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.

I ended my review of Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey like this: “Rest Is Resistance contains in it, I think, a particularly feminine kind of spiritual wisdom. Reading it made me reflect on the overwhelmingly masculine hue that my spiritual formation has taken on; due to my combination (doctrinally) Catholic and (culturally) Evangelical upbringing. I don’t have lots of concrete thoughts, yet, on the differences between masculine and feminine spiritual wisdom; except for that, as far as I’ve noticed, perhaps masculine spiritual wisdom tends to reach towards physical transcendence, and feminine spiritual wisdom tends to reach towards physical embodiment.

“I’m excited to continue exploring this female spiritual path. The next book coming from my mom is Wild Mercy by Miribai Starr - so expect a review of that book eventually.”

I ended up being right on the mark. On page fifteen, in chapter one, the author says “[I]f the feminine is all about incarnation and embodiment (which is what I am proclaiming in this book), then she rests squarely in the realm of the form.”

In many ways this book is similar to Rest is Resistance. The main lesson is to listen to the intuition of your mind and body, all the time, but especially when a greater structure asks you to ignore that intuition. Now: to “listen to” your intuition is different from “follow unquestioningly”, and one’s “intuition” is a more wholistic term than, say, “every impulse that arises”. But generally, the focus is on active mindfulness and presence. The fruit of this is attitude is that we can bring the divine into our every day lives. “God lives in the pots and pans,” as the author quotes. Prayer transforms from something that we escape our every day lives to do, or something that we do to escape our every day lives, into something that we do within our regular course of duty, rest, and celebration; a way of being that adds color and flavor to everything else.

I’m still processing the book (which I finished a few months ago) and figuring out how to integrate the wisdom into my life. One thing I know, is that it has helped me approach my yoga practice in a much more spiritual way; as a way of being with and working with my body, instead of a way to change or tame my body. Liz and I recently bought our first house, and so a regular chunk of time is spent doing chores in the kitchen or yard; bringing embodied mindfulness into my day-to-day has helped me become more engrossed in my activities… which mostly looks like sometimes choosing to focus on what I’m actually doing instead of listening to a podcast while I do it.

This is me sculpting the message of the book to my own situation, but I want to make sure I note that the book is supremely accessible, to people of any gender identity, despite the focus on the feminine. The author makes clear (and I agree) that, although we parlay in the archetypes of “masculine” and “feminine”, this sort of wisdom is not exclusively applicable or appropriately mapped to any one sex or gender identity. The book is also useful to people at any different point in their spiritual journey. It is accessible for me as a practicing Catholic, but the author pulls is wisdom across many religious traditions, and will be helpful for non-religious people as well. I was able to have a great discussion about the themes of this book with a friend of mine who is a practicing Buddhist; she independently brought to me the observation that, in her experience of Buddhism, there is too much focus on pursuing “insight”, which she referred to as the masculine strength, and not enough focus on pursuing “compassion”, which she saw as the feminine counterpart.

Maybe it’s silly to map these dichotomies (insight/compassion, transcendence/embodiment) onto gendered archetypes; if you think so, read the book and let me know! Regardless on how we abstract these difference spiritual emphases, I’ve found it helpful to articulate the distinction; so far it has helped bring me into better balance.

Finished reading: Thrawn Treason by Timothy Zahn 📚

The conclusion to the trilogy! (I’ve already reviewed the first two.) This was another good read. It serves as both a good self-contained novel, and a satisfying wrap up to all three books. I will say that, by the time I got halfway through this third book, I was a little burned out on the pulp sci-fi. Even so, the narrative was well thought out, and the characters new and old were well written as usual. I will be taking a break from Star Wars books for a while, but will definitely try again in the future.

Finished reading: Thrawn Alliances by Timothy Zahn 📚

This was the second book in the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy - here is my writing on the first.

The second book was very different; whereas the first book described the tactical political maneuvering of the characters, this book was an exercise in narrative maneuvering, with the author jumping between three different plot lines, and intersecting them at different points of space and time. At times it was hard to keep track of exactly who said what, to whom, and when… I ended up “letting go” a little bit to just let the narrative wash over me, and it was still a good book, even without me tracking every thread.

Finished reading: The Need to Be Whole by Wendell Berry 📚

In my review of Race: Challenge to Religion, I mentioned a thought project I’ve been undertaking with a friend, around how to build up a positive model of patriotism. This book, subtitled “Patriotism and the History of Prejudice,” tackles those questions directly.

I’ve read Wendell Berry before; his book Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community is on my list of all-time favorites. If The Need to be Whole continues to stick with me as it has in the few weeks since I’ve finished it, then it might end up on that list, as well.

The author asserts thats racism is the founding sin of the United States, and that a culture of slavery still pervades our exploitative economic system, and also that b) a proper rooting out of that sin requires us to engage with, and have compassion for, confederate citizens in the slave-owning south whose home was invaded by the U.S. Army. This was a tough pill to swallow when I opened the book; but Wendell Berry’s shockingly good writing and excellent ability to navigate nuance brings his perspective into full comprehension over the course of the book.

It’s an extremely “offline” book; in that it does not fit neatly into the sides drawn for common online arguments. Last year’s New Yorker piece on Wendell Berry, posted in advance of the book’s publication, described it as “contains something to offend almost everyone.”

My experience of the progressive movement (currently as an employee of the Sierra Club ), has involved participating in a lot of societal critique, and critique of the structures which maintain the unjust status quo (namely, the United States government and economic apparatus). As such, I’ve at times found taking pride in my country to be at odds with my desire to change it. In this book, I find the proper articulation of what it means to do both:

“The right motive for work, as I believe I know also from experience, is love. Love, to begin with, clears the mind of the oversimplifying, mind-destroying emotions that prepare us to make war. When our minds are clear, out eyes are free to look around and see where we are, and who all and what all are there with us. We then can see both the damage we have done to our country and its remaining great beauty. We can see that we are not on “the planet” but in one of its places that, with care, can be intimately known. Love for that place shows us the work that it asks us to do in order to live in it while seeing to its need, and ours, to be whole.”

This idea of “oversimplifying” ourselves is a concept the author introduces on the preceding page and returns to throughout the book. I think there is something to be argued here in favor of the “offline”-ness of the book, that in rejecting the oversimplification inherent in the type of communication that happens online, the author and the reader are able to cultivate the love and nuance necessary to rebuild, in intimate relationship, our exploited land and communities.

Finished reading: Thrawn (Star Wars) by Timothy Zahn 📚

During the summer I try to read a few lighter fiction books. Last year a read some Vonnegut, as well as a few Star Wars novels from the new High Republic publishing initiative. For those of you who don’t know: there is a large and quickly growing world of novels, produced by a book publisher in conjunction with LucasFilm, based in the Star Wars universe but not necessarily an adaptation or novelization of what has appeared in the movies. Although there are many character overlaps and tie-ins. The books I read last summer were an ok beach read, but so vapid that I couldn’t bring myself to review them.

This book, Thrawn, is the first book of a trilogy written by Star Wars fiction veteran Timothy Zahn, and it was… very good. Not good “for sci-fi”, not good “for a Star Wars book” - it was just a really fun read. Not going to win any philosophy prizes, that’s for sure. But I found relatable elements in all the major characters, and found the plot smart and thrilling the whole way through.

Finished reading: Xenogenesis by Octavia E. Butler 📚

This book, Xenogenesis, is actually a collected trilogy, one hardcopy book containing the novels Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. The trilogy is still in print but is now called “Lillith’s Brood"; I thought Xenogenesis was a much cooler name so I tracked down an old hardback copy of the trilogy with the original name.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, but to put it in broad strokes: these books tell the story of humans encountering an alien species after an apocalyptic event on Earth, and explore the two groups decide to approach a mutual interdependence. There are no metal spaceships, no lasers, no advanced computer technology; just humans and aliens working and living together in close proximity. The alien species has a third sex in addition to male and female, and all three sexes are critical to reproduction. The book is sexually candid and very weird in places, but extraordinarily written. Butler does such an incredible job creating these species that she makes the three-sex model seem appealing!

I mentioned in my review of Rest Is Resistance that I’m keen to expose myself to a spirituality that embraces physical embodiment instead of physical transcendence, and that perhaps the former could be considered a more “feminine” spirituality. This trilogy further supports my thinking. In addition to the deeply embodied nature of the narrative, I found these books to conform to what I recently heard described as the female story arc.

