Drink Your Way Sober - Blocked (Receptors) and Reported (Sobriety)
Release Date: 11/19/2025
Superbloom - Volume 23 in the "Social Media is Awful" Series
We Are Not Saved
Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart By: Nicholas Carr Published: 2025 272 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? On its surface, this is a fairly typical anti-social media book, though Carr does have some interesting things to say about weaknesses inherent to the medium: content collapse, algorithmic engineering, and hostility generation. All things I’ll get to in a bit. What's the author's angle? Carr comes from the Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman school of media criticism. Media have inherent properties that lead to different sorts of communication, and different...
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We Belong to the Land - The Best Palestinian Making His Best Case
We Are Not Saved
A story of one Palestinian’s fight against brutality, bureaucracy, and bishops. We Belong to the Land: The Story of a Palestinian Israeli Who Lives for Peace and Reconciliation By: Elias Chacour and Mary E. Jensen Published: 1990 212 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? An autobiographical account of Chacour’s struggles as a Palestinian Christian working to build up his community in Galilee (Ibillin) while under continual pushback from Israeli bureaucracy and internal church politics. What's the author's angle? At the time the book was written Chacour was a Melkite Greek Catholic...
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Five Fictional Books In Search of a Common Thread
We Are Not Saved
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The Kid Stays in the Picture - A Story of Old "New Hollywood"
We Are Not Saved
The power of positive thinking and cocaine! The Kid Stays in the Picture By: Robert Evans Published: 1994 432 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? This is the autobiography of Robert Evans. It jumps around a lot, but it’s mostly built around his time as head of production for Paramount pictures from basically 1966-1974. Evans had basically zero experience, but by working himself nearly to death he produced such films as: The Godfather, Love Story, Chinatown, and Rosemary’s Baby. In the process he saved the studio and became one of the most iconic figures of “New Hollywood”. ...
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A Short History of England - What Gives a Country Its Soul?
We Are Not Saved
Chesterton mostly lost me after Arthur and Alfred, but I feel like I got his point in spite of that. A Short History of England By: G.K. Chesterton Published: 1917 107 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? The book is titled the “History of England”, but it’s really a book about the soul of England. Chesterton examines this soul chronologically from the “Age of Legends” down to the time the book was written, which happened to be the middle of World War I. What's the author's angle? It’s Chesterton, so there’s obviously a religious angle, and a traditional cultural angle. Even...
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The Wager - A Real Life "Lord of the Flies"
We Are Not Saved
I actually never got around to discussing the Lord of the Flies element of this book. But trust me it’s in there! The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder By: David Grann Published: 2023 352 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? This book is about what happened to HMS Wager, a Royal Navy ship that was shipwrecked on the south coast of Chile in 1741. The journey before the shipwreck was brutal, and it only got worse from there. Out of an initial crew of roughly 250, only about 36 eventually made it back to England. What's the author's angle? Grann is a writer for the New...
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Daily Laws - Measured Microdoses of Machiavellian Manipulations
We Are Not Saved
Banned in most prisons! That feels like a point in the book’s favor, but I’m not entirely sure I can articulate why. The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy, and Human Nature By: Robert Greene Published: 2021 464 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? A “page a day” book collecting bits of wisdom from Robert Greene’s other books (Laws of Power, Art of Seduction, Strategies of War, etc.) What's the author's angle? As a general matter Greene is something of a Machiavellian figure, he’s going to tell it like it is, and give you the tools you really...
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Saga of the Forgotten Warrior - Larry Correia Without Guns (Mostly)
We Are Not Saved
If John Wick and Judge Dredd loved each other very much… Saga of the Forgotten Warrior By: Larry Correia 1- Son of the Black Sword 2- House of Assassins 3- Destroyer of Worlds 4- Tower of Silence 5- Graveyard of Demons 6- Heart of the Mountain Briefly, what is this series about? The series is set on the continent of Lok, in a world inspired by feudal India and Southeast Asia, meaning that there are castes, and outside of that, the casteless, who are literal non-people. The story follows Ashok Vadal, a pitiless “Protector of the Law”. The Order of the Protectors is like a branch of...
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Romancing Opiates - Working With British Prisoners Makes One Grumpy
We Are Not Saved
When "stigmatizing" has become a bad word and a bad thing everywhere and for every one, one brave British curmudgeon dares to demand it's return! Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy By: Theodore Dalrymple Published: 2006 160 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? This book aims to shatter some of the myths around opioid addiction. The first part covers the myth that stopping opioids cold turkey is both painful and dangerous. The second part dissects the myths propagated by literature, primarily Coleridge and De Quincey. The final part ties it into an...
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The Unaccountability Machine - Once Again It’s Somehow All Milton Friedman’s Fault
We Are Not Saved
Maybe the answer really is to be found in early 1970’s Chilean socialism… The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions—and How the World Lost Its Mind By: Dan Davies Published: 2024 304 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? The development of accountability sinks, a construct used by governments, corporations, and really any large-scale organization to deflect responsibility (and potential punishment) away from individuals and into processes. As part of his critique and his hoped for solution Davies leans heavily into management cybernetics and Stafford...
info_outlinePart memoir, part science writing, part history, and a lot of blaming her neighbor for her empties.
Drink Your Way Sober: The Science-Based Method to Break Free from Alcohol
By: Katie Herzog
Published: 2025
208 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
You may be familiar with Katie Herzog from Blocked and Reported, the podcast she hosts with Jesse Singal. Or you might have seen her byline on the Free Press. What I didn’t know (at least before she started promoting this book) is that she’s also a recovering alcoholic. I also didn’t know about the Sinclair Method for “extinguishing” alcohol use disorder (AUD). Finally I didn’t know that we are now calling it alcohol use disorder. So you could say this is a book about a bunch of things I didn’t know.
What's the author's angle?
Herzog failed to get her drinking under control using any of the more common methods. Willpower, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), overwhelming shame, etc. The Sinclair Method was what finally worked for her. This method involves taking naltrexone before you drink. This blocks the reward circuit allowing you to train your body out of alcohol dependence. It’s also something that not a lot of people have heard about, so her angle resembles that of a fiery recent convert, who believes that people trapped in similar despair need to hear the good word.
Who should read this book?
As someone who’s never had a drink, I’m loath to recommend anything in the sobriety space. In the same manner that a fish doesn’t know about water, can I have anything meaningful to say about sobriety? That very large caveat aside, if you have AUD, and nothing else has worked, and you haven’t tried the Sinclair Method (or if you know someone who fits this category) I would definitely recommend this book.
If you’re thinking of reading it just as Herzog memoir, there’s some pretty good stuff in here, but not enough to justify reading the entire book. But if you’re on the fence I would push you towards getting the book.
Specific thoughts: So why isn’t the Sinclair Method better known?