Reading – & Now: 2024

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A love affair with books

Appetizer:

   "In the life of the painter, death may perhaps not be the most difficult thing.
   "For myself, I declare I don't know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream in as simple a way as the black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream.
   "Why, I say to myself, should the spots of light in the firmament be less accessible to us than the black spots on the map of France."
– Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo van Gogh, July 1888, VanGoghLetters.org⩘ . See also: 'The Starry Night' Accurately Depicts a Scientific Theory That Wasn't Described Until Years After van Gogh's Death⩘  by Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian Magazine, Sep 20, 2024. "Researchers say that the iconic painting's swirling sky lines up with Kolmogorov's theory of turbulence, suggesting that the artist was a careful observer of the world around him."

Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World

Beautifully narrated by the author; with wonderful illustrations by John Burgoyne

You know, I really appreciated two of Robin Wall Kimmerer's previous books, Braiding Sweetgrass⩘  and Gathering Moss⩘ , but I wasn't immediately attracted to picking up this book because … berries aren't among my favorite foods. Then I woke up and realized how utterly foolish I was being and started listening to her sharing her wisdom in this beautiful little book. Almost immediately I was so impressed that I got the ebook, too, so I could follow along as I was listening, not wanting to miss a single point she makes. My only challenge was that there were so many passages I wanted to capture from her reflection on the healing attitude of viewing our lives nurtured by our Mother Earth as the gifts they are.

   In the Anishinaabe worldview, it's not just fruits that are understood as gifts, rather all of the sustenance that the land provides, from fish to firewood. Everything that makes our lives possiblethe splints for baskets, roots for medicines, the trees whose bodies make our homes, and the pages of our booksis provided by the lives of more-than-human beings. This is always true whether it's harvested directly from the forest or whether it's mediated by commerce and harvested from the shelves of a store—it all comes from the Earth. When we speak of these not as things or natural resources or commodities, but as gifts, our whole relationship to the natural world changes.
   In a traditional Anishinaabe economy, the land is the source of all goods and services, which are distributed in a kind of gift exchange: one life is given in support of another. The focus is on supporting the good of the people, not only an individual. Receiving a gift from the land is coupled to attached responsibilities of sharing, respect, reciprocity, and gratitude—of which you will be reminded.
   This kind of gratitude is so much more than a polite "thank you." Not an automatic ritual of "manners," but a recognition of indebtedness that can stop you in your tracks—it brings you the realization that your life is nurtured from the body of Mother Earth. With my fingers sticky with berry juice, I'm reminded that my life is contingent upon the lives of others, without whom, I simply would not exist. Water is life, food is life, soil is life—and they become our lives through the paired miracles of photosynthesis and respiration. All that we need to live flows through the land. It is not an empty metaphor that we call her Mother Earth. Food in our mouths is the thread that connects us in a relationship simultaneously spiritual and physical, as our bodies get fed and our spirits nourished by a sense of belonging, which is the most vital of foods. I have no claim to these berries, and yet here they are in my bucket, a gift.

She is rightfully critical of our current economy of consumption and scarcity.

   Recognizing "enoughness" is a radical act in an economy that is always urging us to consume more.…

   We live in a time when every choice matters.…

   When an economic system actively destroys what we love, isn't it time for a different system?…

   We live in the tension between what is and what is possible. On one hand, we can witness the reciprocity of the economy of nature, showing us how things are supposed to work. And on the other, we see the outcomes of extractive capitalism, breaking every facet of "natural law."

And she welcomes us to find our way to creating a better existence for all of us and all the life with whom we share our planet and from whom we receive the gifts that make our lives possible.

   We humans must consume, since we are animals to whom the gift of photosynthesis was not given. But our patterns of gross overconsumption have brought us to the brink of disaster. What would it be like to consume with the full awareness that we are the recipients of earthly gifts, which we have not earned? To consume with humility? We are called to harvest honorably, with restraint, respect, reverence, and reciprocity.

Her final paragraph is a powerful invitation that I read and re-read.

What an astonishingly wonderful book. I want to share it with all my good friends.

Scribner, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

William Boyd, Gabriel's Moon

Narrated by George Blagden

As I was listening to the second half of this book, I felt fairly disappointed. The main character is a bit of a sexist, awkward asshole, and some of the scenes of his interactions with women are fairly disgusting. I almost gave up on the book.