I cannot find the podcast to link here, but I know that the host and guest were talking about this profile of Céline Sciamma by Elif Batuman when they discussed how the male storytelling model (a linear story wherein a conflict is presented, escalates, then breaks) differs from the female storytelling model (wherein a situation or set of circumstances swirl, swell to a higher frequency, and then comfortably descend). When I talked about it with Liz, she confirmed that this is a pretty standard understanding within Gender Theory.

These books certainly fit the latter model. Readers in search of a climactic ending of the third book will be disappointed; in fact Butler at one point intentionally lets a previously central conflict walk away while she decides to develop a smaller, more relationally involved story. Because there was no satisfying resolution, I do think the story has stuck with me longer.

These books are very weird, but I enjoyed the strange places it took me. I think I’ve now read over half of Octavia Butlers oeuvre!

Finished reading: Evicted by Matthew Desmond 📚

My Aunt Beth gave me this book! I remember when it came out in 2016; the reporting is done in Milwaukee and I had friends from Milwaukee who were very struck by it when it came out.

None of the observations are specific to Milwaukee, though - it’s a book about the United State’s housing crisis, in general. Actually, it’s more accurate to say this book is about how the United State’s current economic and political incentive structure is a source of deep injustice, and stacks the odds very, very heavily against those trying to climb out of poverty.

It’s not written in a wonk-y or political science-y way, though. The author makes his argument by profiling the successes and struggles of several families in the Milwaukee area: some tenants and some landlords. The book is masterfully written and made for a very quick read; it definitely deserved the Pulitzer prize it received.

Liz read the book right after I did, and we immediately ordered Matthew Desmond’s recently released second book, Poverty by America. It feels like a good time to be reading these books: as Liz and I will be trying to leave the rental market and buy a house in the next year or so, these books have inspired good conversations about what we value, what we aspire to, and how we want to build a sustainable and socially integrated life.

I highly recommend this book!

Finished reading: The Return Of The King by J.R.R. Tolkien 📚

Darn - I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I thought it would engage my imagination more than the first two, since I’ve seen this movie fewer times than I have The Two Towers or The Fellowship of the Ring. And it’s definitely true that I didn’t have as many cinematic tableaus to rely on… but that may have been a detraction, because I found this book boring almost all of the way through.

I was a big fan of the chapters with Sam and Frodo, but I really had to struggle to make it through the rest. Conversations felt repetitive, descriptions felt flat, and relationships didn’t feel alive. The one exception to this is Faramir and Éowyn - I loved both of these characters individually, and loved when they got together.

I don’t have much more to say, here… overall, This series just isn’t for me. My friend Josh, hearing my complaints, still made a compelling argument that I might still enjoy The Silmarillion, so that may yet be in my future.

Finished reading: Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley 📚

I picked this book up totally at random, after reading an article announcing the release of the sequel. I had heard Walter Mosley’s name before but did not know anything about him, or that he wrote detective fiction. But a few days after I read the article, I stumbled across this title in a Half-Price Books, so I decided it was a sign.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a detective novel before. But now that I have, I absolutely see the appeal of the genre. There’s some element of continuous suspense that the author layers in that I am not used to seeing elsewhere; a thrill that compels you to keep reading the book.

That sensation was notable in this book because since I didn’t really like the protagonist – or, really, any of the characters – at all. Everyone in the book felt grizzly and crass, almost in a pathetic way… but this was probably by design. It was hard to inhabit the perspective of the main character sometimes, but the author kept pulling me along … this book was 336 pages and I read it in four days!

I definitely have plans to pick up more detective fiction sometime soon! But I am undecided if it will be more Walter Mosley or not.

Finished reading: Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey 📚

I got this book as a Christmas gift from my mom. Thanks so much, mom! This book was great.

Rest Is Resistance is a meditative thesis on the healing and transformative power of giving yourself enough time to rest. Where the “resistance” part fits into this book is with the authors insistence that our practice of rest cannot be truly transformative if it is aimed at making us more productive at work, or better able to serve the demands of capital. The point of rest is to spend time not serving capital. And the more we refuse, the more deeply we prove that we can survive without it.

The point from this book that has most stuck with me is the contrast the author makes between the concepts of “Freedom” and “Liberation”. She describes “Freedom” as a state of being unencumbered and unburdened, by either internal or external limitations. We become quickly frustrated by Freedom, she writes, because we mostly only see the ways in which we are not free, and we tend to panic, strain, and overexert ourselves to chase after a state of Freedom.

“Liberation,” by contrast, is the process of freeing yourself, over time, slowly and well. Doing the careful work to untangle yourself from your confusion and burdens. If we think of our journey of self-discovery in terms of Liberation instead of Freedom (just as Black Americans and other marginalized groups must conceive of their collective struggle), we are left with the energy and discernment to bring the long, necessary project to eventual conclusion.

Rest Is Resistance contains in it, I think, a particularly feminine kind of spiritual wisdom. Reading it made me reflect on the overwhelmingly masculine hue that my spiritual formation has taken on; due to my combination (doctrinally) Catholic and (culturally) Evangelical upbringing. I don’t have lots of concrete thoughts, yet, on the differences between masculine and feminine spiritual wisdom; except for that, as far as I’ve noticed, perhaps masculine spiritual wisdom tends to reach towards physical transcendence, and feminine spiritual wisdom tends to reach towards physical embodiment.

I’m excited to continue exploring this female spiritual path. The next book coming from my mom is Wild Mercy by Miribai Starr - so expect a review of that book eventually (I actually read Rest Is Resistance back in February… I’m lagging a few months behind on reviews!).

Finished reading: Race: Challenge to Religion by Mathew H. Ahmann 📚

I got dinner with a friend the other month to talk about comic books - he and I both have an affinity for Ta-Nehisi Coates' volumes of Black Panther and Captain America. During our conversation about the core of national identity and what constructive patriotism looks like (standard comic book conversation), we decided to do some more reading together on how to answer those questions.

This book was the first part of that project - and was a hard book to find. My friend saw it referenced in a book called Black Religion and Black Radicalism, which he read based based on a reference in a book called The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Race: Challenge to Religion is a compilation of transcriptions from essays delivered at the 1963 National Conference on Religion and Race. That conference was a meeting of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish leaders, held in commemoration of the centennial anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Martin Luther King Jr. is among the speakers/authors.

There were a few things that struck me about this book. The first is how connected these authors felt to the founding of America, and to the conflict and decisions of the civil war. To me, those events seem like ancient history, but these priests, pastors and rabbis talk about them as if they are recent historical events. It helps inform their work as part of a larger project, of which much progress has been made, instead of starting from the narrow view of today’s current injustices (without discounting the pain of those injustices).

Another thing that struck me was how proud the speakers are to be American! My experience in America is that the very religious as well as those on the political Left have a tendency to denounce national allegiance, or at least not include as part of their in their core identity (this is very distinct from people in America who are a little bit religious, who tend to have national allegiance at the center of who they are). But these progressive religious leaders talk with zeal about love of America and wanting to guide her towards moral virtue and a well-treated citizenry. I found that inspiring.

Lastly, I was struck by how the Black Church sees history as something still being written. I think in my White Catholicism (which also has a heavy dose of Evangelicalism), we treat the bible and our faith as the study of something that has been finished. The books of the bible are all written; the saints are all dead and buried. But these speakers intertwine the journey of the church, the nation, and the people - as a political and moral liberation that is still unfolding.

This obscure book would make an interesting read for those interested in how American Christianity (and to a lesser extent Judaism) see themselves in relation to the larger culture of the nation. While I don’t necessarily think it qualifies as a page turner for everyone, it was thought provoking, and my reflections on this book have helped me see racial justice as an important element of my faith.

Finished reading: The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty 📚

One of my favorite books of last year was White Noise - after finding out that it won the National Book Award, I’m trying to read more Book Award winners. This book made for an especially easy resolution, since the author grew up in – and based the city in the book on – my hometown of South Bend, Indiana. Tess Gunty also went to Notre Dame (in South Bend) for undergrad, just like me - we overlapped for a few years and sounds like we had mutual friends, but we never met.

