entrer dans ce roman. Puis on se laisse emmener par ces destins croisés, par ces personnages dont la destinée leur échappe.
2020-10-12	David Andrew Sinclair	Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don't Have To	2019	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
I was already familiar with David's ideas and discoveries. You basically just need to watch a few YouTube videos to learn about them. I was especially curious about his views on how humanity will have to adapt to longer lifespans/healthspans and that part of the book somewhat disappointed me. Not all my concerns were addressed. In particular, automation/machine learning and the facts that a lot of jobs will really disappear at some point, without new jobs to replace them, the need for some form of universal basic income, and the fact that, mathematically, even if we still die, the world population will really become problematic at some point if we keep having children (maybe not in 100 or 200 years, but still). I recently heard David in a podcast briefly mention the fact that human beings will have to find a way to go to other planets in the future (or something to that effect). I guess that's what I expected to read in his book. But he wanted to stay optimistic, so he focused on the near-term future, I guess.
2020-09-06	Youssef El Baba	The Art of Living: Self-management - How to Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century	2020	(2.5)	Kindle highlights
This book convinced me that it's time to migrate from my current system (based on G Suite) to a more specific tool (maybe Omnifocus - I was not convinced by 2Do).
2020-07-14	Stephen Hawking	A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes	1988	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
I don't know why, but I expected something overly-simplified (not to say dumbed-down). Something I could understand. :) I was somewhat surprised to discover that this book tries to explain very hard concepts in a relatively simple way, which still leads to... a complex book with very complex concepts. I don't think you could say it's highly accessible. Which makes me wonder whether anybody could do better than Hawking. I'm not saying he failed. Popularizing science is really hard. I'm just saying I was a bit disappointed.
2020-05-27	Milan Kundera	L'Identité	1995	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
Étrange passage de la réalité au rêve, autour de la thématique de l'identité et de ses frontières. L'essai suivant le texte est très éclairant.
2020-05-11	Terry Pratchett	The Carpet People	1992	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
My first book by Terry Pratchett. I've heard a lot from him, but I'm not sure I'm a fan of his style (granted, this is probably not his most representative book).
2020-04-15	Douglas Adams	Life, the Universe and Everything	1982	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
I particularly liked the part where Arthur discovered he could fly.
2020-04-10	Paul Éluard	Capitale de la douleur	1926	(2.5)	Kindle highlights
C'est certainement très bon, mais ça ne m'a absolument pas touché. Je dois manquer des clés nécessaires pour comprendre ce genre de poésie.
2020-03-30	Milan Kundera	Une rencontre	2009	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
Une rencontre ou Si Milan Kundera avait un blog... Kundera parle de compositeurs, peintres et écrivains/romanciers qui l'ont influencé. C'est toujours très bien écrit, mais ça m'a moins touché, ne connaissant pas la plupart des artistes qu'il mentionne.
2020-03-24	David Whyte	David Whyte: Essentials	2019	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
I discovered David Whyte in February 2020. I liked his discussion with Sam Harris on the Making Sense podcast. This is the kind of poetry I like. I think.
2020-03-24	Denis Diderot	Jacques le Fataliste et son maître	1796	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
C'est un hasard, mais c'est une œuvre très similaire à Candide, à savoir un "classique pas du tout ennuyeux", très libre dans sa structure (interruptions répétées des récits, discussions imaginaires entre l'auteur et le lecteur, etc.). On est encore relativement proche de Rabelais. Ça se lit très facilement. C'est à la fois léger et intelligent.
2020-02-29	F. Scott Fitzgerald	The Great Gatsby	1925	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
I saw the 2013 movie and really liked it. The book is a classic, but it didn't manage to impress me as much.
2020-02-17	Gustave Flaubert	Madame Bovary: Mœurs de province	1857	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
Un vrai classique, au sens où je me l'imagine. Comme Candide, je ne me souviens pas avoir étudié ce livre durant mes études. Je suis content de l'avoir lu avec le recul probablement nécessaire pour l'apprécier. Les longues descriptions typiques de Flaubert ne m'ont pas dérangé. Au contraire, j'ai trouvé son style plutôt impressionnant. Je ne m'étonne pas que l'écriture de cette œuvre ait nécessité plus de quatre ans de la vie de Flaubert.
2020-01-19	Agatha Christie	And Then There Were None	1939	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
Crime novels are not my cup of tea and I'm not sure I will ever read another Agatha Christie books in my life, but I had a lot of fun reading And Then There Were None.
2020-01-07	Voltaire	Candide	1759	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
Un texte qui se lit très facilement. Je ne me souviens pas l'avoir étudié durant mes études, mais j'ai eu beaucoup de plaisir à le lire. Je le classerais dans la catégorie "classiques pas du tout ennuyeux".