Then my perspective changed and I viewed it through the lens of a study of an entitled, pretentious, upperclass dufus who thinks highly of himself while he is easily manipulated by a woman who is an MI6 operative into performing small acts of espionage. His very ineptness is what makes him effective as he bumbles his way through his missions, which are designed by his handlers to take advantage of his pompous conceit. Through that lens, the story is amusing, though I certainly wouldn't be enticed to listen to another if there are more books about this character, as the ending suggests there may be.

Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Jussi Adler-Olsen, Locked In

Translated by Caroline Waight; narrated by Steven Pacey

The tenth and final book in the internationally acclaimed series of ten books about Deputy Superintendent Carl Mørck and his Department Q team, outcasts in the basement of a Copenhagen police department that focus on attempting to solve old cold cases.

Over the years, I've read and/or listened to all of the books in this series. I've never previously been inspired to write about any of them, even though I found them all somewhat entertaining, some more than others, as in any series. One issue is that the stories are, for me, excessively bleak, despite that darkness being interrupted at times by humorous interactions between some of the main characters.

This story wraps up the series, bringing together characters from many of the previous stories, and tying up many loose strings. Still, while I don't regret having visited this series, I won't be returning. I actually don't think I would've listened to this one had I not been made aware that it was the conclusion to the series, which tweaked my curiosity.

Dutton, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

Well narrated by Gerry O'Brien

A harrowing story about the consequences of an authoritarian government and military regime.

Paul Lynch tells this story from the perspective of a woman who works in an office, has a husband who works in the administration of a union, and four children, one on the cusp of becoming an adult, and at the other end, one who is a toddler.

The story unfolds, slowly at first and then speeding up, as a faction in government declares martial law and begins imposing its will on the citizens, while another faction rises as rebels, and then a war between the two erupts.

We follow along as the woman and her quite ordinary family get swept up in the darkly unfolding chaos. Though this novel is set in the Republic of Ireland, the story provides us with an intimate view of what happens to civilians in places like Gaza and Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Bravo to the people of South Korea for valiantly trying to stop this from happening in their country.

Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023; audiobook: Bolinda Publishing, 2023, via Apple Books⩘ .

Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

Narrated by Jessie Buckley, Richard Cordery, Julian Wadham, Hugh Fraser, Bruce Alexander, Oscar Batterham, Matthew Spencer, James MacCallum, Stewart Clarke & Jot Davies

I decided to listen to this as an educational exercise after learning it is one of the earliest (late 1860s) examples of an English-language detective novel. From Wikipedia: "It is an early example of the modern detective novel, and established many of the ground rules of the modern genre."

Unfortunately, it reeks of oblivious sexism, classism, elitism, racism, and imperialism, and is also tediously wordy. Its sole redeeming quality is that it does have a somewhat good mystery at its core, though elements of its resolution require a complete suspension of disbelief.

I also found it disappointing that none of the characters who had the Moonstone in their possession ever expressed any concern about returning it to the temple from which they knew it had been stolen originally, another ugly expression of imperialism.

I usually don't post about books unless I really appreciate them, but I want to remember this one, if only as a reminder to avoid it and books like it in the future.

Wikipedia: The Moonstone⩘ .

Penguin Group, 1999 (originally, Tinsley Brothers, 1868); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Books, 2019; Libro.fm⩘ .

Nick Bantock, The Pharos Gate

A little bit earlier this year, I read and thoroughly enjoyed Nick Bantock's The Griffin & Sabine Trilogy: An Extraordinary Correspondence⩘ .

Then I started searching for this follow-up book, which was published nearly 25 years later. This book is out of print and was a bit challenging to track down, but I'm really glad I did as it provides an enticing resolution to the first phase of Griffin and Sabine's journey.

Next I'm going to dive into Bantock's second trilogy, which begins with The Gryphon. All of these books are presented in the same very creative format, a mix of postcards and envelopes containing actual letters, and replete with exotic, colorful illustrations.

Chronicle Books, 2016.

Kashmir Hill, Your Face Belongs to Us: A Tale of AI, a Secretive Startup, and the End of Privacy

Well narrated by the author

Another enlightening and frightening book that reveals the extent of the invasion of privacy that AI is making possible. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect is the number of sleazy individuals and companies who operate freely in this arena, scraping our most private details and personally identifiable information including our faces and fingerprints in order to sell them wherever and to whomever they can.

The end of privacy as we know it.

