Finished reading: Underworld by Don DeLillo 📚

Man, I’m so sorry - I really disliked this book.

White Noise by Don Delillo was one of my favorite books of 2022… one of my favorite books since I started book blogging. When I picked up Underworld, I knew I was in the mood for a thick read… but man, it stunk.

It seems like Don Delillo is having so much less fun than he was with White Noise. He’s got sort of a few interesting things he is trying out, with language and repetition and stuff, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. He feels tortured, and like he’s torturing the reader. And not in an artsy, interesting way.

I almost quit reading several times, but ended up sticking it out since the author earned my trust with White Noise. Wrong move - I think would have enjoyed this book more if I had quit early. The epilogue is so non-sequiturial, so out of left field, that it essentially admits Delillo had no plan or vision for the book. It was a confirmation that this whole thing was basically a meandering brainstorm.

I was so bored while reading this book that it made me want to re-read The Pale King… TPK, at least, has a virtue and motivation for the boredom than it intentionally cultivates.

I actually finished this book several months ago… I wanted to give myself some distance from the book in order to see if my opinion mellowed with time. It has not. I don’t recommend Underworld. Read White Noise and The Pale King instead.

Filterworld by Kyle Chayka 📚

The subtitle for this book is How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Readers of my newsletter know me for my prolix, anti-algorithm screeds, which started in 2019 but got red hot in 2020 during the pandemic, when everyone's social life moved online. This is the same period Kyle is writing this book from. I really love Kyle Chayka. I discovered him when I picked up his first book The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism, which I thought was thought-provoking, nuanced, and playing with new ideas. I've followed Chayka at the New Yorker since he published that book, and was excited for this book to be released.

So excited, in fact, that I published last year's ChatGPT and the End of Online Content when I did because I wanted to get it out the door before Filterworld was released. That essay felt like sort of a capstone on much of the writing and thinking I've been doing about online culture for the past five years, and I was (and continue to be) proud of it. But I wanted to make sure I said what I had to say because I figured Kyle would be saying much of the same thing in this book.

He didn't, really. Sure, there's as much overlap as there will be when two pieces are about digital culture, but... I was honestly a little underwhelmed by this book. It was good, for sure, but did not feel groundbreaking or nuanced like The Longing for Less did. It felt to me like there was much unexplored territory here: how the concept of monoculture has both gone away and grown bigger, how exactly human curation avoids stunting culture in the way that algorithmic curation does, for example.

The main issues that made the book feel a little unserious were the moments where Chayka felt sort of... out of touch. Here's an example: "We cannot wholly opt out while still using the digital platforms that have become necessary parts of modern adult life. Like the post office, the sewer system, or power lines, they are essential." This is either completely overblown, or has a bafflingly subjective use of the word "essential". You can easily make it through your life without social media platforms. Chayka might also be adding Amazon and Spotify to this list... those are a little tougher, but many people absolutely make it through the day without them. At another point, he quotes someone who says "most human behavior is occurring online", and then moves on without investigation. ...What? "Most human behavior is occurring online"?! No. Not even close. As someone who works remotely and spends (at least)eight hours online every day, sure, I get how someone might think most of their own behavior occurs online, but... No. Not even close.

All that said, there is some really good stuff here. There were some ideas that I've had, but never really seen articulated other places, 1. "Stern has observed how TikTok encourages users to slot themselves into particular categories or genres of identity, just as it brackets genres of culture. 'Whatever it is that you're consuming just becomes an expression of your self, it exists only insofar as it can describe you'". I think collapse between identity, personality and character is super damaging to our self-perceptions, and puts undue pressure on people to think of themselves in terms of genre of identity. (I wish this was an area that was explored more - although I think it's explored in The Anxious Generation?, which I have not read.) 2. "We have come to expect algorithmic promotion almost as a right." Is a great way of phrasing the confusion people have over "censorship" online - censorship is when you go to prison for saying something. Anything else is just the company doing what it thinks it needs to do to make the most money.