With the book based on my hometown, I came in with the understanding that I was going to be very critical of the portrayal - and I thought the portrayal of the city was awesome. Not glamorous, but realistic and well-presented. I have a deep love for South Bend, and this book stirred my heart in that place.

The narrative is engaging, funny, and deeply weird. I loved how the author weaved spirituality into lots of different elements of the narrative, while always keeping it at arms length. This strategy felt very “South Bend” to me - a city that both relies on, and is suspicious of, the rich Catholic university at one edge of town. It’s pride comes from both it’s association with and independence from the university.

That being said - you don’t need to have grown up in South Bend or gone to Notre Dame to read this book. It’s impressive as hell, and I think lots of people will like it. I totally think it deserved the National Book Award it received!

Finished reading: The Recovering by Leslie Jamison 📚

I finished this book, subtitled “Intoxication and it’s Aftermath”, as I crossed the one year threshold of my own journey to sobriety. I’ll use the word “sobriety” because it’s accurate, but it’s a little intense for my situation. Last year, I found myself wondering if things would be easier without alcohol in my life - I decided to give it a real try, and it stuck. Sobriety makes it much easier to go to bed and wake up when I want to, it allows me to make healthier choices about what I eat, and I’ve become a better listener in social situations.

This book is great - Jamison is a phenomenal writer. This book is a mix of memoir and literary criticism: the process of Jamison folding in the story of her recovery in with the stories of other writer’s recoveries.

One great aspect of this book is how the author tackles the addict/victim dichotomy we see in drug and alcohol abuse, and how society sticks different people with different labels. Addicted artists can be seen as troubled by their own genius, while addicted mothers are seen as disgraceful. This idea has stayed on top of mind as I read Jia Tolentino’s latest New Yorker piece on Ozempic and the new wave of weight loss drugs, which are helping us see obesity as a treatable condition, instead of a moral failing.

And, related to food, another striking idea that Jamison captures is how the repeated consumption of any given thing can become it’s own form of addiction, apart from chemical dependency or mood altering affects. I’ve experienced this as a former cigarette smoker, as someone who is evolving into a healthier relationship with food, but also as a “consumer” in the general sense - I’ve found it deceptively easy to pour one’s hopes and aspirations into a certain clothing brand, or tech company, or fictional Cinematic Universe, or social media niche, to the point where your thoughts are constantly revolving around it. At moments while reading, I felt invited to observe the similarities between this sort of fandom obsession with traditional addiction. The latter is obviously more pernicious and destructive, but both have the ability to consume you.

In general, this was a thought-provoking and engrossing book.

Finished Reading: Marvel Comics The Untold Story by Sean Howe 📚

This book chronicles the history of Marvel comics from the formation of Timely Comics in 1939 to the time Marvel became a household name alongside the release of the Avengers movie and the company’s purchase by Disney.

I’ve been reading comic books for about two years. I started reading them digitally when I decided to read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Black Panther comics, and I started buying them physically last year as a replacement hobby when I quit drinking.

I’ve read issues of Captain America and Avengers that date back to the mid-2000s, but besides that I’ve only read very recent books. It was fun to get exposure to older story arcs and characters, and to learn about the creative process of different books over time.

However: this isn’t a history of the Marvel Universe, but of Marvel, the company. And as it is told in these pages, Marvel has indeed acted like a corporation over the years: it’s jerked around it’s employees, employed hostile marketing tactics, and been subject to the dubious financial maneuvers of it’s various owners over the years. It was entertaining to read about the great culture that certain Marvel bullpens garnered, but this book also included lots of minutia about business plays, which I found pretty boring.

By now it’s well-known how Jack Kirby and other early comic book creators were not compensated proportionally for their contributions to the Marvel canon, and a large part of this book focuses on the various attempts over the years by creators to retain the rights to the creators they made while at Marvel, and how Marvel worked to protect its IP. I think this book does a good job at showing both perspectives to the argument - if anything, I came away from this book with more sympathy for the practical realities that Marvel has to consider.

I enjoyed this book… but it’s not one that I’d necessarily recommend to others unless you’re an invested reader of Marvel comics.

My vintage comic book reading list is now a mile long… and I’m excited to dig in!

Finished reading: How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell 📚

This was a reread for me! And, not actually a read: I listened to it on audiobook.

Liz and I have greatly pared down our library over the last few years, but this is one book we’ve kept on our shelf. Partly because the cover is so darn pretty, and partly because this book is part of a spiritual trilogy we read in 2020, alongside The Longing for Less by Kyle Chayka and The Grace of Enough by Haley Stewart.

I wanted to do a reread of this book now, since Jenny Odell is coming out with a new book in 2023. Second time around, I can re-affirm that the book is well worth a read. Maybe because I had already read or maybe because I was listening to it, but I found myself a little less engaged than I was last time. But it was still nice to revisit the topics that the author covers.

The book orbits around the question of how to resist capitalist co-opting of the self. ”How To Do Nothing” might be more verbosely put “How To Fill Your Life With Joy Outside of What is Valued by Algorithms, Advertisers, and Economists”. The chapters examine the who’s-who of social ills: corporate work culture, social media, ecological devastation.I admire the author’s expansive view when analyzing these cultural phenomena, and resisting the urge to suggested quick technological or pop-psychology fixes for our societal dilemmas.

I listened to the book mostly while running, and enjoyed that experience - the broad scope of the conversations in the book are conducive to expansive thinking, so it was nice to be out in the open, and exercising, while I did my thinking.

Finished reading: Provocations by Søren Kierkegaard 📚

This book is the first thing that I’ve read by Kierkegaard. It’s more of a “Kierkegaard for Dummies”, since it’s excerpts from his various books, collected and retranslated.

All the rumors are true: Kierkegaard is dense, and intense! His writing is challenging, but very inspiring.

In the introduction, the author explains how Kierkegaard’s goal was not to lay out a moral path for his readers, but instead to point out moral contradiction, and force the reader to make decisions as to what it is she truly believes.

It’s a badass approach that I think works well - this book challenged me, personally, to think critically about how I live out the spiritual dimensions of my life.

Where as the first half of the book is a selection of standalone essays, the back half has the subheading “excerpts and aphorisms”, and reads like a series of disjointed paragraphs (organized into loose topics). I don’t think the reader is best served by reading this part of the book serially (I couldn’t make it through this way), but instead treat it like an index, whenever you’re interested in reading Kierkegaard excerpts or perspective on the given topics.

Overall, this book is worth a read. And one I’d like to return to again at some point in the future. At the same time, I don’t think it has inspired me to dig deeper into Kierkegaard’s other books. If this is meant to be an introduction, then an introduction may be all I need.

Finished reading: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien 📚

The Two Towers was great. I enjoyed it much more than Fellowship of the Ring. The pacing felt better, and the characters (both major and minor) seemed more distinct in voice and personality.

This book is also benefits from the massive world-building Tolkien is known for. Since Fellowship follows the linear path of one group of people, all the talk of history and legend and foreign people can come across as superfluous and boring. But in this book, with the gang split up, traveling long distances, and meeting all sorts of different folk, the lore transforms into something that ties the narrative together.

This book also had a very strong theme of ecological awareness. The race of the Ents speaks clearly to beings existing One with nature, and they decry ecological devastation in their words:

“It is the orc-work, the wanton hewing without even the bad excuse of feeding the fires, that has so angered us; and the treachery of a neighbour, who should have helped us.”

And apart from all the tree love, I really enjoyed the passage of Gimli praising the beauty of caves, and expressing the Dwarves' balanced approach to resource extraction:

“My good Legolas, do you know that the caverns of Helm’s Deep are vast and beautiful […] one of Durin’s race would mine those caves for stones or ore, not if diamonds and gold could be got there. Do you cut down groves of blossoming trees in the springtime for firewood? We would tend these glades of flowering stone, not quarry them. With cautious skill, tap by tap – a small chip of rock and no more, perhaps, in a whole anxious day – so we could work, and as the years went by, we should open up new ways, and display far chambers that are still dark, glimpsed only as a void beyond fissures in the rock”

The language of ecological plunder is also used to describe Frodo and Sam’s journey: “They had come to the desolation that lay before Mordor: the lasting monument to the dark labour of its slaves that should endure when all their purposes were made void; a land defiled, diseased beyond all healing – unless the Great Sea should enter in and wash it with oblivion”.

So, anyway - people say Dune is an environmentalist book… I’m here to put The Two Towers into the ring (ha) as well.