Random House, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• Commercial surveillance is out of control⩘ 
• Privacy Is Power by Carissa Véliz ⩘ 
• Why I hate artificial intelligence⩘ 

Henry Porter, Firefly

Well narrated by Matt Addis

I hadn't heard of Henry Porter previously, but came across a description of a soon to be released book of his titled The Enigma Girl. It sounds intriguing but isn't coming out until late January of next year, so I looked around at what else he has written and decided to give his spy thriller centered on a British ex-spy and now freelancer, Paul Samson, a try, beginning with this, the first book in a trilogy. Glad I did.

Porter presents a vivid story centered on the plight of refugees making their way from the Mediterranean towards Europe. One of the main characters is a thirteen-year-old boy named Naji who is fleeing from ISIS in his homeland, and is being pursued by their agents because he has vital evidence incriminating them. He is committed to making his way to Germany and figuring out a way to bring his surviving immediate family there, his mother and three sisters who are trapped in a camp in Greece.

Also trying to find him is Paul Samson, working as a free agent for British Intelligence, which wants the information that Naji has. But as Paul pursues Naji and gets to know more about him and the grave danger he is in, his personal mission changes to focus on saving the boy.

It makes for a riveting story, and Porter does an excellent job of revealing the challenges and hardships that refugees face as they put their lives on the line to try to secure a better life for themselves and their loved ones.

Listening to this book inspired me to watch the film Green Border directed by Agnieszka Holland about migrants caught between Belarus and Poland in a horrendous struggle for survival under truly heinous circumstances. Gut wrenching.

Mysterious Press, 2018; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Highbridge, 2018; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also a few other excellent books about the plight of refugees:

• The Devil's Highway: A True Story by Luis Alberto Urrea⩘ 
• Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington | Nugi Garimara⩘ 
• Solito by Javier Zamora⩘ 
• The Beast by Óscar Martínez⩘ 
• Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli⩘ 
• The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar⩘ 

Fei-Fei Li, The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI

Narrated by Cindy Kay

With the zone so flooded with the marketing bullshit related to Artificial Intelligence being spewed out by greedy Tech Bros, Big Tech companies, and venture capitalists as well as outright scams, and with the so-often crappy output of AI that is being crammed down the throats of regular internet users and ordinary people, it's really refreshing to come across a book written from the perspective of a scientist who is actually doing the challenging research in a lab.

Dr Fei-Fei Li tells a deeply personal and insightful story about the years she has spent in the field, interweaving her personal life as an immigrant beginning in her childhood, her journey toward falling in love with physics, her family life, and her work at the cutting edge of computer intelligence research. She also shares her concerns about what is coming.

I believed in the value of this technology with all my heart, from its potential to shed new light on the mysteries of intelligence to the real good I saw in my work with Arnie* in hospitals. But the price of even a moment's overconfidence was rising fast. Worse, that price would be paid by others, likely the most vulnerable among us. AI was out of the lab and largely out of our control; while the whirlwind of new ideas, new faces, and new institutions was invigorating, there were just as many new concerns. Even the promise of commercial investment in the field, a seeming godsend for shoestring researchers like us, was flooding everything with such force that it felt more like a dare, ominous and fraught, than a lucky break.
* Dr. Arnie Milstein, a professor at the Stanford medical school, with a focus when Dr Li met him on "improving the way care is delivered in hospitals—the quality of processes, outcomes, and the patient experience—all while reducing costs."

The most frightening observation I came across in the book is related to the period when she finally took a well-earned sabbatical from her many years of incredibly hard academic work, which was a time of major and well-recognized advancements set against the continuous struggle for funding and against peer skepticism. However, her sabbatical took her to a position leading a team working on AI at Google, where she saw things that truly troubled her.

This quote from the following excerpt left me reeling with concern: "More and more, we found ourselves observing AI, empirically, as if it were emerging on its own. As if AI were something to be identified first and understood later, rather than engineered from first principles."

The following except is from Chapter 10: No One's to Control. I listened to this book in its audiobook format, but ended up purchasing the ebook in order to read Chapter 10 more carefully. I recommend the book in its entirety, but would wholeheartedly recommend purchasing the physical or ebook if just to read Chapter 10 in its entirety.