2019 17

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2019-12-27	Milan Kundera	La Lenteur	1994	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
J'avais déjà lu ce livre, mais je ne me souvenais absolument pas de l'histoire, à part la scène de la piscine. Kundera mène une réflexion sur le monde moderne et, en particulier, sur le rôle des mass media (c'était avant l'apparition d'internet) et celui de la vitesse / de la lenteur dans l'oubli / la mémoire et l'Histoire. Il fait un parallèle avec Point de lendemain de Vivant Denon, démystifie un peu l'épicurisme (qui parle de plaisirs simples, pas de débauche, comme on pourrait le croire) et condamne ces "danseurs" qui font ce qu'on a appelé bien plus tard du virtue signalling.
2019-12-21	John Armstrong	How to Worry Less about Money	2012	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
Not a self-help book. Like The Consolations of Philosophy, it's a book that uses philosophy to give us a new perspective on a topic.
2019-12-19	Prince Rogers Nelson & Dan Piepenbring	The Beautiful Ones	2019	(3.5)
Prince died a few months after starting to work on this project. It is what it is and I must say that Dan Piepenbring did a great job with what he had.
2019-12-11	Milan Kundera	L'Art du roman	1986	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
Un regard critique et sophistiqué de l'auteur sur son oeuvre, sur la structure de ses romans, sur le rôle du roman en général, sur le lien entre l'écriture et la musique, sur l'exercice compliqué de la traduction, etc.
2019-11-21	Jay Earley	Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Inner Wholeness Using IFS, a New, Cutting-Edge Therapy	2009	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
First, IFS kind of sounded like woo to me, but after a while, it started to make sense. I think I like this approach. It's almost like an algorithm. It's also somewhat related to meditation in general and to loving kindness meditation in particular. I'm going to try it.
2019-11-16	Paul Verlaine	Poèmes saturniens	1866	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
Je n'ai pas accroché. Je crois qu'il va falloir que je m'éloigne un peu des classiques pour que je trouve de la poésie qui me touche vraiment.
2019-10-02	Franz Kafka	La Métamorphose	1915	(4.25)
J'avais lu des extraits de ce livre en allemand il y a 25 ans, mais je crois ne l'avoir jamais lu en entier jusqu'à présent. Il s'agit ici de la première traduction, celle d'Alexandre Vialatte (apparemment problématique, mais tant pis). La Métamorphose est un texte très prenant, à la fois triste et révoltant, qui nous invite à un peu plus d'humanité.
2019-09-17	Derren Brown	Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine	2016	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
A pretty good book about stoicism (mainly) and death. Reading A Guide to the Good Life by William B. Irvine was what led me to stoicism as a philosophy of life. Happy takes all those ideas from stoicism and confronts them with real life. It could have been shorter, but it's full of good advice. I guess it's a self-help book, but in the good sense of the word. Realizing that you can't control everything, that you have to prepare for death (both others' and your own), etc. is hard. So, yes, being happy is hard work. You can't just "think positively". That won't work. Bad things will happen. All the time. You have to learn how to react accordingly. The only thing I didn't agree with was Brown's argument that immortality would necessarily be boring. It kind of contradicts the fact that you can learn to not find anything boring (e.g. meditation). But this is a minor point.
2019-08-06	Douglas Adams	The Restaurant at the End of the Universe	1980	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
A good sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
2019-07-12	Annaka Harris	Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind	2019	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
A good summary of the problem of consciousness. And, yes, panpsychism is probably worth investigating.
2019-06-23	Alain de Botton	The Consolations of Philosophy	2000	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
I was familiar with Alain de Botton's YouTube videos (The School of Life). I've never been completely convinced by his approach. Is this self-help? Pop philosophy? Something else? I don't know. I'm still not convinced.
2019-06-20	Ursula K. Le Guin	The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas	1973	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
A very short text. I read it after listening to the Very Bad Wizards episode about it. The vagueness of the story reminds me a bit of Jorge Luis Borges.
2019-05-21	Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson	It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work	2018	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
Not bad. It's like a collection of blog posts. Or a big advertisement for Basecamp. Anyway, a lot of the advice found in this book should be common sense. But it's not, unfortunately.
2019-05-08	Ernest Renan	L'Ecclésiaste: Un temps pour tout	1881	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
Texte original et étude/commentaire d'Ernest Renan. Le livre en lui-même, faisant partie de la Bible, est court. Le commentaire est nettement plus long, mais pas vraiment "à mon goût". L'approche irrévérencieuse de Dave et Tamler du podcast Very Bad Wizards correspondait plus à ma sensibilité (athée, donc).
2019-04-23	Milan Kundera	Le Livre du rire et de l'oubli	1979	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
Un livre de Kundera plus inégal, pour moi. On y trouve toujours des passages géniaux et ce mélange entre la fiction, l'essai et l'autobiographie. Et puis, il y a des moments plus confus. Plus étranges. Comme le passage de l'île aux enfants. Je crois que je comprends les éléments allégoriques, mais ça reste malsain. Tout du moins en contraste avec le reste du livre.
2019-03-29	Matthew Walker	Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams	2017	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
Summary: we should all sleep more. Lack of sleep is bad for... pretty much everything. See also Tips for Getting a Good Night's Sleep. 2021-04-05: see Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors.
2019-02-19	Louis-Ferdinand Céline	Voyage au bout de la nuit	1932	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
Un classique, sur lequel tout a été écrit, par moments un peu difficile à lire à cause du langage parlé (peu de ponctuation, phrases longues, etc.). Il est difficile de ne pas se laisser emmener dans ce voyage un peu fou, souvent sombre, du narrateur, Bardamu, ce anti-héros auquel on finit par s'attacher - un peu, parfois.