There are several surprising ways in which the book series differs from the movies, but I’ll hold my tongue until after I read Return of the King to see if those differences bear out.

Looking forward to seeing how this series ends!

I’ve watched the Fellowship of the Ring movie maybe a dozen times. I’ve seen The Two Towers a handful of times, and Return of the King maybe once or twice. Given this, it’s pretty hard to separate my experience of the book from my experience of the movie. I think this is both for better and for worse.

For worse because I have a hard time taking characters and scenes exclusively as written by Tolkien. Instead, end up I envisioning the scenes as they were interpreted by Peter Jackson. But, my experience with the movies is for better because I found some parts of the book to be kind of a drag, or written inaccessibly, and in those moments I was happy to have my understanding of the plot and the character dynamics from the movie to help propel me through.

Given that I’ve seen the second two movies a lot less than I’ve seen the first one, I am interested to see if my reading of the second two books is less affected. My book versions of Aragorn, Gandalf, Frodo and Sam are already starting to diverge a bit from my movie versions of them… and I hope that process continues as I read the next books.

I’m also really looking forward to rewatching all three movies after I finish the books.

I put this book on my reading list after seeing it recommended on several different reddit threads around smart consumption and sustainability.

This book is about the effects of consumer culture on human society: the psychological effects, the environmental effects, and how it affects our relationships.

With a topic like that, one may imagine a doom-and-gloom read - it is not! The author breathes life into the text by bringing in interviews with lots of interesting people from all over the world. He paints a vision of a livable future as he brings the reader through all the processes and mechanisms that need to change for us to start living under our planetary limits.

I found this book engaging, and I think it would make a great introductory book to anyone interested in mindful consumption.

This book was recommended to me by the Director of IT at Sierra Club, Dave - a.k.a. my boss’s boss. I listened to it on audiobook, and most of my listening sessions were during morning walks.

Walking was a great way to listen to this book, which is, as the title suggests, about walking. It’s Bill Bryson’s account of walking parts of the Appalachian Trail. Bryson is super funny! The book goes back and forth between fun stories about the trail, observational humor, and sharing the history of the region.

It’s a fun book that nature lovers & hikers will enjoy.

This is an absolutely awesome book, and I found it totally by accident.

I was reading about how the Apple TV+ series, Central Park, had been nominated for an NAACP Image Award. I had never heard of the Image Awards, but figured looking into it would be a great way to find out about quality books & media that might be marginalized out of mainstream coverage.

I put a few recent winners on my reading list, and Long Division was the first one I opened, and holy cow. Long Division is a super entertaining and deeply interesting book, and one I highly recommend.

The protagonist (and narrator) of this book is a black fourth grade boy who lives in Mississippi. I’ve never been to Mississippi, I barely remember the fourth grade, and I am not black. So the newness of the child’s experience pulled me in immediately. On top of the narrator having a life experience so different than my own, the fact that the narrator is a fourth grader allows the author to write with a casualness and a frankness that texts narrated by adults can’t reach.

That frankness gave the book an extremely intimate feeling. The author made me feel like I was right inside the brain of the protagonist, which is a rare and at times less-than-comfortable experience when reading something written by someone with such a radically different life experience.

As you’ll see from the quotes below, one thing the book wrestles with is the place of blackness in literature. The meta nature of this endeavor is complemented well by the meta nature of the narrative, itself - the book is mind-bending in more ways than one, and totally awesome on every page.

I really don’t want to ruin anything about the narrative, but I will say that the story quickly gets wild, and stays wild for the whole book.

Not only do startling and interesting things happen throughout, but the book is written in such a way that previous, seemingly innocuous plot points come back around to enhance the story’s eeriness. Frankly, I’d probably need to read it again (at least once) in order to really get everything the author is doing. I’m sure I will.

I highly recommend everyone give it a read!

Favorite Quotes:

“the Bible was better than those other spinach-colored Classic books that spent most of their time flossing with long sentences about pastures and fake sunsets and white dudes named Spencer. I didn’t hate on spinach, fake sunsets, or white dudes named Spencer, but you could just tell that whoever wrote the sentences in those books never imagined they’d be read by Grandma, Uncle Relle, LaVander Peeler, my cousins, or anyone I’d ever met.”

“English teachers like Ms. Shivers were always talking about “the reader.” Whoever “the reader” was, it never seemed like she could be like me.”

“Treat it like it never happened, you hear me? You are a smart child, an educated young man. You try to act grown in front of them cameras? Well, grown Black folks forget what they need to forget. That’s what grown Black folks do.”

“Everybody I knew, at one point or another, had called someone [the n-word], but I never heard the “er” when we said it to each other. It was just something that all of us said. We didn’t mean it to hurt each other and we didn’t mean it to make someone feel lucky. It was like the only word that meant lucky, cool, and cursed at the same time.”

The Book in 3 Sentences

In an alternative near-future, the UK has come through the far side of Cold War-related nuclear holocaust by establishing a fascist state with extensive surveillance, propaganda, and law enforcement arms. A man driven insane by experiments performed on him in a concentration camp (run by this government) carries out a series of terrorist attacks, including the murders of all those involved in his detainment and torture. Throughout the book, special emphasis is put on artistic expressions, through his house, which is an museum of now-banned art, music, and films from the 20th century, and through the use of TV, radio, and performance dialogue woven behind and between character conversations.

How I Discovered It

I picked up a used copy of this book at Half Price Books

Impressions

What struck me most is how different the message of the book is from the message of the movie. The movie, essentially, conveys “domestic terrorism is good, sometimes, and torturing Natalie Portman may be justified.”

The book gives no such blessing to the actions of the protagonist: by my perception, he’s portrayed as certifiably insane, and his tactics are destructive and futile. The goal of his terrorism, as articulated near the end of the book, is to start the rebuilding of Britain through the destruction of the current, corrupt & cruel, order. But no such rebuilding occurs, or is even hinted at- the book ends with the streets in chaos, conflict, and exhibiting the dark elements of human nature.

What’s great, though, is that no one is portrayed as noble, and no ideology is portrayed as both benevolent and functional.

Who Should Read It?

It’s a classic postmodern ending, designed to say “f you” to the reader. But, usually to redeem that sort of ending, I expect a more engaging journey. This book is a great art piece, but is a lot slower than it needs to be, and is frankly boring at times. I wouldn’t discourage people from picking it up, but I would say it’s not for everyone.

This spring, on a trip to Bloomington, I stumbled on a massive, hardcover volume of Kurt Vonnegut’s collected short stories, which I excitedly bought and have been enjoying when I lug it off the shelf from time to time. I read a handful of Vonnegut novels in college, and really, really enjoyed them.

As I’ve enjoyed the short stories, I’ve been forming a vague resolution to return to the novels; and I figured re-reading Slaughterhouse Five was a great way to start. And reading it right after Maus, also a World War Two book, was the perfect time.

This book remained a solid read the second time around. Personal, funny, and dark. It’s definitely worth a read.

I’m not going to dissect or analyze the book. Like Maus, or Persepolis, or any book written by someone trying to relate or make meaning out of their own painful experiences… I’m happy to just accept the words, and recommend the book to others.

From Slaughterhouse Five: “There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is suppose to be very quiet after a massacre, and always is, except for the birds.And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?'”

From Maus: “The victims who died can never tell their side of the story, so maybe it’s better not to have any more stories. Samuel Better once said ‘Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness’.

“On the other hand, he said it.”

This is the third recommendation I’ve taken this year from my friend Jay, after Snow Crash (which I disliked), and All The Shah’s Men (which I thought was interesting).

White Noise was absolutely incredible. I tore through it in just over three days; the way it picked me up and sucked me in reminded me of my experience last winter with House of Leaves.

But where House of Leaves tries to devastate the reader, White Noise absolutely delights the reader. I felt like I was chuckling almost the whole time. It’s continuously hilarious and surprising, while also being drum-tight and laser-focused on the themes it explores and captures.

The aim of the book is to both indict and trivialize modern consumer culture, as it manifests in our work, in our relationships, and in our supermarkets. The descriptions of super markets are absolutely incredible. There are several of them throughout the book, and I savored and reread each of them.