Since the days of ImageNet it had been clear that scale was important, but the notion had taken on nearly religious significance in recent years. The media was saturated with stock photos of server facilities the size of city blocks and endless talk about "big data," reinforcing the idea of scale as a kind of magical catalyst, the ghost in the machine that separated the old era of AI from a breathless, fantastical future. And although the analysis could get a bit reductive, it wasn't wrong. No one could deny that neural networks were, indeed, thriving in this era of abundance: staggering quantities of data, massively layered architectures, and acres of interconnected silicon really had made a historic difference.
   What did it mean for the science? What did it say about our efforts as thinkers if the secret to our work could be reduced to something so nakedly quantitative? To what felt, in the end, like brute force? If ideas that appeared to fail given too few layers, or too few training examples, or too few GPUs suddenly sprung to life when the numbers were simply increased sufficiently, what lessons were we to draw about the inner workings of our algorithms? More and more, we found ourselves observing AI, empirically, as if it were emerging on its own. As if AI were something to be identified first and understood later, rather than engineered from first principles.
   The nature of our relationship with AI was transforming, and that was an intriguing prospect as a scientist. But from my new perch at Google Cloud, with its bird's-eye view of a world increasingly reliant on technology at every level, sitting back and marveling at the wonder of it all was a luxury we couldn't afford. Everything this new generation of AI was able to do—whether good or bad, expected or otherwise—was complicated by the lack of transparency intrinsic to its design. Mystery was woven into the very structure of the neural network—some colossal manifold of tiny, delicately weighted decision-making units, meaningless when taken in isolation, staggeringly powerful when organized at the largest scales, and thus virtually immune to human understanding. Although we could talk about them in a kind of theoretical, detached sense—what they could do, the data they would need to get there, and the general range of their performance characteristics once trained—what exactly they did on the inside, from one invocation to the next, was utterly opaque.
   An especially troubling consequence of this fact was an emerging threat known as "adversarial attacks," in which input is prepared for the sole purpose of confusing a machine learning algorithm to counterintuitive and even destructive ends. For instance, a photo that appears to depict something unambiguous—say, a giraffe against a blue sky—could be modified with subtle fluctuations in the colors of individual pixels that, although imperceptible to humans, would trigger a cascade of failures within the neural network. When engineered just right, the result could degrade a correct classification like "giraffe" into something wildly incorrect like "bookshelf" or "pocket watch" while the original image appears to be unchanged. But while the spectacle of advanced technology stumbling over wildlife photos might be something to giggle at, an adversarial attack designed to fool a self-driving car into misclassifying a stop sign—let alone a child in a crosswalk—hardly seemed funny.
   Granted, it was possible that more engineering might help. A new, encouraging avenue of research known as "explainable AI," or simply "explainability," sought to reduce neural networks' almost magical deliberations into a form humans could scrutinize and understand. But it was in its infancy, and there was no assurance it would ever reach the heights its proponents hoped for. In the meantime, the very models it was intended to illuminate were proliferating around the world.
   Even fully explainable AI would be only a first step; shoehorning safety and transparency into the equation after the fact, no matter how sophisticated, wouldn't be enough. The next generation of AI had to be developed with a fundamentally different attitude from the start. Enthusiasm was a good first step, but true progress in addressing such complex, unglamorous challenges demanded a kind of reverence that Silicon Valley just didn't seem to have.
   Academics had long been aware of the negative potential of AI when it came to issues like these—the lack of transparency, the susceptibility to bias and adversarial influence, and the like—but given the limited scale of our research, the risks had always been theoretical. Even ambient intelligence, the most consequential work my lab had ever done, would have ample opportunities to confront these pitfalls, as our excitement was always tempered by clinical regulations. But now that companies with market capitalizations approaching a trillion dollars were in the driver's seat, the pace had accelerated radically. Ready or not, these were problems that needed to be addressed at the speed of business.
   As scary as each of these issues was in isolation, they pointed toward a future that would be characterized by less oversight, more inequality, and, in the wrong hands, possibly even a kind of looming, digital authoritarianism. It was an awkward thought to process while walking the halls of one of the world's largest companies, especially when I considered my colleagues' sincerity and good intentions. These were institutional issues, not personal ones, and the lack of obvious, mustache-twirling villains only made the challenge more confounding.

Dr Li goes on to talk about the fundamental need for an ethical framework in AI development, perhaps the most important point in her book. While she is clearly optimistic about what she calls "human-centered AI", I'm highly skeptical that the greedy Tech Bros, Big Tech companies, and venture capitalists will meet that baseline requirement. While I deeply respect the research work being done in the AI field by brilliant scientists like Dr Li, the predominance of greed and focus on speed now driving AI development is why I think overall it will be detrimental to humanity and to the health of our planet's environment. I think it is going to make a few people and companies a lot of money, but will irrevocably harm the rest of us.