There were also some new ideas for me here, that I'm excited to continue thinking about. The biggest was the idea of how an object or idea is replaced in Filterworld with the marketing of that object or idea. At different points, Chayka writes "the perception of recommendation [can] skew the perceived value of a given piece of culture, making it seem more likable or significant", "The cultural ecosystem of Filterworld puts the cart before the horse: The needs of promotion and marketing supersede the object that is meant to be promoted", "the emphasis is not on the thing itself but on the aura that surrounds it". This felt like a revelation to me: an explanation of why there are so many popular restaurants where the look of the food is more important than the taste; or houses painted so garishly that look terrible from the street but probably eye-catching from the feed. In Filterworld, things have no taste, no feel, no durability, and no context.

I think most people will get lots of things out of this book. It's a great part of an ongoing conversation; not the watershed I hoped it would be, but: I guess that's sort of on me for setting my expectations where I did. Obviously, I found it thought-provoking.

Wow, what an incredible book.

I put this book on my list last summer after listening to Barbara's interview on the Ezra Klein show. It jumped to the top of my list when I heard my mom was reading it for book club - her book club has notoriously (for me) good picks.

This book is a retelling of David Copperfield. I haven't read David Copperfield since college, and then only because it was assigned for class. The book it reminded me of was The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt; a story about a boy growing up, who both beats unbelievably long odds and squanders magically good luck.

The book is written in the first person, and I was surprised how strong of a personality for the narrator came through. The voice felt like the opposite of sanitized. Lived in, idiosyncratic, and with a dry wit. All the secondary characters, too, were so real and knowable. This really is top-shelf fiction.

There's a strong political thread to this story, and reading made me realize how political Dickens must have felt to contemporary readers. The discussion at the end of the book about the difference between land economy and money economy was inspiring; and I was glad to read it and to have it placed within the context of the story.

This book was a recommendation from my cousin Sean. I took it for a standard "slow down" book in the spirit of How To Do Nothing or Rest Is Resistance (both of which I love), and did not realize until after I opened it that it is a deeply Christian book. This works fine, since I'm a Christian, and books written by pastors are notoriously quick to read.

I did in fact end up reading this book in one day. After a big pep talk about the over-hurried nature of our society, the author breaks down his advice about eliminating hurry into four categories:

1. Silence (spend time not doing anything, silently, just thinking)
2. Sabbath (set aside time, in advance, every week, to not do productive work)
3. Simplicity (identify things in your life where you're putting in too much effort for the joy you get, and stop doing those things)
4. Slowing (question the idea that the most efficient solution is always the best)

The author tries to be pretty non-prescriptive with it; the parentheticals here are my take aways, not his actual advice. Sabbath and Simplicity, while not well practiced, definitely seem non-controversial and, in fact, important. But it was "Silence" and "Slowing" that felt like newer territory.

The importance of "Silence" for me first started to become clear to me when I realized that I had basically eliminated silence from my life after Apple introduced Automatic Device Switching for AirPods a few years ago. With this feature, I can stream audio into my ears all day by starting with a podcast on my phone when I wake up, switching to music when I sit down at my computer, switching to an audiobook when I go for a run with my Apple Watch, and then sitting down to watch TV on my iPad before dinner. With all that stimulation, it a) feels like the day slips by me very quickly, without any room to breathe, and b) prevents me from doing any of the deep thinking about myself and about the world that can only come from silence. "Silence", here can be metaphorical, perhaps for "lack of distraction"; it doesn't necessarily need to be AirPods.

"Slowing" is a fun one in as much as, for so many elements of our life, the descriptor "most efficient" has become synonymous with "best". But what is lost when we do things in the most efficient way? One example: Liz and I took a trip to South Bend this weekend to go to a Notre Dame game. Instead of taking the highway like we normally do, we took the slower state road, adding about an hour to our drive. It was mostly a one-lane road, so everyone was at the mercy of the slowest driver. We were on vacation either way, so what was the rush? We got to see the leaves changing color, spend more time together, and got to drive through some very quaint Indiana towns that we never would've had reason to come through, otherwise.

This book was a fun one, and is still thought provoking a few months later. The concepts presented are general enough that they can be fun to play with, regardless of your situation, but the explanations are rich enough that it doesn't seem vague and hand-waving. If you're interested in feeling less hurried, this is a good book for you. I will say: if the Christian God is not part of how you see the world, the book will probably feel much less relevant.

