Book Reviews
Healthcare
A History of Global Health: Interventions into the Lives of Other People
bg Randall M. PackardCopyright (c) 2016. I chose this book to read because I wanted a tutorial to the field of global health, and I find that histories are interesting tutorials to subjects. The author, unknown to me, is a Johns Hopkins professor of medical history and is known for writing a work on the history of malaria. The book meets my already-high expectations. Written well, it chronicles early attempts to control disease in “foreign”…
Software-Technology
R Cookbook: Proven Recipes for Data Analysis, Statistics, and Graphics
by Paul Teetor Copyright 2011. I picked up this book with the intention of learning intermediate R. I was past the novice stage of learning the language, but I was still short of learning Advanced R. This book gave me the confidence to read R code more quickly and to understand more nuance in this (fun) language. This book is written by a quant (Wall Street data analyst) who has Masters degrees in both statistics…
Economics
Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable
by Jeffrey D. SachsAudiobook(c) 2016. I voted for Hillary Clinton twice in 2016. She beat Bernie Sanders in the first race, only to lose to Donald Trump in the second in a close race. Bernie Sanders relied on Sachs’ economics advice. Therefore, I find it important to educate myself on the issues in this democracy and to read this book to illuminate my ignorant mind. Sachs lays out a powerful and persuasive case for engaging…
Software-Technology
ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis
by Hadley Wickham(c) 2016. This is another book that applies to one of my nascent passions: Statistical programming with R. This book brings forth the central visualization package in ggplot by its author Hadley Wickham. Like most of Hadley’s works, the book is meticulously researched and extremely clear. It is a winner in accomplishing its goals of introducing visualization in R. It even contains a short section on modeling in R. For those who don’t…
Healthcare
The Fever: How Malaria has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
by Sonia Shah(c) 2010.Especially during the later Bush years, I heard a lot about mosquito nets to prevent malaria. It was a simple intervention that provided real action. Now, I’m told many (actually, most) of those mosquito nets aren’t used to protect those that are sleeping. They are used as fish nets or on only adults, not on more vulnerable children. This little-known fact and more comprises the main storyline in Fever. Written by an…
Presentation
Beyond Bullet Points: Using PowerPoint to Tell a Persuasive Story that Gets Results.
Beyond Bullet Points: Using PowerPoint to Tell a Persuasive Story that Gets Results.by Cliff Atkinson(c) 2018. This book, sponsored by Microsoft, uses contemporary theories about communication to advocate that people stop using PowerPoint as a crutch and instead use it as a tool to tell a story. It accomplishes that task very effectively. Most people use PowerPoint to delineate a series of statements to be used in a presentation. I’ve sat through many lectures in…
Politics
If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty
by Eric Metaxas(c) 2016. The title of this book is stolen from Benjamin Franklin when asked if we were founding a monarchy or a republic. With his classic quick wit, he responded, “A republic… if you can keep it.” This book, by a radio talk show host, comprises a series of lecture-type chapters that admonishes patriotism instead of carelessness towards America. It contains many anecdotes which are interesting, such as that of Nathan Hale’s, “I…