I was told, a few days before I opened this book, that I have something called supermarket syndrome. Apparently, “The lights, rows of shelves, and crowds of people can trigger symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, and light-headedness.” I know that I can’t stand grocery stores, but I’ve always seen my mental rejection of those spaces as a morally virtuous response to being faced with the enormity of our culture’s overwhelming amount of production and consumption.

From reading this book, it is clear that Don DeLillo shares my perspective.

The book is also an excellent post-COVID read, because it features a community health threat which at first disrupts the lives of everyone in the community, but is then normalized, and then ignored. It’s such a beautiful depiction of how people adapt and move on with their lives, when faced with both trivial and monumental changes of the status quo.

I loved, loved, loved this book, and I highly recommend it.

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

Actor Terry Crews walks through his life, picking stories that correspond to different themes around which his experience has brought wisdom (chapter titles are “Identity”, “Agency”, “Masculinity”, etc). Stories include his impoverished childhood in Flint, Michigan, his struggle to overcome his porn addition, his experience as the victim of sexual assault at the hands of a high-powered Hollywood executive. Crews has been through, and overcome, and learned, a lot!

👀 How I Discovered It

I found out Crews had put out a memoir when I saw & read this excerpt of the book in The Wall Street Journal. Knowing a few bits and pieces about other parts of his life, I suspected the full story was worth a read.

🎨 Impressions

He has a contemplative, detailed, engaging writing style that pulled me along the entire book.

I walked away from the book endlessly impressed by the patience and perseverance of Crews' wife, Becky, who has worked really hard to help keep their marriage together, and to help Terry emotionally mature.

I also walked away impressed with the candor and humility of the author. Crews really goes into depth about his personal challenges & pain; both the baggage that he carried with him from his childhood/early adulthood, as well as his own set of independently acquired personal demons.

☘️ How the Book Affected Me

I decided to pick up this book after reading the WSJ excerpt because, in at least one sense, Terry and I fit a similar profile: we’re both over 6'2", we both weigh over 225 lbs, we both like lifting weights, and we are both survivors of sexual abuse. I thought Terry might have some wisdom or insight that I could relate to around the ideas of masculinity, power, and shame… and he did! I’m not in a place to share specifics about how hearing his story helped me process my own experiences, but suffice it to say that was a great book for me to read, and has helped to start unlock some previously locked doors in my emotional psyche.

I really admire how the obstacles that Terry has overcome has led him to a place of compassion, reconciliation, and ideological centrism & balance in his life. I feel like most stories I’ve read, where someone goes through this much trauma and pain, ends in cynicism and extremism. Terry clearly has a beautiful heart, and I came away from this book with him as a role model.

Terry (like me) also grew up in a conservative religious environment, and (like me) a big part of his personal spiritual journey has been overcoming his distrust and rejection of religion in order to come to a productive middle ground. Lots of people only make it to the “distrust and rejection” stage, so it was cool to read about how he healed his relationship with organized religion.

✍️ My Top 3 Quotes

“I used to fly off the handle at people for the slightest lapse or imperfection, and it was because I was always mad at myself for the slightest lapse or imperfection.”

“when men are made to feel guilt and shame around sex, it can cause them to hate women, because they are the ones ‘tempting them’ into sin.”

“Self-righteousness is the thing that allows us to lift ourselves up in the same way that dehumanizing others allows us to lower them down. Once we allow that dynamic to take root, we’ve created a moral monster—and the monster is ourselves. […] Anyone can fall into the trap of dehumanizing others. Anyone can become so convinced of the goodness of their own cause that they will excuse any action that supports it, and in the end they will wind up no better than the abusers they set out to destroy.”

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

This graphic novels shares some stories of a girl living in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. The protagonist grapples with the discordant political realities of the time. The author does a great job of inhabiting the perspective of a child, complete with a child’s confusions and a child’s answers to problems.

👀 How I Discovered It

Liz was reading this book for class this semester, while I was independently reading about Iranian history! Given that the subject matter matched, and that it was a graphic novel (another kick I’ve been on lately), it felt like kismet!

🎨 Impressions

Iranian culture today seems so different from how we live our lives in the US; it’s very interesting to see the point in time where their customs “branched off” in the fundamentalist islamic direction.

This book picked up right where All The Shah’s Men, the last book I read, left off. It was great to get continuity that way, and expand my picture of the very interesting history of this country.

☘️ How the Book Affected Me

It’s been great to learn about Iran from a variety of perspectives: All The Shah’s Men gives a historical account of midcentury Iran, this book gives a first-person perspective of Iran from within the Islamic Revolution, and the show I’ve been watching, Tehran, tells modern stories built upon all of this context. I’ve also been listening to the King of Kings Hardcore History podcast, which talks about Cyrus the Great in ancient Iran.

As I said in my blog post for All The Shah’s Men, learning in depth about foreign cultures is a new experience for me, but one that I’ve enjoyed greatly. And a habit I’m excited to continue!

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

This book tells the story the midcentury coup in Iran, which was orchestrated by US and British intelligence operatives. The purpose of the coup was to remove Mohammad Mosaddegh from power, who was Iran’s popular, progressive, anti-colonial leader, and who wanted to oust the British from controlling the Iranian oil industry. The book provides a detailed account of Mosaddegh’s career, and gives an interesting background of Iranian culture & politics.

👀 How I Discovered It

I became interested in learning more about Iran from watching the (amazing) first season of the Apple TV+ Original show Tehran. I mentioned my interested to my friend Jay when I was visiting him in Chicago in March, and he suggested this book which he had read last year.

☘️ How the Book Changed Me

The subheading of this book is “An American Coup and the roots of Middle East Terror”. On top of my interest in Iranian culture, I was also excited to learn some history about western involvement in Middle Eastern geopolitics. I frankly don’t know very much at all about that part of the world, or the United State’s role there.

But I absolutely at this book up, and I am continuing so seek out additional learning resources to help me learn more about Iran and the Middle East.

This book also awakened in me desire to learn more about different cultures, in general. In my formal education, I never sought out or paid much attention to history or geography or social studies classes… but I am now discovering that I enjoy learning about other parts of the world, and the people there. This book did a phenomenal job explaining the cultural inheritance of Iran, and how their history affects the way Iranians see the world. I’m not used to thinking about people (including myself) like that, so it was fun to learn, and gain fresh perspective!

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

A detective, who has a striking resemblance to a fresh murder victim, goes undercover as the murder victim, living with the victim’s roommates, who are told that their dear friend has miraculously recovered from the attack after a week in the hospital. The book is about the undercover detective’s relationships with the roommates – all of whom are suspects – as she gets to know them, as well as her “real life” relationships, which have been put on hold while she’s deep undercover. I found it to be an engaging, suspenseful, and emotionally relatable read with an unexpected ending.

🎨 Impressions

This book has many similarities to The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I always wish Tartt would write another novel, so it was fun to pick this one up and find it so dark & cozy in that familiar way.

I only come across a few books a year that are so good that I stay up way past bed time to keep reading them; and this book had a few moments like that. It’s a thick project of a book, and for that reason I probably won’t rush into binge-reading the rest of French’s work, although her other books are definitely going on my “beach read” list.

👀 How I Discovered It

My friend Drew recommended it to me!

🙋 Who Should Read It?

I think most people would enjoy this book! The themes that stuck out to me in this book were around the idea of community & belonging, chosen family, and personal identity. But I also learned a little bit (and reading the book spurred outside research) about 20th century Irish history & cultural inheritance, which was cool.

Thanks to this blog post by Filipe Donadio, which gave me this new template for book reviews, which led me to write 850 words.

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

Johann Hari methodically explains many different ways in which the structure of modern society erodes our ability to sustain focus, both on individual tasks and at the grander level of living a “focused life”. These include environmental factors (e.g., air pollution & our processed food diets), technological factors (e.g., reading ephemeral text on screens instead of persistent text on physical pages), and economics factors (e.g., the profitability of distracted, stressed, and exhausted consumers). The structure of the text is refreshingly well done, the arguments are presented plainly and thoroughly, and the author adds personal color to the research findings in a fair, responsible way.

👀 How I Discovered It

I discovered this book when I heard him on an episode of Andrew Sullivan’s podcast. Johann Hari is super playful and fun to listen to, which definitely comes through in his writing. It helps that I heard the podcast first! I think I would’ve been more irritated with his casual writing style if I wasn’t familiar with how he speaks first.