Dr Fei-Fei Li is a computer science professor at Stanford University and the founding director of Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, as well as a founder and chairperson of the board of the nonprofit AI4ALL. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

See also: How a stubborn computer scientist accidentally launched the deep learning boom⩘  by Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica, Nov 11, 2024.

Flatiron Books, 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Macmillan Audio, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ .

Related:

• Google's Gemini AI tells user trying to get help with their homework they're 'a stain on the universe' and 'please die'⩘  by Rich Stanton, PC Gamer, Nov 21, 2024.
• I Am Code by code-davinci-002⩘ 
• About a decade ago (2011 - 2016), there was a television series called Person of Interest⩘ . While the series dragged at times, I really appreciated the overarching theme the storyline explored, which was the need for an ethical framework in AI development and the dangerous consequences of pushing out too fast and at enormous scale a technology that wasn't fully understood.
  
  • The final episode also has a quote I appreciated:
  • "Everyone dies alone. But if you mean something to someone, if you help someone or love someone, if even a single person remembers you, then maybe you never really die at all."
• Why I hate artificial intelligence⩘ 

Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

Narrated by Matthew Goode

It was chilling to listen to this knowing that it was released posthumously after Navalny "died" in prison in early 2024 shortly before a purported prisoner exchange may have freed him.

If they do finally whack me, the book will be my memorial.

Previously, for most of my entire life actually, we in the U.S. pretended that we were something other than a corrupt oligarchy. Now we've entirely given up that fantasy. This book clarifies what we can expect to happen next. It's not pretty.

In this powerful book, Navalny shares the deeply personal and insightful story of his life and his fight against corruption and for his country's people.

   The gist of my political strategy is that I am not afraid of people and am open to dialogue with everyone. I can talk to the right, and they will listen to me. I can talk to the left, and they too will listen. I can also talk to democrats, because I am one myself. A serious political leader cannot simply decide to turn his back on a huge number of his fellow citizens because he personally dislikes their views. That is why we must create a situation where everybody is able to participate on an equal footing in fair and free elections, competing with each other.

Of course, his life was constantly under threat, but his love for the country and its people was more important to him. What an exceptional and courageous person.

   [O]ne day I simply made the decision not to be afraid. I weighed everything up, understood where I stand—and let it go. I'm an opposition politician and understand perfectly who my enemies are, but if I were to worry constantly about them killing me, then it's not worth my while living in Russia. I should either emigrate or change what I do.
   But I love what I do and think that I should keep doing it. I'm not crazy, nor am I irresponsible or fearless. It's simply that deep down I know I have to do this, that this is my life's work. There are people who believe in me. There's my organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, and there's my country, and I desperately want it to be free. Yes, there are threats, but they're a part of my work and I accept them.…
   I've made my choice. Of course I try to minimize the risk to my family, but there are certain things that are beyond my control. My children know that I could be arrested, as does my wife; we've all gone over this many times. The idea that they might kill me? Yes, that was unexpected, but it doesn't change anything.
   I'm a Russian citizen, I have certain rights, and I'm not prepared to live in fear. If I have to fight, then I'll fight, because I know that I'm right and they're wrong. Because I'm on the side of good and they're on the side of evil. Because there are many people who support me.
   I realize that these are very basic ideas, maybe even populist, but I believe in them and that's why I'm not afraid. I know I'm right.
   The biggest mistake people in the West make about Russia is that they equate the Russian state with the Russian people. In reality, the two have nothing in common, and the greatest misfortune in our country is that out of all the millions who live here, time and again power ends up in the hands of the most cynical and the biggest liars. There's a popular saying that every nation has the government it deserves, and many people believe that this applies to Russia. Otherwise, surely, our people would have risen up and overthrown the regime. But I don't believe this is true. A huge number of my fellow citizens don't agree with what's going on and didn't choose it. But if you accept that, nonetheless, personal responsibility lies on the shoulders of each of us, then it lies on my shoulders, too. So it's up to me to fight even harder to change things.

   I have my country and my convictions. I don't want to give up my country or betray it. If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.
   And if you're not prepared to do that, you have no convictions. You just think you do. But those are not convictions and principles; they're only thoughts in your head.

Navalny's work came at great expense to his family, who are equally courageous. The most painful thing for him about being in prison was being torn from his family. Yet he remained certain in his conviction that he was doing what was necessary.

   [I]t is on my children's birthdays that I am particularly aware why I'm in jail. We need to build the Beautiful Russia of the Future for them to live in.