2018 18

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2018-12-31	Yuval Noah Harari	Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind	2014	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
I really enjoyed Homo Deus and since it looks like half of the world has already read Sapiens, I had to read it as well! This is not your usual history book. Harari is strongly opinionated. I'm still bothered by his use of some words (e.g. "religion" for "ideology"), but liked the book nevertheless. It's a bit oversimplistic at times (it especially struck me at the end of the book, where Harari is talking about genetic algorithms and computer viruses), but overall I liked Harari's high-level approach to the subject. For reference: Daniel Miessler's summary of the book.
2018-11-08	Peter Singer	Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter	2016	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
This is the first book by Peter Singer that I've read. It's probably not his best or most well-known book, but I wanted something recent, that was not completely about effective altruism or animal rights (I'm already convinced in both cases), and that would show me how he thinks. As an introduction to his work, I think it's a great book. It's also very easy to read, as it's composed of 82 independent essays (grouped by theme).
2018-11-05	Michael Pollan	How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence	2018	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide was disappointing. This book is way better. It's good journalism. Apart from a tiny bit of quantum mysticism (?) at the end, I found it very critical, informative, and easy to read. The structure of the book is really clear (probably as much as the structure of The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide was confusing). It mentions recent studies, but always from a critical angle. Psychedelics are probably not a panacea, but there really is something to them. We need more research, as soon as possible. We have lost enough time since the late 60s. I'm personally especially curious about microdosing: does it work or is it just a placebo?
2018-09-16	Randy Pausch & Jeffrey Zaslow	The Last Lecture	2008	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
According to my notes, I watched the lecture on July 26, 2008. Ten years ago; I would have sworn that it was only 5-7 years ago! Still according to my notes, I found the lecture "interesting" and "it made me think a little". I was apparently happy that Randy Pausch didn't make any mention of religion (I was in my "God Delusion phase" at the time, I guess). The book is a kind of a making-of. In 2018, I don't know what to make of it. It's moving. It's kind of impressive (Pausch died three months after the book was published). It's somewhat inspiring. I guess the way Pausch lived his life and especially the end of it is a reminder that life is short (again...) and that we should live our life accordingly.
2018-09-13	Sénèque	De la brièveté de la vie	2013	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
Version Presses Électroniques de France. Traducteur inconnu. Un court essai écrit en 49 (il y a 1969 ans !), mais qui est toujours d'actualité (esclavagisme et orgies romaines mis à part). J'imagine que la traduction fait beaucoup, mais le texte semble vraiment beaucoup plus récent.
2018-09-12	Milan Kundera	Risibles Amours	1986	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
Publié originellement en 1970. Cette traduction a été revue par Kundera. Il s'agit d'un recueil de textes datant d'avant son premier roman. Je ne sais pas si je l'aurais deviné, mais, le sachant, cela a teinté un peu ma lecture et je dois admettre que j'ai moins aimé ces textes que les romans avec lesquels je suis déjà familier. Je n'ai pas retrouvé le Kundera que j'aime bien et qui mêle avec habileté la fiction, ses connaissance de l'histoire, de l'art et de la musique. On a parfois de la peine à voir la limite entre roman et essai, et c'est ce qui me plaît en général chez lui. C'est beaucoup moins le cas dans ce recueil.
2018-09-11	Johann Hari	Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions	2018	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
I don't know if many books have been written before about the "non-biochemical" causes of depression and anxiety, but this book gives a far more plausible explanation of depression than the chemical imbalance theory. Antidepressants don't work well (or at all, in many cases), so we need a new way to look at things. We can't always fix our problems by taking pills. Hari gives us at least seven solutions or, rather, potential avenues to explore. They're not quick hacks. They're difficult to implement. Some of them will probably come from larger societal changes and not from individual efforts. I will have to process my notes and see if I can actually do something actionable from them.
2018-09-10	James Fadiman	The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys	2011	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
An uneven book. It's a collection of texts written by Fadiman, as well as other persons. It doesn't have a clear structure (at least to me). Fadiman believes in God. Not in a personal god, probably, but it's still a bit unsettling. A large part of the book is about the spiritual/mystical aspect of psychedelics. The part about microdosing was far more intriguing. Many studies about psychedelics were done in the 50s/60s and their quality probably leaves a lot to be desired. We need better books about this topic.