That’s not to say that the research or the argument in the book is lackadaisical. In fact, it’s one of the most well-organized and responsibly presented books I’ve ever read; Hari’s background as a journalist certainly shines through. He was meticulous about presenting counter-arguments to the research he shared, and goes as far to say things like “I will be presenting the arguments against this research in the next chapter, so as you’re reading, please remember that these findings are disputed”. I was thoroughly impressed by this element of the book.

🎨 Impressions

Overall, this book hits like An Inconvenient Truth for attention deficit. After reading, I was left with the “oh my goodness, what a nearly insurmountable problem this is” feeling that I’ve only ever experienced before with books & movies about climate change.

After finishing the book, my imagination fast-forwards American future to the set of Idiocracy, with bad food, air pollution, and advertising having totally eroded our ability to hold jobs or collectively undertake social projects.

Unlike An Inconvenient Truth, however, Hari doesn’t provide the relief of saying that the answer to our problems lie in incremental fixes made by individuals. In fact, one of the reasons the problem of unfocused attention seems so dire after reading the book is because ,throughout it, Hari demonstrates again and again how the issues are structural, and not based on the bad habits of individual people.

He spends some time naming this distinction, in fact: he calls it “cruel optimism” when you ask someone to “just” feed their children better food, or “just” stop looking at your phone so much, or “just” breath cleaner air. He has a virtuous awareness throughout the book that suggesting these one-off solutions will only benefit people with means.

☘️ How the Book Changed Me

That being said, learning about attention deficit issues in society has made me crave greater focus, and as such it’s caused me to make a few personal habit changes:

1. I’ve started keeping a small memo notebook in my pocket to jot down notes and questions, so that I’m not pulling out my phone to do something with every thought or Google search that pops into my head.
2. I’ve started “time blocking” my time at work, scheduling out each hour of the day. This allows me to focus on one thing at a time, and allows me to set aside certain chunks of time for email correspondence. Knowing I have an hour set aside for email later in the day helps keep me from compulsively checking it when I have other more important things to do.
3. I’ve stopped bring my iPhone/iPad to the gym, and turned into my “unplug” time. I’ve switched over to an old iPod shuffle, and using that same notebook – instead of an app – to record my weight training. This habit change has had the biggest net-positive benefit to my day; I now come back from the gym feeling refreshed, relaxed, and centered.

🙋 Who Should Read It?

This is a great self-improvement/productivity/mindful awareness book for anyone who doesn’t have time for all the regular productivity-movement bullshit.

✍️ My Top 3 Quotes

“The more information you take in, the less time you can spend processing any individual piece of it”

“If you go too fast, you overload your abilities, and they degrade. But when you practice moving at a speed that is compatible with human nature—and you build that into your daily life—you begin to train your attention and focus. […] Slowness nurtures attention, and speed shatters it.”

“losing your [sense of purpose] is “the deepest form of distraction,” and you may even begin ‘decohering.’ This is when you stop making sense to yourself, because you don’t have the mental space to create a story about who you are. You become obsessed with petty goals, or dependent on simplistic signals from the outside world like retweets. You lose yourself in a cascade of distractions. You can only find your [sense of purpose] if you have sustained periods of reflection, mind-wandering, and deep thought.”

This book was recommended to me by a friend around the time the fourth Matrix movie came out. I tried to rent it from the library, but the hold queue was extremely long… turns out that this novel is where the word ‘Metaverse’ was coined, so it’s having a renaissance thanks to Facebook’s rebranding.

But then I heard the name of the book again when it was mentioned by Jaron Lanier in Dawn of the New Everything, and so I bought the ebook - I was very disappointed to find that it was not very good.

There are some awesome parts of the book - the dystopia that Stephenson creates is hilarious and creative, there are some sweet inventions, and the action scenes are riveting. The part I like the best, though, is how the dystopian reality is super kooky and surreal, while the metaverse “virtual reality” is pretty buttoned down and business-focused. That was a great script-flipping that I thought was clever and really enjoyed.

But… there’s a lot of the book that’s dedicated to a mythology and backstory around the evil character that I think is basically unnecessary. It doesn’t add to the commentary, or the narrative, or really to anything. It just a lot of pages to get through. The nemeses were well-constructed characters, but there’s so much unnecessary color — which is so unnecessarily complicated — around their motivations and histories, that it obscures the good parts of the book.

I probably won’t jump at an opportunity to read anything else by this author.

This is the second book (after The Imitation of Christ) that I am reading as part of my effort to re-introduce Christian writing into my spiritual practice this year.

This is a book that I first encountered in the book club at an Episcopalian church that I sometimes went to when I lived in an intentional Catholic community in Kansas City.

It was during my time in Kansas City that I made an important realization about my spirituality: that I best experience the presence of God alone, and in silence, and not in the boisterous evangelical praise and worship sessions I had been raised with.

This realization was a huge door opener for my pursuit of personal prayer, and when made me interested in meditation & contemplative prayer.

Reading the book in it’s entirely now has been a great primer on the basics of contemplative prayer, and one that has very much enhanced my prayer times. The author (depending on the translation) is kind, and gentle, and humble. And it’s in very short chapters, so it’s easy to read during prayer times. I recommend it to anyone who’s interested in Christian contemplative prayer.

This was the third book by Jaron Lanier I’ve “read”, although the first two, You Are Not A Gadget and Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. I liked both those books, and I liked this book, too.

Jaron Lanier is an incredibly expansive thinker. In the beginning of this book (which serves both as a memoir and as an introduction to concepts pertaining to the field of Virtual Reality), he says that, outside of the project of creating VR technology, VR works as an excellent thought experiment through which to explore the ideas of human perception, the concept of “interfaces” in the digital and organic spheres, and others.

Jaron Lanier has the unique ability to hold the technological, humanitarian, and spiritual concerns of a problem in hands all at once, and analyze the multidimensionality of a technological issue insightfully and succinctly.

The beginning of the book is chock full of beautiful insight about the nature of creativity, memory, and identity. The end of the book has some very interesting ideas about the future of technology, and it’s virtuous and immoral potential applications. The middle of the book.. sags a little bit. Worth a read, but has a couple tough spots.

One of my resolutions for this year was to add more structure to my daily prayer time, and to add a component of reading Christian theological texts into that prayer time. I’ve developed a steady meditation practice over the last few years, and I figured this would be a good way to add some religious substance back into my spiritual practice.

I asked several Christian friends for book recommendations, and ended up with a long list (so, hopefully, many more reviews in this genre forthcoming). I don’t recall The Imitation of Christ being on that list of suggestions… I’m not quite sure how I found it.

The chapters are all very short, which is great reading serially over the course of prayer times. It was a fine enough book to start the year with, but definitely doesn’t quality as a “need to read”. There were, frankly, a lot of ideas that were dangerously constructed… the author can go from talking about the importance of humility to the importance of “holding nothing but contempt for yourself”. These are two very different pieces of advice. The former is a universally helpful edict, while the latter is terrible advice for all but a very slim set of readers who are in the safe existential and spiritual mindset in which to productively receive that perspective.

There’s lots of stuff like this, with context so deep and specific that many casual readers might not recognize the wisdom of Jesus in a surface level reading of the next, and which may in fact be harmful. However, as I write this, I am struck… ideas like “holding nothing but contempt for yourself” are exactly the type of punishing, harmful ideas that people may associate with organized religion.

An interesting entrance back into religious theology for me, then.

There are many beautiful passages and sentiments in this book. But, in areas where you ask readers to trust you on faith, as it is with spiritual direction… it only takes one piece of bad advice to throw people off of a spiritual path.

I was happy to stumble on this book in a used bookstore the other day. I was looking in the “folklore” section, but not really for anything in specific… just something to go along with the book Cultish I just finished.

This book was a very quick read. It’s a primer on the social phenomenon of witch legends & witch hunting… it doesn’t go too deep on any topic. But it did pique my interest in this topic! How “witch hunts” of all kinds have been used throughout history to punish societal out-groups, and to consolidate (or exercise) power.

It was also published in 1999, so it was refreshingly devoid of navel-gazing about “these uncertain times” it talks about Hitler and Sen. Joe McCarthy as 20th century witch hunters.

Between this book and Cultish, I’m thinking a lot about the power of group affiliation, and how different self-identified groups interact. Also: how groups work to try to lump outsiders together into a group… whether or not that other group actually exists as such.

