Alex Drost’s Bookshelf
335 books read, each one summarised and linked by hand to the others it argues with.
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Crime & JusticeSociety & Culture
The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic
The US is richer, better educated and more religious than its peers, yet its homicide rate looks like the world's poorest countries.
Core idea Much of what passes for gun control in America is theater: cosmetic bans on particular rifles leave untouched the easily acquired handgun, the weapon in most shootings, including most mass…
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A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Timothy Egan · 2023 · read Feb 2025Who brought down the 1920s Klan at the height of its power?
Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment
Jason Schreier · 2024 · read Apr 2025Somewhere between the 2008 Activision merger and the 2021 California lawsuit, Blizzard lost its independence and much of the…
Dawn of the Code War: America's Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat
John P. Carlin · 2018 · read Jun 2025If thieves broke into Boeing and carried out its schematics, the response would be swift.
Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror
Michael V. Hayden · 2016 · read Jun 2025Hayden's case is that spy agencies should work right up to the edge of what the law allows, and that your privacy, a value he…
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in History – and How It Shattered a Nation
Andrew Ross Sorkin · 2025 · read Oct 2025On October 28, 1929, the market fell about 13 percent, and National City Bank found itself holding some 71,000 shares from a…
The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip
Stephen Witt · 2025 · read Nov 2025From a founding in a Denny's to a brief moment in June 2024 as the world's most valuable company, Nvidia got there on Jensen…