2018-08-02	Jorge Luis Borges	The Library of Babel and Other Stories	2017	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
I got this collection mainly to read "The Library of Babel", so that I could listen to the Borges' Babylon episode of Very Bad Wizards. I'll just link to my review of the episode. To sum it up: I'm not a fan of Borges (yet). After that, I also read "The Garden of Forking Paths", from Collected Fictions. I'm still not convinced...
2018-07-17	Millionaire Mindset Publishing	Summary: The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman	2017	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
I'm rating the summary, here, not the original book by Timothy Ferriss. This is the first time I read a non-free summary of a book since my studies. Conclusion: I'm glad I didn't read the way longer book by Timothy Ferriss (The 4-Hour Body). There are a few interesting pieces of information, maybe even some that will lead me to change something in my life, but this summary confirms what I have been thinking for quite some time: Tim and I are not trying to optimize the same things in our lives; Tim is interested in maximizing performance (and book sales); I'm interested in maximizing health/happiness. Does having more muscle or being able to run a marathon lead to happiness? For some people, certainly. For me? I'm not so sure.
2018-07-15	Susan Cain	Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking	2012	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
This book will probably help me accept the fact that I am introverted and that it's okay, that I don't have to completely change the way I behave. The book itself is rather good, not great. It would have benefited from less "case studies" (i.e. anecdotes) and a more theoretical approach.
2018-06-09	Christopher Hamilton	Middle Age	2009	(2.0)	Kindle highlights
This is a book about Hamilton's personal experience, with a lot of quotes, which touches a bit on middle age. It's not uninteresting, but it was not what I expected.
2018-05-11	Max Tegmark	Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence	2017	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
Having read five books by Ray Kurzweil, I'm quite familiar with artificial intelligence and its consequences. This book focuses on the dangers of AI. Kurzweil was (still is?) an optimist, so it's important to think about what needs to be done, concretely, to make sure we create friendly AIs. To many, it will sound like an exercise in futility (like worrying about overpopulation on Mars, according to Andrew Ng), but I'm now convinced that this is something we really need to get right. And I'm happy that very intelligent people have already been thinking about this problem for years.
2018-05-10	Charles Baudelaire	Les Fleurs du mal	1857	(3.25)
Un classique de la poésie. Objectivement, je vois pourquoi il s'agit d'un classique, surtout si on le replace dans le contexte de son époque, mais je ne peux pas dire que beaucoup des poèmes de ce recueil m'aient vraiment touché. Dans un autre style, Paroles de Prévert m'avait paru nettement plus accessible. Cela dit, je n'y connais rien en poésie et il ne s'agit que du deuxième recueil que je lis depuis mes études.
2018-03-29	Milan Kundera	Le Rideau	2005	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
J'ai toujours du plaisir à me plonger dans les essais de Kundera, même si je suis parfois dépassé par toutes les références à des auteurs ou compositeurs qui me sont inconnus. Il a toutefois une manière éclairante de mettre en contexte l'art du roman, ce qui rend ce mode d'expression unique, ce qui le fait traverser les frontières, au-delà des cultures soi-disant nationales. J'aime aussi sa façon de faire des parallèles avec d'autres formes d'art et en particulier avec la musique. Au final, Kundera défend la singularité du roman qui est selon lui seul à pouvoir aussi bien rendre intelligible le monde qui nous entoure, les sociétés, les époques, les évènements historiques, etc., beaucoup plus en interrogeant le monde, la psychologie des personnages, qu'en donnant des réponses toutes faites faisant référence à des systèmes de pensée préexistants.
2018-03-10	Chris MacLeod	The Social Skills Guidebook: Manage Shyness, Improve Your Conversations, and Make Friends, Without Giving Up Who You Are	2016	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
Probably the kind of book I should have read twenty years ago. I'm shy. I've always seen it as a handicap. This book contains good "tips", but I guess they can only go so far in improving one's natural tendencies (personality, genes, etc.).
2018-02-05	Milan Kundera	La Fête de l'insignifiance	2014	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
L'un des livres les plus courts que j'aie lu ces dernières années. Le langage est plus familier que dans les premiers livres de Kundera. Ses thèmes fétiches sont présents : les relations hommes-femmes (du point de vue de l'homme), l'histoire, le communisme, l'humour, etc. Je vais faire une comparaison incongrue, mais ce roman m'a rappelé Lapinot de Trondheim, où l'histoire est secondaire et où ce sont bien les discussions entre les personnages qui sont importantes.
2018-01-28	Armin A. Brott & Jennifer Ash	The Expectant Father: The Ultimate Guide for Dads-to-Be	2015	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
A bestseller. A bit too US-centric at times, but this was expected. I skipped some parts about insurances, college savings plans, etc. I guess the rest was pretty good for that kind of books. I'll see in April/May whether it's actually useful or not...