One point I liked from the book was that, if you want to, you can demonize other people based on anything. Witch hunters come condemn women for being witches both on the basis of being “bewitching” (alluring, seductive) or “wicked” (repulsive, unfriendly).

Holy smokes this was an enrapturing book. Over 600 pages, and I binged it over the course of four days. It’s postured as a horror story, and it totally delivers. Not only is it extremely spooky to read, but it has an eerie, infectious quality that left me thinking about it hours after I’d stopped reading it. It infected my dreams, too.

However, the book doesn’t sit neatly within the rest of the genre of horror; Stephen King fans wouldn’t necessarily enjoy this book. A lot of the horror comes from the unsettling, unmoored nature of the book’s narrative - the structure of storylines is jumbled, and obscured, and the reader is often led to confuse how “real” different parts of the book are meant to be. Blurring the lines of fiction and reality happens in layers and layers within the book.

The peculiarities of titular House leave it well-suited as an object of projection - I’ve found myself thinking about the house several times since finishing the book, as a metaphor for various other things. It sticks with you. I don’t know a lot about the intentions of the author, or what he was aiming for… but this is a damn fine work of literature.

What a great conclusion to the trilogy. This book was definitely the most ambitious of the three; Jemisin succeeded in pulling an awesome, gripping prequel plot line into the story, that helped round out the plot vey nicely.

Lots of story elements that were flung into the first book — and which I thought would remain unanswered questions — were brought together in this conclusion. very satisfying.

The Stone Sky gravitates around the theme of exploitation of the earth and the exploitation of humans. In the first book, it feels jarring that the Earth is referred to as “Evil Earth” and portrayed as vengeful. But, in this book, with the tales of extractive former civilizations, the fury of the Earth feels absolutely warranted, and the punishment it wreaks on humanity makes sense.

The author brings in & plays with themes relating to human justice: climate change, forced labor, luxury, energy, revenge, etc. These themes interact with the characters, with the plot, and with each other, but Jemisin resists the temptation to draw a hard moral line around any one idea or argument. I really like this. It’s left me with lots to think about.

This book was an awesome follow-up to The Fifth Season. Less action-packed, this book goes deeper on the history of the world where the book is set, and goes deeper powers that characters use to control nature (spoilers ahead).

After explaining the life-force that runs through all organic objects, a character refers to the harnessing of this power by an old and ancient name: “magic”. The term is unfamiliar to the other characters.

I thought that introducing the concept of magic this way was a brilliant move by the author. I tend to interpret “magic” as a boring plot crutch for an author that doesn’t have any better ideas, but explaining the mechanics and limitations of the powers first, and then giving it a name, helped return the wonder & mystery to the concept for me.

Another thing I loved about this second book is the growing context that the characters have for their tiny role in a vast history. The ruins of former civilizations did this a bit in the first book, but the presence of ancient beings & forgotten histories really bring color to the story.

I am going to be reading the third book in this trilogy right away! Very excited for the conclusion.

The Fifth Season was extremely dark, but was a great & engaging read. It’s the first in a trilogy, and I’ve already started the second book!

The premise of this book mirrors the premise of Octavia Butler’s Patternist series in several ways: both books start with a class of (mostly) black people with supernatural ability, who are kept in captivity & bred in order to create more powerful offspring. I don’t know if this Slaves As Superhumans allegory is something that came from Butler, or if both Jemisin and Butler are pulling from a deeper mythology - but I’m excited to learn more!

The Patternist series and this book are the only books I’ve read of this “science fantasy” genre — halfway between science fiction and full-blown fantasy. Of the two authors, I think I like Jemisin more. The writing is more digressive, and I found that tough to push through and the beginning, but once I sunk in I came to enjoy the flavor that builds around the characters over the course of the book. I think I also better get what fans of these genres mean when they talk about “world building” - Jemisin does a great job describing a society and culture around the characters.

This is the third third book that I’ve read by Jonathan Franzen. I loved The Corrections and I loved Freedom. I loved Crossroads as well.

I find Franzen’s writing to be extremely cozy - it’s fun and engaging without being theatrical or performative. Very easy to read, and very easy to get lost in the stories and emotions of the characters.

I like that Franzen writes about families… whether you are close with your family or not, most people have lots of emotions about their families… and Franzen is great at capturing those fraught relationships.

I’ve always related to his characters, but the fact that the characters in this book were Christians made their logic, motivation, neuroses, anxiety all that much more relatable to me. I really felt at home reading about the parish and the family.

I highly recommend this book!

I actually read this book back in June. I wanted to spend some time implementing the advice in the book before recommending/reviewing it, so that is why I waited — and why I’m excited to share about it now.

The thing I love the most about this book is that it unites lots of seemingly contradictory pop-health tips and common pieces of advice under the one theory of Circadian rhythms. That might sound a little woo-woo, but the book is really not.

Dr. Panda is famous for being “the blue light guy”; he works in the lab whose research discovered that it’s bad for humans to look at our phones before bed. A lot of the content of this book is around sleep schedule, and how important it is (wow, it is important!!), but there are also sections on how/when to exercise and how/when to eat.

Basically, Dr Panda says that we should do the same things (wake up, exercise, eat our first meal) at the same times every day, and when we do, our body learns these patterns and is able to optimize cell operation in anticipation of this regular schedule. Eating at regular times encourages smooth digestion, exercising at regular times encourages fat burning, etc.

I’ve enjoyed taking a lot of his advice to heart, and I was able to make & stick with a lot of habits. It’s hard to keep a schedule when things get busy, but Dr. Panda also gives a little guidance about what to prioritize, e.g. the most important thing is waking up at the same time every day; not eating for 4 hours before bed is second most important, but you can get away with one cheat day per week. Along these lines, his advice isn’t militant: he suggests finding a schedule that works for you and sticking to it.

This flexible but cohesive guidance has been super valuable to me, and has helped me be more mindful of my habits (and eliminate some bad behaviors- esp. eating right before bed).

It’s very rare that I read any sort of “health” book about diet, exercise, or lifestyle (and I don’t remember how this book made it onto my reading list), but I really enjoyed this book and I think it’s a great “generalist” read for learning more about working together with your body and how to stay healthy.

Part of Sally Rooney’s awesome talent is her ability to make any character relatable by vividly describing their experience & attitudes. And while the characters in her previous novels end up feeling like friends, the characters in this book felt like me. I resonated so deeply with one character in particular, but was able to see myself in all of the characters.

I really like the form that this book takes: the story alternates between two story lines (which eventually converge), with the chapters alternating between the narrative and a transcript of the emails between the two main characters. The narrative chapters are told in the third person, and it feels like the narrator is staying at arms length from the scene: an impartial observer, relaying events, without any insight to the emotional state of the characters. Instead, Rooney describes silences, facial expressions; only that which is seen is written. The email chapters, then, provide a look behind the scenes.

I feel like this imbues the book with the tension & confusion of real life: real humans have no narrator to tell us what someone else is feeling, or what we are feeling. It’s also very gratifying to read the transcribed thoughts of these women: very shy, reserved, not “taking up space” in public, but they are absolutely exploding with big ideas over email. it feels like a cultural commentary on gender expectations? Or maybe just on a type of person.

Relationally, the book is the story of people with low self-esteem trying to be in love. And the takeaway is, it’s extremely hard to be in love, or be loved, if you don’t have any love for yourself.

It was a beautiful read, and it was also more comfy than her other books; there were fewer moments of excruciating awkwardness or emotional pain than in her previous books. There was also a LOT of sex.

Highly recommend.

This definitely the biggest “bang-for-your-buck” book I’ve read all year. I read it in about three hours, but it was funny, surprising, and engaging the whole time. I knew as soon as I started I had to finish it in one day.

Awesome story that captures the feelings & culture that pop up when most social interaction is over Slack/Instant Message. The entire book is set inside several different Slack chats.

Bouncing between reading group chats & reading individual DMs gives a cool energy to the book: a “behind-the-scenes” look at the characters as they play themselves. This is also a big part of the new Sally Rooney book (review forthcoming), and I like the trend.

This book has many of the hallmarks of the postmodern novel: very long, multiple storylines, grotesque concepts softened by absurdist context.

It deviates from the theme, however, in that it is an extremely easy book to read. You need to push in order to make it through 700 pages, sure, but the sentence structure or the vocabulary are all extremely straightforward.