Here's my review of the first book in this trilogy

The challenge of having a Sith Lord — an ostensibly evil character — as your protagonist, is that you need to find a way to make the Dark Side of the Force seem compelling and relatable, and to make the Light Side seem abhorrent and wrong. It’s a tall order. But the author of this book does it with aplomb.

Imagine you grew up in an emotionally repressed environment (maybe you don’t have to imagine), where for one reason or another you were asked to suppress, ignore, or otherwise deprioritize your emotional needs. Maybe there was someone sick in your house that always took priority over how you felt; maybe there was someone in the house whose emotional needs were understood to be more important than yours; maybe showing emotion was seen as weakness by your family members, and was exploited. Anyway: when you grow up and move out and go to therapy, you might hear something like this from a therapist: "Your emotions are valid, and they are good. They’re part of how you experience the world. They’re part of your instincts for when a situation is right or wrong. You should be in touch with your emotions, and use their power to help you figure out your relationships and your purpose."

That hypothetical therapist is basically making the argument for embracing the dark side of the force. In this book, the Jedi are sold as emotionally-stunted, repressive monks. And the Dark Side is sold as something that sees & validates your emotion and frustration, and allows you to indulge in your emotions, especially the ones that it feels best to indulge: a sense of being wronged, and a desire for retribution. It’s really an impressively portrayed philosophy.

The book has lots going on besides this, too. The combat scenes are great; this is perhaps the first time I've been interested while reading a description of two people fighting... and the author really does go blow-by-blow. There's also just lots of great Star Wars-y stuff. Great lore about the foundation of the modern Sith, lots of cool new planets with ancient secrets.

If you like any Star Wars books, you'll like this Star Wars book.

This book was written by my sleep doctor! I have sleep apnea, which is treated by me wearing a CPAP machine to bed every night, which is not fun, but is more fun than feeling exhausted all day every day, which is how I was before I got the CPAP machine. Additionally, I take a medication each morning to help keep me awake during the day; due to having undiagnosed sleep apnea for years before I got it treated, I have some loose wires in the part of my brain that keeps me awake.

Anyhow - that’s why I have a sleep doctor. That’s also how I know how important getting enough sleep is! If you’ve ever seen me leave a party early or get grouchy because dinner plans are running behind schedule, it’s because I absolutely love to prioritize my sleep.

This book was kind of all over the place; part autobiography, part motivational speech, part popular science book. If you want to motivate yourself to get into a better sleep habit, it’s definitely worth a read. But it doesn’t take a very research-driven approach. For that, I recommend The Circadian Code by Dr. Satchin Panda, which I read in 2021.

One thing l’ve taken from this book, though, is Dr. Singh’s four-step wind down plan:

1. Shower
2. Journal
3. Read
4. Mindful Breathing

Something about this 30-40 minute ritual just… works. I’ve been taking a warm shower before bed since reading The Circadian Code, which taught me that warm showers bring your blood flow closer to your skin, which lowers your core body temperature, which helps you fall asleep. And Dr. Singh’s argument for journaling is that it helps you empty your mind and lets you go to bed with nothing to worry about. Reading helps me detach further from the stress or work of the day. And Mindful Breathing is like a final goodnight to myself (I just do 2 minutes on the breathing app in the Apple Watch).

Anyway - it was a fun book.

The attraction of reading a new story in an existing universe (for me: Marvel comics and Star Wars novels) is that, in the best case scenario, you can get to the meat of a story without having to explain a whole set of rules, or describe a whole set of scenes, or introduce a whole new cast of characters. If you love character-driven novels, the in-universe story can get you where you want to go faster than almost anything else.

There are two huge downsides, though. The first downside is that many readers like the in-universe book because they like those rules, scenes, and existing characters for their own sake. They want to drop into the world, and just sit there. So there’s a risk that an in-universe book will splash around a bit in the familiar world, but ultimately lead nowhere. This leads to the second downside, which is: since a reader doesn’t need to spend effort learning rules, scenes, and characters, the mental cost of reading the book is lower than it would be otherwise. That lowered cost of admission, of course, makes it easier for the author to deliver less than they would have to if they were asking for buy-in on a whole new world. The heart-breaking result of this is that most in-universe stories, equipped with all the necessary tools and advantages to be engaging literature, are pretty bad.