2017 14

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2017-12-28	Duane Tudhal	Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions: 1983 and 1984	2017	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
I didn't think I would enjoy this book as much as I did. I consider myself a harcore Prince fan. I followed him since 1989. His death in 2016 was a traumatic event. There's not much I don't know about his work and in particular about his studio work (official and unofficial). Or so I thought. Tudhal spent more than twenty years doing research for this book (and upcoming books in the same series, I hope), interviewing musicians, engineers, etc. The structure of the book is very clever. It's basically a chronological list of studio sessions, rehearsals, concerts, and major events/releases, but interspersed with relevant bits of interviews, technical details, etc. The list approach really talks to the geek in me and the interviews from different people that were there at the time (1983-84) tell a coherent story. In summary, Prince was a really special musician. I already knew that. We won't see anybody like him again, at least for a very long time. But now I really have a sense of how much time he spent in the studio, days in a row, often all night long (a lot of sessions lasting until 5-6 AM!). That's really impressive. What's also impressive is that some engineers and musicians worked with him in those conditions, some of them answering the phone in the middle of the night and coming to the studio when Prince needed them. Prince had to record music when it was in his head. He was a really hard-working artist.
2017-11-29	Jacques Prévert	Paroles	1946	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
Le premier recueil de poèmes que j'ai lu depuis très longtemps (depuis les études, en fait). Je n'avais jamais rien lu de Prévert et ne savais pas à quoi m'attendre. J'ai été agréablement surpris par le côté absurde de ses poèmes. Et par son côté antimilitariste et anticlérical. D'un point de vue plus terre à terre, j'ai apprécié pouvoir lire un livre de manière plus découpée. Il n'y a pas vraiment de continuité, hors des thèmes, entre chaque poème. Cela permet de lire un autre livre en parallèle, par exemple. Ce recueil me motive à lire plus de poésie.
2017-10-12	Randall Munroe	What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions	2014	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
Not a bad book, but I must admit that, after a while, the concept (explained in the subtitle - "serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions") gets a bit repetitive. But, yes, some parts were funny and I even learnt some things (and already forgot many of them!).
2017-09-14	Peter Elsdon	Keith Jarrett's The Köln Concert	2012	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
It's difficult to judge this book fairly, because I'm not a musician and a couple of chapters are pretty technical. That being said, I'm a Keith Jarrett fan, so it was interesting to read about The Köln Concert in several contexts: jazz in general, the 1970s, Keith Jarrett's other solo albums (Facing You in particular), other pianists' solo recordings (e.g. Chick Corea's), Keith Jarrett's 1975 solo tour, etc. The more "philosophical" discussions such as what it means to improvise (vs compose), what it means for a live performance to be released as an album, etc. were also quite illuminating.
2017-08-26	Yuval Noah Harari	Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow	2015	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
This is a book I really liked. I heard Yuval Noah Harari on Sam Harris' podcast in March 2017. And then I kept hearing about people reading Sapiens or Homo Deus, so I knew I had to read one of his books... I had completely forgotten about it, but Harari is a vegan, an atheist, and meditates a lot, so I can easily relate to a lot of what he has to say. He also starts his book by mentioning Ray Kurzweil, Aubrey de Grey, and Steven Pinker, people I'm very familiar with, so I was hooked from the very beginning. Now I don't agree with everything he says. This is something I had already noticed during his discussion with Sam Harris, but he uses some words very loosely. For example, he seems to use the word "religion" for "philosophy" and "ideology". I understand why he's doing it, but it doesn't make his point clearer, in my opinion. Just for reference, the word "science" (and related) appears 317 times in the book, "religion" appears 211 times, and "philosophy" appears only 27 times. He also seems to support the non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) view. I clearly don't agree with him on these points. Contrary to Kurzweil, he knows a lot about history and psychology, so he has quite a different point of view about our future. Whereas Kurzweil is very enthusiastic about uploading our minds to machines and living in virtual worlds, Harari is encouraging us to think about the relationship between intelligence and consciousness, the source of our values (in a world without gods and afterlife), and about how society and politics will work in such a future. Also for reference: Daniel Miessler's summary of the book.
2017-07-31	William B. Irvine	A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy	2008	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
This very book convinced me that: 1) I really need a philosophy of life 2) stoicism is a good option 3) I'm already doing a lot of things correctly (according to stoicism). These next few months, I hope to "implement" stoicism in a bit more practical and conscious way (using reminders, etc.).
2017-07-04	Voltaire	Micromégas	1752	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
Je liste Migromégas ici comme livre. Il s'agit plutôt d'un conte. Un conte philosophique, selon Wikipedia. Est-ce également de la science-fiction ? On y parle de science, de visiteurs de Sirus et de Saturne. Donc je dirais que oui, mais l'idée première est bel et bien de "remettre l'être humain à sa place". Il n'est pas le centre de l'univers. L'humour est également présent dans ce conte et il est difficile de ne pas penser en tout cas un peu aux géants de Rabelais.
2017-06-28	Milan Kundera	La Plaisanterie	1967	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
Il n'y a pas grand-chose que je puisse dire à propos de ce roman qui n'ait pas été déjà dit mille fois. J'aime beaucoup Kundera. La Plaisanterie est son premier roman, que je n'avais pas encore lu. Il s'agissait ici de la traduction française revue par Kundera lui-même. J'ai beaucoup aimé le récit à la première personne, les personnages devenant tour à tour narrateur et leur histoire se rejoignant à la fin. Amour, politique, communisme, tradition, modernisme, vengeance, jeunesse, maturité, musique, etc. Les thèmes sont multiples et il est difficile de ne pas se laisser entraîner par les personnages de ce roman.
2017-05-21	Douglas Adams	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	1979	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
Another classic. But of course very different from Nineteen Eighty-Four, which I read two months ago. This is the first book by Douglas Adams that I read. His style is surprising, in a good way. This is definitely not "serious" science fiction, which I feared would lessen my interest, but it didn't.
2017-04-30	Susan Wolf	Meaning in Life and Why It Matters	2010	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
I'm not sure I'm convinced by Wolf's argument: "In arguing that meaningfulness is a distinctive dimension of a good life, different from both happiness and moral goodness, and that the concept of meaningfulness is essentially tied to a commitment to objective distinctions in value, I have tried to show the importance of keeping the vocabulary of meaningfulness and value alive, and of not assimilating or reducing these terms to others that we are more comfortable with in both philosophy and popular culture." I will be very (too) brief, but, intuitively, I would say that Wolf's concept of meaningfulness looks like a kind of mix between self-interest and morality, not a distinct dimension. Of course, it's still important to have a concept of a "meaningful life" and Wolf at least tries to give a definition of what "meaningfulness" is in that context, but I'm not sure this book helped me clarify anything. On the contrary, I would say it made me a bit more confused than before.
2017-03-31	George Orwell	Nineteen Eighty-Four	1949	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
A classic. The more the story progresses, the more it becomes captivating. The ending chapters grab you by the guts, in a kind of crescendo. Many people say that "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is very relevant today, because, according to them, we're living in a society of surveillance (think Facebook, the NSA, surveillance cameras, etc.), but, for me, what strikes me the most is the similarity between the constant lies of the Party and the constant lies of people such as Donald Trump. Of course, fake news is not a new phenomenon, but it is starting to look more and more like it is described in "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
2017-02-08	James A. Lindsay	Life in Light of Death	2016	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
I agree with the main message of this book. Life is short. We will die. Really die. No heaven, no persistence of a soul, no resurrection, no reincarnation (the author is an atheist). Even if we manage to live longer and/or to upload our minds to machines, Earth will be destroyed by the Sun at some point in the future. And even if we manage to move to another planetary system and/or galaxy, the universe will most probably die as well. Our time is limited. We have to make the most out of it. Mainly by being kind, being with our loved ones, etc. The message is simple. Almost cheesy. This is not a "how-to" book. This is merely a warning. A reminder. I'm not sure I really learned anything. Also, the part of the book about ethical vegetarianism was pretty bad/baffling: the author seems to completely underestimate the suffering of animals in factory farms and doesn't address the environmental impact of meat.
2017-01-20	Mark Manson	The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life	2016	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
A welcome reminder that we should care less about many things. And care more about what we value the most. This is not a revolutionary way of looking at things, but a refreshing, less serious perspective on what meditation already taught me. Daniel Miessler has a summary of the book on his site.
2017-01-01	David Le Breton	Disparaître de soi: Une tentation contemporaine	2015	(2.5)	Kindle highlights
Un sujet intriguant (disparition volontaire ou involontaire de son identité, de ses responsabilités, etc.). Un livre malheureusement un peu répétitif. Je m'attendais aussi à une analyse plus éclairante du rôle de la technologie dans nos sociétés.