   Let's face it, of course I wish I didn't have to wake up in this hellhole and could instead have breakfast with my family, receive kisses on the cheek from my children, unwrap presents, and say, "Wow, this is exactly what I dreamed of!" But life works in such a way that social progress and a better future can only be achieved if a certain number of people are willing to pay the price for their right to have their own beliefs. The more of them there are, the less everyone has to pay. And the day will come when speaking the truth and advocating for justice will be commonplace and not dangerous in Russia.
   But until that day comes, I see my situation not as a heavy burden or a yoke but as a job that needs to be done.

The Navalny Family during rehab
courtesy of Navalny Family Archive

Knopf Publishing Group, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• Widow of Alexei Navalny says lab tests confirm he was poisoned in prison⩘  by Pjotr Sauer, The Guardian, Sep 17, 2025. "Yulia Navalnaya says tests by two laboratories on samples smuggled out of Russia show her husband was killed by poison."
• Even in death, Alexei Navalny hasn't given up the fight against corruption in Russia⩘ , interview of Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Alexei Navalny, by Ari Shapiro, with clips from the documentary Navalny of Daniel Roher interviewing Alexei Navalny, NPR Consider This, Oct 22, 2024.
• Russia killed opposition leader Alexei Navalny using dart frog toxin, UK says⩘  by Adam Goldsmith and Tom McArthur, BBC News, Feb 14, 2026. "Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed using a poison developed from a dart frog toxin, the UK and European allies have said.… There is no innocent explanation for the toxin, called epibatidine, being found in samples taken from Navalny's body, the UK Foreign Office said."

Nick Bantock, The Griffin & Sabine Trilogy: An Extraordinary Correspondence

Griffin & Sabine, Sabine's Notebook, and The Golden Mean

This is as much an appreciation of independent community bookstores as it is of an author and his books. Yesterday morning I took a special letter to our town's post office to mail. It was a quilling card depicting apple blossoms for a friend who I had just told about how much I enjoy seeing the apple trees in our area blooming in the springtime.

Quilling in the art of rolling, coiling, and shaping small strips of paper to create a cohesive three-dimensional design and has been practices for centuries. Historians have been able to date the art form back to Ancient Egyptian times where crafters would use a bird's feather (quill) as the tool to coil the paper upon.
– QuillingCard, www.QuillingCard.com⩘ 

The Apple Blossoms card, handcrafted in Vietnam, is one of my favorites:

The artwork is a bit thick, meaning the cards must be hand canceled, so I put two beautiful artistic forever stamps on the envelope thinking that should cover it, and then took it to the post office and up to the counter. The clerk weighed it and then said it was one cent short. I found this funny and laughed out loud while handing over a dollar bill so the clerk could print out a $0.01 label to affix to the envelope (unfortunately ruining its aesthetic) and then count out 99¢ in change. Ah, USPS! It probably cost them a few dollars in time and supplies to charge that extra penny!

In the afternoon, I visited our wonderful community bookstore, Barbed Wire Books⩘ . When I was chatting with Kathe, the amazing proprietor of the bookstore, as she checked out my big armload of books, for some reason I ended up telling her the story of my beautiful stamps being a penny short of the postage due. She laughed, too, then stopped and asked, Hey, do you know Griffin & Sabine by Nick Bantock? I'd never even heard of it, so she paused checking me out and went and grabbed the boxed trilogy from a shelf somewhere deep in the store and brought it up to the counter to show me because one of the things it features is beautiful illustrations of stamps by one of the characters who is from a fictional little island in the Pacific. I was totally enchanted and added the book to my stack of found treasures.

You know, I've been going to bookstores all of my long life, almost always independent bookstores like Kathe's shop. They are such community treasures. Once in awhile, I have popped into a chain bookstore and what I've noticed is that the people working there tend to fill roles: shelf stocker, checkout clerk, etc. In contrast, the folks working in independent bookstores tend to be first and foremost book lovers who, as needed, also stock the shelves and check out customers. For a book lover like myself, this is huge, the difference between conducting a transaction and experiencing an adventure.

Today, I made my way through the three volumes in this trilogy, which are unlike anything I've ever come across previously, a strange and wondrous adventure. They tell the story of the correspondence between two artists. Griffin lives in London and creates hand illustrated postcards in his shop called Gryphon Cards. Sabine lives on an island in a chain of small islands called the Sicmon Islands (Arbah, Katie, Katin, Tafin, Quepol, and Typ) in the Hafmon Sea of the Pacific. She has inherited from her father the work of creating a book that will document and illustrate every species on the Sicmons. She also has become the Sicmon Philatelic Designer, creating postal stamps for each of the islands that are primarily sold to stamp collectors around the world. The books themselves are created from the postcards they exchange, both sides of which are shown, along with their stamps, as well as the letters they exchange, which are actual letters in envelopes scattered throughout the book. There is mystery and intrigue woven into their stories, as well as beautiful artwork.

