The Avid Reader Show

Samuel Hankin
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The Avid Reader is a podcast for book lovers. Tune in for interviews, recommendations, and insider news from Sam Hankin, host and owner of independent bookstore Wellington Square Bookshop - www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com

  1. James Barrat - The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans At Everything

    2 DAYS AGO

    James Barrat - The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans At Everything

    With the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence, both existential fears and uncritical enthusiasm for AI systems have surged. In this era of unprecedented technological growth, understanding the profound impacts of AI — both positive and negative — is more crucial than ever.In The Intelligence Explosion, James Barrat, a leading technology expert, equips readers with the tools to navigate the complex and often chaotic landscape of modern AI. This compelling book dives deep into the challenges posed by generative AI, exposing how tech companies have built systems that are both error-prone and impossible to fully interpret.Through insightful interviews with AI pioneers, Barrat highlights the unstable trajectory of AI development, showcasing its potential for modest benefits and catastrophic consequences. Bold, eye-opening, and essential, The Intelligence Explosion is a must-read for anyone grappling with the realities of the technological revolution. ABOUT THE AUTHOR James Barrat is an author and documentary filmmaker who’s written and produced films for National Geographic, Discovery, PBS, and many other broadcasters in the United States and Europe. He is the author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era, Facing Sucide: Why People Kill Themselves and How We Can Stop Them, and The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans at Everything.Buy the book here:  https://wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9781250355027

    1h 7m
  2. Michaela Vieser & Isaac Yuen - The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds across Landscapes and Imagination

    24 SEPT

    Michaela Vieser & Isaac Yuen - The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds across Landscapes and Imagination

    Mapping the acoustic onto the human soul, moving meditations on the power and meaning of sound. Nature writers Michaela Vieser and Isaac Yuen set out in search of sounds beautiful and loathsome, melodious and disturbing, healing, strange, and intimate. The phenomena of sound may be fleeting and evanescent, but the memory of it can open a window into the soul, deepening our connections with time, the environment, and each other. From the edge of the solar system to the crackle of arctic sea ice, from the ancient oracle site of Dodona to the singing pillars of Hampi, each of these thirty-six essays explores stories of sound through the lens of history, science, and culture, stylishly blending fantastical facts and unique anecdotes to create a compelling narrative.Buy the book from Wellington Square Bookshop - ​ https://wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9781836391104

    1h 13m
  3. Mary Roach - Replaceable You: Adventures In Human Anatomy

    23 SEPT

    Mary Roach - Replaceable You: Adventures In Human Anatomy

    From the New York Times best-selling author of Stiff and Fuzz, a rollicking exploration of the quest to re-create the impossible complexities of human anatomy.The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available—sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet?In Replaceable You, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina?Roach dives in with her characteristic verve and infectious wit. Her travels take her to the OR at a legendary burn unit in Boston, a “superclean” xeno-pigsty in China, and a stem cell “hair nursery” in the San Diego tech hub. She talks with researchers and surgeons, amputees and ostomates, printers of kidneys and designers of wearable organs. She spends time in a working iron lung from the 1950s, stays up all night with recovery techs as they disassemble and reassemble a tissue donor, and travels across Mongolia with the cataract surgeons of Orbis International.Irrepressible and accessible, Replaceable You immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you.ABOUT THE AUTHORMary Roach is the author of seven best-selling works of nonfiction, including Grunt, Stiff, and, most recently, Fuzz. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications.Buy the book from Wellington Square Bookshop - ​https://wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9781324050629

    1h 4m
  4. Svend Brinkmann - The Experience Society: Life Beyoned Subjectivity

    23 SEPT

    Svend Brinkmann - The Experience Society: Life Beyoned Subjectivity

    An enlightening look at how our elevation of the sensorial and the subjective has impaired our ability to connect—and how we might build that connection back. In today’s so-called experience society, everything is judged by personal experience, from online shopping to funerals. Value is measured by how satisfying an individual finds their experience, and the experience economy thrives on this desire for entertainment and fulfillment. Yet debates often reach an impasse when reduced to subjective feelings—whether offense is taken or criticisms are dismissed. Svend Brinkmann explores this cultural shift, examining how our reliance on subjective experience limits meaningful discussions and social cohesion. He argues that reclaiming a shared, objective reality is essential for tackling the major issues of our time and for fostering genuine understanding beyond personal perceptions.Buy the book from Wellington Square Bookshop - ​https://wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9781836390954