2016 12

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2016-12-09	Arthur C. Clarke	Childhood's End	1953	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2016-11-17	Amélie Nothomb	Les Catilinaires	1995	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
2016-11-12	Bernard Stiegler	L'emploi est mort, vive le travail !	2015	(2.0)	Kindle highlights
2016-11-08	James A. Lindsay	Everybody Is Wrong About God	2015	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
2016-10-13	Tiffany Jaquet	L'Enfant du placard	2016	(3.5)
2016-10-02	Christophe Barbey	Non-militarisation: countries without armies: Identification criteria and first findings	2015	(3.0)
More of a working paper than a book, but received as a printed book, so I'm including it here.
2016-09-28	Sam Harris & Maajid Nawaz	Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue	2015	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
2016-09-15	Matthieu Ricard	Plaidoyer pour les animaux: Vers une bienveillance pour tous	2014	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2016-06-19	Jerry Coyne	Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible	2015	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
2016-04-24	Milan Kundera	L'Insoutenable Légèreté de l'être	1984	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
2016-03-01	Antoine de Saint-Exupéry	Le Petit Prince	1943	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2016-02-23	Michael M. Anissimov	Our Accelerating Future: How Superintelligence, Nanotechnology, and Transhumanism Will Transform the Planet	2015	(2.0)	Kindle highlights