I read most of my books on my iPad these days, but I bought this as a physical book so I could have something to read by the pool. I was absolutely thrilled with it: it’s light, it’s hilarious, and it’s easy to put down and pick back up. It engages you without demanding you pay deep attention.

A fun read, but not a “must read”. There’s not moral, no argument being made, and there’s a refreshing lack of commentary on the lack of moral/argument. It’s just fun.

My one complaint is that it’s 200 pages too long. Like a Charlie Kaufman movie: it’s super fun and introduces fun new concepts, but by the end they’ve been beat to death and I’m begging for it to be over.

This book feels like it was written in the form of a classic whodunnit mystery. There are a bunch of twists and double-twists at the end… in a way that I ultimately found more annoying than satisfying. The First Foundation is supposed be made of advanced scientists, whereas the Second Foundation is supposed to be made of advanced psychologists. So the book is a lot of reverse-psychology, reverse-reverse-psychology, etc., and so on ad nauseam. Some parts were enrapturing, but for the most part… I wasn’t a fan.

The writing in this book was also a lot more…conspicuous than it was in the previous books. In Foundation and Foundation and Empire, the writing was straightforward, timeless, and pulled you into the story. In this book, though, the writing choices were all very in your face… flamboyant adjectives, distracting sentence phrasing, etc. It felt like he was trying to be esoteric and I didn’t like it.

Will still be reading the rest of this series! But I hope it gets back on track.

I enjoyed this book much like I enjoyed the first. it didn’t span timelines as much as the first book did; the line between characters stays more (though not totally) constant through of the book. If the first book was about the forces that work on societies: trade, religion, government, etc., then this book was about the forces that work on individuals: love, friendship, loyalty, fear, insecurity.

I don’t have a lot to say on this one! Like the first one, it was a lot of fun to read.

This is my first foray into Asimov! I’ve been wanting to read the Foundation (and Robot) series, and hearing about the Foundation TV adaptation coming out in September finally got me to open the books.

I am impressed at how timeless the writing in this first book is; it was written in the early 1940s, but you’d never know it unless you looked it up. It could have been written today: there is nothing either in the language or in the references that could be used to date the book at all.

Reading science fiction helps me overcome my otherwise crippling climate change anxiety. I like envisioning civilizations which have overcome & moved beyond our current struggles. It helps me stay hopeful and it keeps me out of my head; I get tunnel-vision, and discouraged, when I forget to imagine how different things can be.

Foundation is great for this purpose, because it starts with a prediction of the fall of a civilization, and a plot to re-establish and rebuild a new civilization after the first one crumbles. After that, it follows the work of the people whose primary job is to persevere through the decline. “Cheery” probably isn’t the right word to describe a book that follows this arc, but I found the book extremely comforting, and a good reminder of the creativity and resilience of humans.

I started getting into comic books around the same time I watched the new Watchmen TV show, so re-reading the graphic novel seemed like the natural thing to do. What a great book! It’s engaging, and dark. What I like most is how each different “masked adventurer” has such a distinct personality, yet the authors do a great job illustrating how any given character’s disposition and experience motivated them to become a superhero. It demonstrates that superheroes aren’t just one kind of person - all kinds of different people want to save the world 🙂.

This book is written in as an extremely long series of atomic scenes, images, and feelings. The narrative grows slowly, as the reader pieces together this fragments into streams of consciousness. This makes the book a quick & easy read, but was clearly done by the author so that the book could be consumed similarly to how readers consume a Twitter feed.

A review my wife read said this book wouldn’t make sense to people who aren’t “extremely online”, and I agree with that. It was written in a language that I know I share with lots of people I know from the internet, but with almost no one I know from places other than the internet.

The author holds the way of being extremely online with the way of being very much rooted in the reality of human life & death. I think one of my favorite touches is how she compares the triviality with which some Very Online people treat living and dying (i.e. apocalypse and/or lack-of-will-to-live jokes) with the emotional shock and metaphysical weight of human birth & death when it’s actually encountered.

This was a good read, but it is probably for a specific audience.

I’m not sure what the difference is between a self-help book and a book on business management; but this book certainly blurs that line. While most of the examples in this book are business scenarios, the underlying advice seems to me to for establishing a personal—not professional—mission.

While most of the insights in this book can be found in other books (7 Habits of Highly Effective People; Atomic Habits), I appreciate the fresh perspective of packaging these insights in the concept of “essentialism”; building your life around only that which is most important to you. It’s a motivating paradigm.

There is lots of media out there on climate change. Documentaries, TED talks, articles, essays. And all sorts of books: political books, meteorological books, social justice & animal rights books, personal books. Fighting climate change is the cause I’ve dedicated my career to, but even I can admit that “climate change”, as a genre, is a glutted one.

If you are to consume one piece of media on climate change, it should be this book. Not Before the Flood or An Inconvenient Truth, not The Uninhabitable Earth or The Sixth Extinction - make it this book. It’s very, very good.

It’s good because it’s an incredible primer: it’s aimed at people who know little or nothing about climate change, and provides a lot of information in an extremely clear manner. It summarizes complex problems and presents them in a straightforward way, without ever misinforming or patronizing the reader.

It’s also good because it has an incredible breadth: it covers the biological, meteorological, legislative, economic, ethical, and engineering challenges that we need to take on. It doesn’t just focus on clean energy, or on food production, or on deforestation: it also covers often over looked but vitally important concepts like cement and steel production (I learned the most in this book in the sections on manufacturing and on commercial transportation).

Thirdly, and maybe most importantly: it’s good because doesn’t allow the reader to walk away with an ending to the story of the human race’s fight on climate change. Every reader wants - and every writer is tempted to give - closure one way or the other: either we’re doomed, or it’s all going to be fine. But both of these paths can be used to excuse inaction: either it’s all going to be ok and I don’t have to do anything, or we’re all doomed so it’s not worth doing anything. Regardless of the ultimate outcome, climate inaction now will lead to greater human suffering, and as such, this inaction is inexcusable. It’s a service to the reader and to the victims of climate disaster, then, that Bill Gates does not invite the reader to sit back and watch it happen by providing an answer. Instead, he makes thoughtful observations and gives actionable advice, and invites the reader to join in.

For the majority of my adult life, my spirituality has had nonviolence at it’s core. Thomas Merton and Leo Tolstoy have influenced me especially… as well as the time I spent living at Jerusalem Farm. But it’s pretty wild that—while I’ve listened to several of his speeches—I’ve never actually read any essays by Martin Luther King, Jr. except for Letter From Birmingham Jail.

But because of my existing background in the philosophy and theology of nonviolence, opening this book felt comfortable and familiar; like sinking into an old arm chair. I found in King one of the things I love most about Merton. His adherence to nonviolence is not constrained by one context or topic; the strong, gentle guidance of nonviolence permeates all his arguments, his assumptions, and every corner of his explanations. It’s imbued in the very language he uses, which makes the book easy to read.

King is also just writes awesome arguments. I always think of him as a civil rights leader and social activist… I spend less time thinking of him as a professor and a pastor. But the latter two vocations are what shine through in Strength To Love- these collected sermons made an awesome companion to my prayer times, and are intellectually rigorous enough to not make me feel like I’m being pandered, patronized, or parroted to.

Reading his sermons gave me a newfound love for Martin Luther King, who until now was a man I respected but never felt like I knew very well. I do feel like I know King better after reading this book… maybe that’s another hallmark of good writing. Anyway; I’m excited to read more.

I was totally enraptured by Arkady Martine’s first novel, A Memory Called Empire, which I read last year. She blew my mind by portraying the culture of the civilization with a depth and richness that I had never seen before in a sci-fi book.

A Desolation Called Peace, the sequel, was just as good… maybe better. It picked a few themes from the first book and ran with them, while bringing in new and interesting conceptual elements. The book is so creative and engrossing; Martine does a phenomenal job of building a complete world, and then creating totally compelling relationships (and political intrigue!) within that world.

The narrative structures—and relationship structures—of this book are an amplified mirror of the patterns in the first book, which aids the exploration of the themes of relationship, belonging, and purpose. It’s a delightful project, and one that’s hard to pull off, but Martine succeeds in expanding (not just recapitulating) her first novel.

I really hope this series keeps going… I will read these books for as long as they come out.