This book, Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn, successfully navigates these pitfalls, and lives up to much of the potential of in-universe writing. It was a very fun read. The characters are immediately engaging. The story is compelling - leaves you in anticipation without becoming predictable. It’s an accessible Sith-vs-Jedi story, so it’s great for beginners, and it deals with the essential themes of human goodness that the best Star War stories do. It’s the first book in the Darth Bane trilogy, so hopefully it’s not too big of a spoiler to say that this book is about Darth Bane’s origin and rise to power. The beginning of the book introduces Darth Bane to many other powerful Sith; characters that leave you impressed with their depth and cunning. My biggest gripe is that, as Darth Bane becomes more physically powerful and mentally sharper, it’s clear that the other characters are getting… stupider. There’s more than just his own ascent going on here; the people he defeats at the end of the book are demonstratively less capable than they were when they were introduced several hundred pages earlier.

But that’s not a dealbreaker. It’s still a solid story. I think this is a bit more my speed than the Thrawn trilogy I read last summer. That said: this book is much more fantasy than sci-fi.

I recommend it to anyone whose looking for some easy summer reading!

This book was another gift to me by my wife’s cousin (who has a sci-fi podcast), and I totally loved it. I started slow, and was not hooked at first… but I think that was just a result of me coming out of a reading slump. Which this book fixed!

I never really “got” short stories when we studied them in school. Whatever the lesson/moral of the story we were supposed to get out of the story always seemed pretty arbitrary. Like, how on earth was I supposed to pick up on what Flannery O’Connor was thinking? My teachers interpretations always seemed like such a stretch.

Because of this, I have kind of ignored the medium. But in the last few years, I’ve started a) reading the short fiction in the New Yorker with much more regularity and b) reading monthly comic books, which are essentially graphic short stories.

So I was primed, a bit, to open this collection — and I am glad I gave it a shot. Great stories, filled with heart. Ken Liu is a Chinese American, and his perspective is a total gift to both cultures. I learned a lot about Chinese and Chinese American culture. It also made me reflect on American values with wider perspective than I usually have… I don’t think I’ve ever read a sci-fi story that quotes Alexis De Tocqueville!

These stories were great. I recommend them to anyone who enjoys fiction.

Another book I got as a gift. I almost closed it without finishing it several times. I didn’t find the writer’s style engaging, I was not super interesting in what they had to say about different types of puzzles, and the “meaning of life” stuff just wasn’t there.

The book seemed like it was quickly put together, yet also a bit self-involved. I don’t, in general, like the characterization of someone being “a puzzle-person” or not.

The one thing I took away from this book was a tip for crosswords: if you’re stuck, start by putting an ’s’ at the end of all the plural descriptions, and an ‘ed’ at the end of all the past-tense descriptions.

Cory Doctorow is probably best known for his continuous, acidic, brilliant short form nonfiction essays that he publishes on his website about economics, politics, and (especially) the role of big tech (he hates it). I read it sometimes, but was interested in reading this book — described as a detective novel — after I enjoyed reading a book by Walter Mosley. This book was a fun, light read (as long as you consider technical descriptions of cybercrime light), but nothing life-changing. I’ll probably read other books in the series, though! I recommend it to anyone who is tech-literate and likes pulp thrillers.

This book was written by a former professor of mine, and given to me by my dad as a gift. I really loved this professor’s class on computer security - he was so much more interested in teaching us about the nature of computers — and people — and how to think about vulnerability and protection on a broad scale.

This book, fittingly, takes a broad look at computers and online culture, starting from the beginning of the internet, and even drawing on examples from further back in human history to analyze the nature of story telling and the different roles communication plays.

This book is bursting with good ideas and creative energy. Reading it, I was inspired to see the internet not as the homogenous, commercialized, moderated place it sometimes seems to be; but rather as the space for creativity and collaboration that it was first envisioned. It made me excited and re-inspired about my own work as a programmer.

I think the book suffers from being published through an academic press. The ideas Dr. Schierer presents very much stand on their own, but in the stylistic custom of academic books, these ideas are grafted onto existing (often irrelevant) ideas from other academics. I just want to read about what you think - no need to prove anything to me!