2015 11

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2015-12-29	Milan Kundera	Les Testaments trahis	1993	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2015-12-18	Paul Chiusano & Runar Bjarnason	Functional Programming in Scala	2014	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
2015-10-03	Amélie Nothomb	Hygiène de l'assassin	1992	(2.75)	Kindle highlights
2015-09-26	Ralph Leighton & Richard Feynman	Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!	1988	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2015-07-19	John Christopher	When the Tripods Came	1988	(3.0)	Kindle highlights
2015-06-28	John Christopher	The Pool of Fire	1968	(3.75)
2015-06-20	John Christopher	The City of Gold and Lead	1968	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2015-06-04	John Christopher	The White Mountains	1967	(4.0)
2015-05-27	Ben Goldacre	Bad Pharma	2012	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2015-03-24	Amélie Nothomb	Stupeur et Tremblements	1999	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
2015-03-21	François Rabelais	Gargantua	1534	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
See comments for "Pantagruel".

2014 11

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2014-12-30	Paulo Coelho	L'Alchimiste	1988	(2.0)
French translation of O Alquimista" by Jean Orecchioni.
2014-12-23	Carlo Strenger	The Fear of Insignificance: Searching for Meaning in the Twenty-First Century	2011	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2014-10-31	Carl Sagan	Cosmos	1980	(4.5)
2014-10-18	Roald Dahl	The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl	1991	(4.25)
2014-09-27	Sam Harris	Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion	2014	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2014-09-02	Peter Boghossian	A Manual for Creating Atheists	2013	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2014-08-11	Albert Camus	La Peste	1947	(4.5)	Kindle highlights
2014-04-26	Paul Thagard	The Brain and the Meaning of Life	2010	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
2014-02-27	Peter Hilton, Erik Bakker & Francisco Canedo	Play for Scala: Covers Play 2	2013	(4.0)
2014-02-23	Neil A. Fiore	The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play	2007	(2.5)	Kindle highlights
2014-01-11	Christof Koch	Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist	2012	(4.0)	Kindle highlights

2013 11

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2013-12-16	Joshua D. Suereth	Scala in Depth	2012	(3.5)
2013-12-06	Gilbert Bruchez, Philippe Curdy & François Baillifard	Pierres à cupules et autres pierres gravées : Verbier, Bagnes et Entremont	2009	(3.5)
2013-11-21	François Rabelais	Pantagruel	1532	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
Middle French version, so quite a difficult read. Difficult to rate.
2013-10-21	Amélie Nothomb	Métaphysique des tubes	2000	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
2013-10-17	Richard Dawkins	The Selfish Gene	2006	(4.5)	Kindle highlights
30th Anniversary edition.
2013-08-01	Lawrence M. Krauss	A Universe from Nothing	2012	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
2013-06-07	Ernest Hemingway	Le Vieil Homme et la Mer	1952	(4.0)
French translation of "The Old Man and the Sea" by Jean Dutourd.
2013-05-08	Albert Camus	Le Mythe de Sisyphe	1942	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
2013-03-07	Amélie Nothomb	Le Voyage d'hiver	2009	(3.5)
2013-02-19	Bertrand Russell	What I Believe	1925	(3.75)	Kindle highlights
2013-02-04	Ray Kurzweil	How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed	2012	(4.0)	Kindle highlights

2012 6

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2012-12-06	Douglas Crockford	JavaScript: The Good Parts	2008	(3.25)
2012-11-28	Albert Camus	L'Étranger	1942	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
2012-11-05	Sam Harris	The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values	2010	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
2012-09-19	David McRaney	You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself	2011	(4.25)	Kindle highlights
2012-04-26	Sam Harris	Free Will	2012	(4.0)	Kindle highlights
2012-04-06	Ben Goldacre	Bad Science	2008	(4.25)	Kindle highlights

2011 6

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2011-11-14	Derek Sivers	Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur	2011	(3.75)
2011-10-20	Sam Harris & Annaka Harris	Lying	2011	(3.5)
2011-08-13	Scott Adams	God's Debris: A Thought Experiment	2001	(3.5)	Kindle highlights
2011-07-08	Vincent Golay & Mix & Remix	Institutions politiques suisses	2010	(4.0)
2011-03-20	Martin Odersky, Lex Spoon & Bill Venners	Programming in Scala	2008	(4.25)
2011-02-01	Michael Fossel, Greta Blackburn & Dave Woynarowski	The Immortality Edge: Realize the Secrets of Your Telomeres for a Longer, Healthier Life	2010	(3.75)