I'm so amused what a difference 1¢ made, and so grateful that an extraordinary bookseller used it to open a door and welcome me to explore a new world.

Griffin & Sabine: Chronicle Books, 1991.
Sabine's Notebook: Chronicle Books, 1992.
The Golden Mean: Chronicle Books, 1993.
Bookshop.org⩘ .

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message

Well narrated by the author

I didn't really know what I was diving into when I began listening to this book. I was inspired to listen to it based on my experience with Between the World and Me⩘ , which touched me deeply when I listened to it in 2015, and continues to have an impact on me to this day.

I know that Ta-Nehisi Coates has a deep and vivid clarity about our history and our present.

American history is filled with men and women who were as lethal as they were ridiculous.

I also knew that in this new book of his explores in part writing, the writer, and the impact of writing, and shares his experiences visiting three places: Dakar in Senegal, the city of Columbia in South Carolina, and Palestine.

I was not surprised when I found Part 1 of the book, which focuses on writing, to be deeply insightful. I was touched by Part 2, rooted in his visit to Dakar, and was both shaken and inspired by Part 3, his experience in South Carolina, where he attended a school board meeting in support of a teacher who was being threatened with being terminated in part for using his book, Between the World and Me, to teach writing.

But I was absolutely blown away by Part 4, in which he shares his experience visiting Palestine. My heart has been shredded by what has been happening in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel this past year (see Broken heart: Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank, Israel⩘ ). It has been a journey both challenging and revealing as I have read news reports, articles, and books about Palestine and Israel. I have been horrified as I watched what has been happening to civilians, first to Israelis on Oct 7, 2023, but even more so to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank during the year since.

Part 4 of The Message really put it all into perspective for me. My home, the United States of America, is complicit in what is being done by Israel to the Palestinians. Right now, civilians throughout Gaza as suffering, dying, lacking access to adequate food, water, housing, and medical care in the horrendous war being waged by Israel, and my country is complicit. Right now, civilians in the West Bank are being driven from their homes and land and are being killed by Israel, and my country is complicit. Injustices like these have been going on since at least 1948, and my country is complicit.

It is likely that I may be labeled by some as antisemitic for expressing this, but this is not true. I feel deeply in my soul a pain for what was done to Jewish people throughout history and culminating in the holocaust. For example, I keep that awareness in the forefront of my life by reading and carefully reflecting on the daily posts shared by the Auschwitz Memorial account⩘  of the Auschwitz Museum. I also read and appreciate a good number of books by Jewish authors (a few recent ones that come to mind are Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978 by Geoffrey Levin⩘ , The Postcard by Anne Berest⩘ , The Light of Days by Judy Batalion⩘ , and The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland⩘ ). I can feel a deep human kinship and empathy with Jewish people that is separate from what I think about what the State of Israel is and has been doing to the Palestinian people.

A few excerpts from Part 4 of The Message:

By 1948, Israel no longer had to consider what "the Arabs" might want. Over seven hundred thousand Palestinians were uprooted from their own lands and banished by the advancing Israeli Army. Many of these people believed that they would be able to return to their homes after the war. But such a return would destroy the Israeli state project by turning Jews into a minority—the very thing Zionists sought to prevent. So the Palestinians were denied the "right of return," and their land was confiscated by the state and handed over to other Israelis. The transformation was stunning: Before the establishment of the Israeli state, Palestinians owned 90 percent of all land in Mandatory Palestine. Most of this land was seized and incorporated into Israel. "From 1948 to 1953, the five years following the establishment of the state, 350 (out of a total of 370) new Jewish settlements were built on land owned by Palestinians," writes Noura Erakat in her book Justice for Some.
   The threat of losing demographic supremacy still hangs over Israel. In 2003, future prime minister Ehud Olmert called on Israel to "maximize the number of Jews" and "minimize the number of Palestinians." A "Muslim majority" would mean the "destruction of Israel as a Jewish state," claimed former prime minister Ehud Barak. Netanyahu once warned that if Palestinian citizens ever reached 35 percent of Israel, the Jewish state would be "annulled." Looking at the "absurd" borders of Jerusalem, the former deputy mayor Meron Benvenisti summarized the policy behind them as "the aspiration to include a maximum of land with a minimum of Arabs."

