Finished reading: Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking by Douglas R Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander 📚 An 800 page slog. The one chapter about scientists and creative breakthroughs is quite interesting.
Currently reading: The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut 📚
Finished reading: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum 📚
Finished reading: The Margot Affair by Sanaë Lemoine 📚 I’m going to give this one an “ugh.” Unlikeable characters. Dumb story. The only lesson seems to be “don’t tell journalists something that you don’t want published widely” which, as a daughter of Washington, DC, I already knew.
Currently reading: The Overstory by Richard Powers 📚
Currently reading: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum 📚
Currently Reading: The Margot Affair by Sanaë Lemoine 📚
Finished reading: Harvest by Jim Crace 📚Dark and depressing, albeit well written. It’s a novel about the time in England when the economy switched from agrarian commons to capitalist exploitation.
Currently reading: How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi 📚
Finished reading: Ark by Veronica Roth 📚
Finished reading: Randomize by Andy Weir 📚
Finished reading: You Have Arrived At Your Destination by Amor Towles 📚
Finished reading: A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton 📚Definitely worth reading, but such a sad tale of white oppression of black people over generations.
Currently reading: Surfaces and Essences by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander 📚
Finished reading: Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston 📚Totally fun and also a bit helpful to better understand The Mandalorian.
Currently reading: A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton 📚
Finished reading: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor 📚Highly recommended. One of the things it shows is that our concept of diversity is so puny. Imagine a college campus with humans, humanoids, jelly fish beings, sentient trees, and more.
Finished reading: Ulysses by James Joyce 📚 Skipped 100 pages in the middle, the “play.” Yeah, imagining the internal monologue of a bunch of often drunk men has its allure but does get tiresome.
Finished reading: Foundation by Isaac Asimov 📚 So many men. One woman, I think, and all she cares about is jewelry.
Currently reading: Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston 📚
Currently reading: Foundation by Isaac Asimov 📚
Finished reading: Ready Player One 📚Read it mostly so that I could say, “yeah, I read it.” A fun read but not very deep or meaningful.
Currently reading: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor 📚
Ministry for the Future Book Club
📚 One of my favorite futurists is Bryan Alexander, thinker in the academic space. I’m reading this book because he’s sponsoring a book club for it. The comments so far from fellow readers have been fascinating and thought-provoking. The book club is back with Ministry for the Future | Bryan Alexander
The plot focuses on a new United Nations agency tasked with addressing the problem, and how they proceed. A counterpoint character is an aid workers who survives a horrible disaster and tries to figure out how to live afterwards. It’s a rich, ambitious, and frankly optimistic book, and might be just what we need now.
Finished reading: Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson 📚 Definitely 5 ⭐. The best book I’ve read in a while and one that gives me some hope for the future of our planet amidst climate change. It’s speculative fiction and I’m sure there’s a bunch of unrealistic enthusiasm for things like blockchain and regenerative agriculture, but this is an educational read and a fine novel. Everyone should read this book.