2010 6

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating
2010-09-27	Daniel Gilbert	Stumbling on Happiness	2006	(3.75)
2010-08-30	Simon Singh & Edzard Ernst	Trick or Treatment?: Alternative Medicine on Trial	2008	(4.25)
2010-07-01	Dylan Evans	Placebo: Mind over Matter in Modern Medicine	2004	(4.25)
2010-06-03	Danielle Fecteau	L'effet placebo: Le pouvoir de guérir	2005	(1.5)
2010-04-30	Dave Logan, John King & Halee Fischer-Wright	Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization	2008	(3.25)
2010-02-16	Daniel Pennac	La Petite Marchande de prose	1990	(4.0)

2009 10

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating
2009-08-16	Daniel Pennac	La fée carabine	1987	(4.0)
2009-06-27	Ray Kurzweil & Terry Grossman	Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever	2009	(4.0)
2009-06-12	Daniel Pennac	Au bonheur des ogres	1985	(4.0)
2009-05-27	Philippe-Gaston Besson	Je suis fatigué mais je ne sais pas pourquoi...!: La fatigue chronique, fléau des temps modernes	2000	(3.25)
2009-05-27	Maurice Chappaz	Le garçon qui croyait au paradis	1995	(3.5)
2009-05-18	Ray Kurzweil & Terry Grossman	Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough To Live Forever	2004	(4.25)
2009-04-25	Daniel Pennac	Chagrin d'école	2007	(4.0)
2009-04-10	Régis Jauffret	Asiles de fous	2005	(3.5)
2009-03-27	Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt	Ulysse from Bagdad	2008	(4.0)
2009-03-08	Boris Vian	L'Automne à Pékin	1947	(4.25)

2008 6

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating
2008-12-29	Eric van der Vlist, Danny Ayers, Erik Bruchez, Joe Fawcett & Alessandro Vernet	Professional Web 2.0 Programming	2006	(2.5)
2008-12-17	Yann Arthus-Bertrand	365 jours pour réfléchir à notre Terre	2006	(3.5)
2008-08-17	Bruce Eckel	Thinking In Java	2006	(3.75)
2008-03-24	Douglas Coupland	JPod	2006	(3.75)
2008-02-16	Timothy Ferriss	The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, And Join The New Rich	2007	(3.75)
2008-01-28	David Allen	Getting Things Done: The Art Of Stress-Free Productivity	2002	(4.0)

2007 3

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2007-07-08	Muriel Barbery	L'Élégance du hérisson	2006	(4.25)
2007-05-08	Robert-Vincent Joule & Jean-Léon Beauvois	Petit traité de manipulation à l'usage des honnêtes gens	2002	(3.25)	Handwritten notes
2007-02-25	Richard Dawkins	The God Delusion	2006	(4.0)

2006 3

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating
2006-10-10	Boris Vian	L'Écume des jours	1947	(4.5)
2006-08-20	Ray Kurzweil	The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology	2005	(4.0)
2006-05-14	Dan Brown	The Da Vinci Code	2003	(3.5)

2005 3

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating
2005-08-16	Laurent Gaudé	Le Soleil des Scorta	2004	(3.5)
2005-06-10	Milan Kundera	L'Ignorance	2003	(4.0)
2005-05-22	George Cole	The Last Miles: The Music of Miles Davis 1980-1991	2005	(4.25)

2004 3

Date	Author	Title	Year
2004-09-19	Ray Kurzweil	The Age of Spiritual Machines	1999
2004-02-10	Neil Gaima	Miroirs et fumée	1998
2004-01-24	Franz Kafka	Le Procès	1933

2002 2

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2002-??-??	Milan Kundera	Les Testaments trahis	1993
2002-05-04	Paul Tingen	Miles Beyond: The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis 1967-1991	2001

2001 1

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2001-09-26	Franz Kafka	Le Château	1938

2000 2

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
2000-??-??	Milan Kundera	La vie est ailleurs	1969
2000-02-??	John Searle	Le mystère de la conscience	1999

1999 1

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
1999-??-??	Ian Carr	Keith Jarrett: The Man And His Music	1991

1998 1

Date	Author	Title	Year	Rating	Notes
1998-??-??	Miles Davis & Quincy Troupe	Miles: L'autobiographie	1991

1996 5

Date	Author	Title	Year
1996-??-??	Franz Kafka	L'Amérique	1927
Read in 1995 or 1996.
1996-09-21	Michel Butor	La Modification	1957
1996-07-08	Henri Michaux	Plume	1938
1996-07-04	Daniel Pennac	Comme un roman	1992
1996-07-01	Milan Kundera	L'insoutenable légèreté de l'être	1984

? 3

Author	Title	Year
Arthur C. Clarke	2010 : Odyssée deux	1982
Arthur C. Clarke	2001 : L'Odyssée de l'espace	1968
Milan Kundera	La Lenteur	1994