This book has been on my “To Read” list for a few years now. I usually don’t let a book sit that long, especially when, like this one, it was recommended to me multiple times. But the premise scared me. It’s a near future sci-fi book about increasing climate devastation and the global response to it. I work for The Sierra Club, so I already think about this sort of stuff more than I want to… I didn’t want to drag it into my free time. What a mistake! This book was incredible!

It was scary and real, yes, but when so much dread of the future has to do with uncertainty, it was nice to read a hyper-concrete vision of that future. That’s why I like sci-fi, in general - my worry about the future of civilization is assuaged by stories about survival and perseverance. This book was no different..

And the author did such a great job painting a wholistic picture! Talking about energy, biology, finance, community organizing, politics - all things I’m interested in.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks about policy, environmental science, or economics. A great book with broad appeal.

The subtitle for this book is “Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall,” and follows the culture of crypto from the bust of Silk Road in 2013 to the collapse of FTX in November 2022. The author (Zeke Faux) is a journalist for Bloomberg News, and it shows - his writing is very good.

But don’t go into this book expecting “investigative journalism,” asking a tough question and then tracking down the answer to that question. Zeke tracks lots of questions and follows lots of leads, but many leads end up being duds… some chapter end with “I didn’t find what I was looking for, so I guess I flew to [such-and-such place] for nothing.” Perhaps you could say the book explores the process of journalism; but isn’t presented as the well-polished, facts-only piece.

It’s also not a history of or technical explainer for Bitcoin, blockchain technology, or cryptocurrency. Instead, this book is a chronicling of the author’s adventures inside the world of crypto: the crazy conferences, the mega wealth, the outlandish personalities, and the many many scams. I’ve never really gotten involved, and always figured most crypto was probably a scam… after reading this book, I’m convinced that all crypto is absolutely a scam.

The author also does a great job reminding readers of the real costs to these scams: for every dollar spent by someone who got wealthy on crypto, there’s someone who got duped into buying something less valuable. And there are more insidious injuries, too - economies broken and forced labor under the pressure of the crypto boom & bust cycle.

If you don’t know anything about cryptocurrency - this book would be a great place to start. It’s not overly burdened with financial details, which is good, because the complex finances really only disguise the very straightforward scamming. And it gives a good picture of the types of people involved, and the different iterations of the culture.

This book was tough to get through. I really loved the plot: I thought the story was incredible and interesting. I also really liked the narrative structure: the way that a single story is pieced together by non-consecutive slices really makes it feel like you are working with and through someone else’s memory, and adds a great layer of suspense. What made the book hard to read was how the semi-lyrical writing style worked against the plot and the narrative structure. It felt like, throughout the book, the author was constantly leaving things in deep ambiguity, and it was always hard to know if it was being left ambiguous because it related to the supernatural plot line, if it was a being left ambiguous because it was going to be filled in later, or if it was being left ambiguous as an artistic choice, and I should hold open space for multiple outcomes. Leaving ambiguity in storytelling is awesome, and useful. But not knowing how I was meant to use that ambiguity - adding a layer of meta-ambiguity, I suppose - was new for me, and hard.

About fifteen pages in, I realized how deeply this book must have inspired Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, which I read last year. When I reviewed that book, I said “I want to read more stories like this,” and I certainly accomplished that goal. I didn’t necessarily find myself looking forward to reading or finishing this book as I read it, but it’s such a foundational modern classic; I’m sure that it’ll help me understand other books (like Jesmyn Ward) now that I’ve made it through.

My cousin Cody, who hosts a podcast about sci-fi books, had me in the family gift exchange, and (appropriately) got me several sci-fi books. This was the first one I read (it was already on my list), and I totally loved it.

The thing that makes this book so great for me is how absolutely human it is; it’s mostly a story about scientists, their relationships, their self-esteem. It’s also about how institutions work: research lab, governments, the UN. It starts as a slow, real science story, and then gradually evolves into a fantastic fictional story.

It’s also replete with a sense of awe; characters grappling with the size of the cosmos and of the mysteries of the universe. The book conveys (and eventually says explicitly) that science, really, is a sub-discipline of theology: humbly taking inventory of what we can learn about who created us, and why.

That’s sci-fi at it’s best! It was awesome to start the year with such a great book. I would recommend this book to anybody, not just sci-fi fans - it’s phenomenal literature. Based on the experts I read to her, Liz is excited to read it, too.

