Books
The big ideas from popular books, without giving the whole thing away. Get the GIST, then decide if you want the REST.
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79 summaries, page 1 of 4
Book Summary | Hamlet's Mill
Two historians of science argue that the world's myths are a coded record of ancient astronomy, built around a cosmic mill whose breaking marks the slow wobble of the heavens.
Book Summary | Lying
Sam Harris argues that even kind white lies cost more than they save, and that simply telling the truth makes life simpler and relationships deeper.
Book Summary | My Big TOE
A NASA physicist's theory of everything: consciousness is the foundation of reality, the physical world is a virtual training ground, and the point of it all is to grow from fear toward love.
Book Summary | The Descent of Man
Darwin finally turns his theory on ourselves, arguing that humans share ancestry, mind and even morality with other animals, and that mate choice helped shape us.
Book Summary | The Hidden Life of Trees
German forester Peter Wohlleben argues that a forest is a cooperative community in which trees communicate, share food and raise their young, and that we should manage it that way.
Book Summary | The Hitchhiker's Guide to Python
The Python community's opinionated field guide to setting up, writing, reading and shipping great code.
Book Summary | The Tyranny of Merit
Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel argues that our faith in meritocracy has made winners arrogant, made everyone else feel humiliated, and fuelled the populist backlash, and that humility and respect for work are the way back.
Book Summary | What Is Life?
A quantum physicist asks how atoms can add up to a living thing, and his answers, an aperiodic crystal carrying a code-script and life feeding on negative entropy, help launch molecular biology.
Bible Summary | Book of Genesis
The Bible's book of beginnings: the creation of the world, the first humans, the flood, and the family of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, bound to God by promise.
Bible Summary | Book of Exodus
Israel's founding story: slavery in Egypt, Moses and the burning bush, the plagues and the sea, and then the covenant, the commandments and the tabernacle at Sinai.
Bible Summary | Book of Leviticus
The priestly heart of the Torah: how a people is to live beside a holy God, through sacrifice, purity, the Day of Atonement and the command to love your neighbour as yourself.
Bible Summary | Book of Numbers
Israel's forty years between Mount Sinai and the Jordan: two censuses, a refusal at the border of Canaan, a generation lost in the desert and a new one made ready.
Bible Summary | Book of Deuteronomy
Moses' farewell speeches on the edge of the promised land: the story so far, the law restated, a covenant to choose, and the death of Israel's greatest prophet.
Bible Summary | Book of Joshua
After the wilderness, Israel crosses the Jordan under a new leader, takes and divides the promised land, and is asked to choose whom it will serve.
Bible Summary | Book of Ruth
A widowed foreigner's stubborn loyalty to her mother-in-law turns famine, grief and emptiness into a harvest, a marriage and the family line of King David.
Bible Summary | Book of 1 Samuel
Israel asks for a king and gets Saul, who rises and unravels while a shepherd named David, anointed in secret, kills a giant and spends years on the run from the man he will replace.
Bible Summary | Book of 2 Samuel
Israel's greatest king wins a nation, receives a promise that his dynasty will last forever, then watches his own sin tear his family apart.
Bible Summary | Book of 1 Kings
From Solomon's wisdom, wealth and Temple to a kingdom split in two, a line of failing kings, and the prophet Elijah's lonely stand against Ahab and Jezebel.
Bible Summary | Book of 2 Kings
From Elijah's chariot of fire to the burning of Jerusalem, the story of how two kingdoms ignored their prophets and lost their land.
Bible Summary | Book of 1 Chronicles
Israel's story retold for a later age: long family lines from Adam to the tribes, then David as the king who brings the ark to Jerusalem and prepares everything for the Temple.
Bible Summary | Book of 2 Chronicles
Four centuries of Judah's kings, from Solomon's golden Temple to its ashes, told as one long lesson that God hears those who humble themselves and turn back.
Bible Summary | Book of Ezra
The return from Babylon: exiles rebuild the Temple under Persian kings, and the scribe Ezra arrives to teach the law and confront a community in crisis.
Bible Summary | Book of Nehemiah
The king's cupbearer gets leave to rebuild Jerusalem's ruined walls, finishes them in fifty-two days against threats and plots, and then fights to reform the community inside.
Bible Summary | Book of Esther
An orphaned Jewish girl becomes queen of Persia and risks her life to stop a decree to destroy her people, in the only biblical story besides the Song of Songs that never names God.