    55 min
  5. Einstein in Oxford - Andrew Robinson

    17 MAR

    Einstein in Oxford - Andrew Robinson

    An intimate account of Albert Einstein’s visit to Oxford in the 1930’s, casting new light on why he continues to be the world’s most famous scientist.In 1931, Albert Einstein visited Oxford to receive an honorary degree and lecture on relativity and the universe. While teaching, he naturally chalked equations and diagrams on several blackboards. Today, one of these boards is the most popular object in Oxford’s History of Science Museum. Yet Einstein tried to prevent its preservation because he was modest about his legendary status. Having failed, he complained to his diary: “Not even a cart-horse could endure so much!”Nevertheless, he came back to Oxford in 1932 and again in 1933—then as a refugee from Nazi Germany. In many ways, the city appealed deeply and revealed him at his most charismatic as he participated in its science, music, and politics, and wandered its streets alone. Einstein in Oxford is an eye-opening exploration of the world’s most famous scientist, told through the personal writings he left behind from an important period of his life. From the pages of his diary entries, poem, and other written observations, readers gain a deeper understanding of the unique man—and humor—who continues to fascinate the world.Buy the book from Wellington Square Bookshop - ​https://www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com

    46 min
  6. Hidden in the Heavens - Jason Steffen

    17 MAR

    Hidden in the Heavens - Jason Steffen

    Are we alone in the universe? It’s a fundamental question for Earth-dwelling humankind. Are there other worlds like ours, out there somewhere? In Hidden in the Heavens, Jason Steffen, a former scientist on NASA’s Kepler mission, describes how that mission searched for planets orbiting Sun-like stars—especially Earth-like planets circulating in Earth-like orbits. What the Kepler space telescope found, Steffen reports, contradicted centuries of theoretical and observational work and transformed our understanding of planets, planetary systems, and the stars they orbit. Kepler discovered thousands of planets orbiting distant stars—a bewildering variety of celestial bodies, including rocky planets being vaporized by the intense heat of their host star; super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, with properties simultaneously similar to and different from both Earth and Neptune; gas giants several times the size and mass of Jupiter; and planets orbiting in stellar systems that had only been imagined in science fiction.‎Published by: Princeton University PressBuy the book from Wellington Square Bookshop - ​https://www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com

    1h 2m
  7. Ciara Greene and Gillian Murphy - Memory Lane: The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember

    18 FEB

    Ciara Greene and Gillian Murphy - Memory Lane: The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember

    We tend to think of our memories as impressions of the past that remain fully intact, preserved somewhere inside our brains. In fact, we construct and reconstruct our memories every time we attempt to recall them. Memory Lane introduces readers to the cutting-edge science of human memory, revealing how our recollections of the past are constantly adapting and changing, and why a faulty memory isn’t always a bad thing.Shedding light on what memory is and what it evolved to do, Ciara Greene and Gillian Murphy discuss the many benefits of our flexible yet fallible memory system, including helping us to maintain a coherent identity, sustain social bonds, and vividly imagine possible futures. But these flexible and easily distorted memories can also result in significant harm, leading us to provide erroneous eyewitness testimony or fall victim to fake news. Greene and Murphy explain why our flawed memories are not a failure of evolution but rather a byproduct of the perfectly imperfect way our minds have evolved to solve problems. They also grapple with important ethical questions surrounding the study and manipulation of memory.Blending engaging storytelling with the latest science, the authors demonstrate how our continuous reconstruction of the past makes us who we are, helps us to interpret our experiences, and explains why no two trips down memory lane are ever quite the same.Buy the book from Wellington Square Bookshop - ​https://www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9780691257099

    1 hr
  8. David Bates - An Artificial History of Natural Intelligence

    18 FEB

    David Bates - An Artificial History of Natural Intelligence

    A new history of human intelligence that argues that humans know themselves by knowing their machines.We imagine that we are both in control of and controlled by our bodies—autonomous and yet automatic. This entanglement, according to David W. Bates, emerged in the seventeenth century when humans first built and compared themselves with machines. Reading varied thinkers from Descartes to Kant to Turing, Bates reveals how time and time again technological developments offered new ways to imagine how the body’s automaticity worked alongside the mind’s autonomy. Tracing these evolving lines of thought, An Artificial History of Natural Intelligence offers a new theorization of the human as a being that is dependent on technology and produces itself as an artificial automaton without a natural, outside origin.Buy the book from Wellington Square Bookshop - ​https://www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9780226832104

    1 hr
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About

The Avid Reader is a podcast for book lovers. Tune in for interviews, recommendations, and insider news from Sam Hankin, host and owner of independent bookstore Wellington Square Bookshop - www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com

Information

  • Creator
    Samuel Hankin
  • Years Active
    2010 - 2025
  • Episodes
    795
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 Samuel Hankin
  • Show Website
    The Avid Reader Show

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