I read this book for my wife’s cousin’s podcast’s Discord’s book club, and it was a great read here’s the podcast. The author is mostly known for his short stories; that shows up in this book, which is essentially three short stories told across alternating chapters. This author, though, is clearly exploding with ideas; lots of thinking about AI and the meaning of intelligence. Shortly after I read this book, the author published an essay in time called AI and the Rise of Mediocrity; this essay is the only other place I’ve seen mentioned a concept that I talk about in my recent AI essay, namely, that algorithmically generated content creates de-individualized consumers.

The novel isn’t too heady, though - it’s mostly a thriller about a sea monster. And it has lots of other great sci-fi tropes in it, too - over powerful corporations, hive minds, cybernetics; basically everything but space travel. If you like any kind of sci-fi, there will probably be something for you in this book.

This book is about the dominance of consumer culture in America, and its drawbacks for individuals and families.

Cultural commentary tends to be very specifically dated. If this book were written today, it would probably be remixed and repackaged a little bit to be about climate change. And Amazon. But, given that all we talk about today is climate change and Amazon, it was kind of nice to listen to these authors viewpoints on how the constant buying of stuff affects our mental health and erodes our sense of meaning.

There are some tough moments, but in general it was a fun and playful listen; the sort of non-fiction I can put on in the background to help guide my own thinking on a topic. I ended up referencing it in my essay on what AI means for online content consumption (which you can find here).

Fair warning, though, that the audiobook narrator is not for everyone.

I came across Jesmyn Ward looking at the Wikipedia page of National Book Award winners for things to add to my reading list. I had never heard of her before; Liz tells me I am extremely out of the loop. But this book was a great story, and a quick and easy read. Sad, but great. The narration tells one linear story, but alternates perspectives between two of the characters; I thought this was done really well.

I want to read more stories like this, although I’m not quite sure what genre this is - generational stories about black families in the United States? The closest thing I can think of that I’ve read before was Long Division by Kiese Laymon. Things that happened 150, 100, or even 50 years ago seem so far away to me, but stories like this, told this way, help me understand how we inherit our past, and help me make sense of why things are the way they are now. That’s all very vague - I’m nervous to make too concrete of insight from a story that’s so different from my experience. But it was a great, new type of read for me.

One thing I find myself saying to people when talking about economic policy is “stop referring to citizens as taxpayers” or “stop referring to citizens as consumers”. As American citizens, we’re active members in an evolving project of mutual self-government, not customers of the Federal Government who exchange tax dollars for a set of rights. I’m not sure how I stumbled onto this book, but I knew what the author was going for as soon as I read the title; instead of a rights-based perception of our autonomy, we need to think in terms of what we owe each other. The meat of the book is listing out “Ten Habits For Involved Citizens” to help flex these muscles. It was a great read. If this idea of pushing back against consumer-citizenship either intrigues you or upsets you, I recommend the book.

1,100 pages of solid, but not exceptional, Stephen King storytelling. A big, transparent, impermeable dome settles over a town in New England. Communication with the outside world is still possible, but no one (and nothing) can get in or out. Basically: the town gets turned into a giant snow globe. Incredible premise, in my view.

As the book progresses, though, the story falls short of it’s potential. One demagogic figure basically becomes the villain; which makes for a scary bad guy, but I was hoping for no villain to emerge, and for citizens to instead each become horrified by the things they themselves are driven to do as food, water and propane run low. There were some hints in the first 100 pages that things were going that direction, so when that didn’t pan out I was disappointed.

It wasn’t a waste of time - still a thrilling story. It reminded me how much I can love a Stephen King book… even if I don’t love this one, in particular.

I picked up this book right around the time Liz and I decided to get serious about looking for a house to buy in our neighborhood in Indianapolis (we found one; we live there now). I’d never thought about Indiana history as anything other than boring and compulsory, but I enjoyed this one. I was raised in Indiana, and so reading stories from Indiana’s past and learning about the “Hoosier character” helped me think about myself as part of a larger group. The politics make a bit more sense now, and the way people behave can be seen as a result of our specific history. Learning the history, and how different things used to be, also helps me be hopeful for how things might change in the near future.

If you’re looking for a book about Indiana history; I thought this one was great.