We are holding our meeting online via Zoom and in person at either the Sunnyvale, Mountain View or Palo Alto Public Library. If you wish to join us, please sign up at https://www.meetup.com/humanistcommunity/events/292742658/?fromSeries=true and the link to the meeting will be available to you. If you wish to join us in person, send an email to webmaster@humanists.org requesting the meeting place.
New Book – New Book
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir, 2021, 496 pages
“From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science.
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.
And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.
Or does he?
An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.”
See https://www.amazon.com/Project-Hail-Mary-Andy-Weir/dp/0593135229/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3R9BOIWQQ3K6B&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ITkQGkk2pZfZcO-P_GwCTDNFQKKfkgA-L02vGbnEzM-jyF90cS6caIDj1b1U-k0dPe5ItdAbEZIsJWTHKCRxa2M2y5nf0ahLtkz2f5-mm7gsgOhKXPXWD4k-I9qgJV3fEZBA8a21TWSKzt6jkjGh1m6ble86yHZmDSVOhoKD4BoSzGgG72Rfxq5vgHQcmYdh-8pbcnsYseR6KJU2NlJnjdvHSBTNQv36apy8RGpy5Fg.2_PGTw4j4udUfj97PnASrvOVuRcRfSPQn7V3A4ZwNSw&dib_tag=se&keywords=project+hail+mary+paperback&qid=1718458582&sprefix=project+%2Caps%2C167&sr=8-1
24 July – Chap. 15 through 17, Pages 249 to 291, 42 pages
7 Aug – Freethought Discussion Meeting – Bring Your Ideas to Share and Discuss
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Past Books We Have Read
o “The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations by Robert Ardrey.”
o Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point, by Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt, 2023
o “The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo” by Tom Reiss
o “New China Playbook” , by Keyu Jin, 368 pages, 2023
o “The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America, by Amy Chua, Jed Rubenfeld, 2015
o “Defying Hitler”, by Sebastian Haffner, Oliver Pretzel (Translator), written in 1939, published in 2003, 309 pages
o “The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong”, Laurence J. Peter
o “The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations”, by Ian Morris, 2014, 235 pages
o Survive: Why We Do What We Do, by Jerry Pannone, 2022
o Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, Robert M. Sapolsky, 2017
o “Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy”, 2021, by Thomas M. Nichols
o “The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity”, March 24, 2020 by Toby Ord
o “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It” by Robert Reich
o “The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life”, by Anu Partanen,
o “It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis
o “Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody”, by by Helen Pluckrose (Author), James Lindsay (Author), Hardcover – August 25, 2020
o “Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do” by Jennifer L. Eberhardt, PhD, 2019
o“The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good” by Michael J. Sandel, 2020
o “Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know” by Malcolm Gladwell, 2019
o “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini, PhD, 2009
o “I, Robot” by Isaac Asimov, 1950, 1977
o “A Confession” by Leon Tolstoy, 2011
o “Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong about the World and Why Things Are Better than You Think” by Hans Rosling, 2018
o “The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley” by Malcolm X, Alex Haley, and Attallah Shabazz, 1992
o “The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy” by Stephanie Kelton, 2020
o “Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and other Animals” by John Gray, 2007
o “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny” by Robert Wright, 2000
o “Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion” by Paul Bloom, 2016
o “Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts” by Stanislas Dehaene, 2014
o “The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm” by Lewis Dartnell, 2015
o “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, 2013
o “The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman” by John Perkins, 2016
o “The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning” by Daniel Bor, 2012
o “The Skeptics Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake” by Dr. Steven Novella & 4 more, 2018
o “Creating Change though Humanism” by Roy Speckhardt, 2015
o “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe, 2009
o “The Human Web: A Bird’s-Eye View of World History” by J. R. McNeill & William H. McNeill, 2003
o “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by Thomas Picketty, 2017
o “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hanna Arendt, 1973
o “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari, 2015
o “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom” by Jonathan Haidt, 2006
o “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” by Jonathan Haidt, 2013
o “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do” by Michael J. Sandel, 2009
o “Listen Liberal: What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?” by Thomas Frank, 2017
o “Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away” by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 2014
o “Intuition Pumps and other Tools for Thinking” by Daniel C. Dennett, 2014
o “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern” by Stephen Greenblatt, 2012