Tyler Ransom

About me

When I am not working, I am helping my wife raise our children, volunteering at my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; see my Church CV for a complete history of volunteer activities), cooking, reading books, listening to books and podcasts, tweeting, or writing on Substack. I am a LaTeX enthusiast and enjoy following sports and doing sports analytics for fun. My favorite teams are: BYU, OU, Chelsea FC, Duke, and the Utah Jazz.

Recent books I've read

I try to read 3 or 4 books each month. Starting in 2023, I posted a year-end reading list with brief reviews on my Substack. You can find the 2023 and 2024 vintages there.

Below are some of the most influential books I've read in recent years, organized by topic:

Health and Personal Development

• Two Meals A Day, by Mark Sisson and Brad Kearns
• A World Without Email, Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, all by Cal Newport
• Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer

Historical Nonfiction

• Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, by Richard Lyman Bushman
• Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, by John G. Turner
• The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann, by Ananyo Bhattacharya
• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex and Colonel Roosevelt, all by Edmund Morris
• The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats, by Daniel Stone
• 1491, 1493, and The Wizard and the Prophet, all by Charles C. Mann

Science

• Omega Balance, by Anthony Hulbert
• The Master Algorithm, by Pedro Domingos

Miscellaneous

• Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, by Kory Stamper

My wife's photography website

My wife is a professional natural-light portrait photogapher. Click here to see her portfolio.

What I like to cook

These days, I mainly cook limited-ingredient foods that contain as little processed ingredients and as little omega-6 polyunsaturated fat as possible. Examples include:

• Grilled beef (steak, burgers)
• Vegetables roasted in beef tallow (baby potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, carrots, zucchini, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower)
• Sourdough bread with as few ingredients as possible
• Simple stir-fries with fresh vegetables and ground beef
• Meatballs
• Homemade tortilla chips (corn tortillas fried in beef tallow)