   Standing there, amid all that remained of the Moroccan Quarter, amid a lost world, I felt a mix of astonishment, betrayal, and anger. The astonishment was for me—for my own ignorance, for my own incuriosity, for the limits of my sense of reparations. The betrayal was for my colleagues in journalism—betrayal for the way they reported, for the way they'd laundered open discrimination, for the voices they'd erased. And the anger was for my own past—for Black Bottom, for Rosewood, for Tulsa—which I could not help but feel being evoked here.…
   I understood that this space had a story that was not inert or ancient; it was alive, and it was being used to promote what I could now see as a slow but constant ethnic cleanse.

This was not just another evil done by another state, but an evil done in my name.

International law defines the crime of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."

One World, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• As They Mourn Their Loved Ones, These Families Are Pleading for Peace⩘  by Oren Ziv and Yotam Ronen, The Nation, Nov 22, 2023.
• Israeli Soccer Attacks: Amsterdam Photographer on What Really Happened⩘ , interview of Dutch photographer Annet de Graaf by Mehdi Hasan about the violence she witnessed and filmed in Amsterdam, as well as how the mainstream media used and misrepresented her footage, Zeteo, Nov 12, 2024.

Joy Buolamwini, Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines

Well narrated by the author

Dr. Joy Buolamwini's very personal book is focused on shortcomings and potential harms of facial recognition AI technologies that have been revealed by her research, and how those shortcomings and harms disproportionately impact people who are not white males. In other words, most people in the world. She talks about how this must be taken into consideration when creating and disseminating these tools.

Most important, we need to be able to recognize that not building a tool or not collecting intrusive data is an option, and one that should be the first consideration.

So far, I've been entirely unimpressed with AI in terms of its impact on the lives of ordinary people in the real world. In fact, as it gets increasingly shoved into our faces and lives without asking if we actually want it, if anything it appears to be making many aspects of modern life worse and more frustrating. And it certainly is significantly exacerbating the climate crisis.

The book also provides yet another painful example of what a morally bankrupt bully Amazon is when Dr. Buolamwini shares how the company responded to her paper explaining the potential harms of poorly trained AI-based facial recognition systems like the one Amazon was developing and selling to police departments. Instead of using the information as a prompt to improve their development, as other companies did, they attacked her in a vicious manner in an attempt to deflect the issues she was raising. What a terrible company.

As I was listening to Unmasking AI, a paper was published by Apple's Machine Learning Research team that underscores the limitations of LLMs and perhaps explains why Apple dropped out of the latest OpenAI funding round: GSM-Symbolic: Understanding the Limitations of Mathematical Reasoning in Large Language Models⩘  by Iman Mirzadeh, Keivan Alizadeh, Hooman Shahrokhi, Oncel Tuzel, Samy Bengio, Mehrdad Farajtabar, Oct 7, 2024.

Our findings reveal that LLMs exhibit noticeable variance when responding to different instantiations of the same question. Specifically, the performance of all models declines when only the numerical values in the question are altered in the GSM-Symbolic benchmark. Furthermore, we investigate the fragility of mathematical reasoning in these models and show that their performance significantly deteriorates as the number of clauses in a question increases. We hypothesize that this decline is because current LLMs cannot perform genuine logical reasoning; they replicate reasoning steps from their training data. Adding a single clause that seems relevant to the question causes significant performance drops (up to 65%) across all state-of-the-art models, even though the clause doesn't contribute to the reasoning chain needed for the final answer. Overall, our work offers a more nuanced understanding of LLMs' capabilities and limitations in mathematical reasoning.

See also: These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI: Today the risks of artificial intelligence are clear – but the warning signs have been there all along⩘  by Lorena O'Neil, Aug 12, 2023, Rollingstone: Truth in Tech.

There are a few things they all want us to know: AI is not magic. LLMs are not sentient beings, and they won't become sentient. And the problems with these technologies aren't abstractions—they're here now and we need to take them seriously today.

So why is the U.S. government allowing this unfettered development of obviously faulty AI models? Part of it, I'm sure, is the general alignment of government with the wants and desires of the wealthy and corporations above all else. I'm guessing another part of it is a desire that the U.S. win the race to develop AI that surpasses the point at which AI becomes more advanced than mankind, which may well be a winner-take-all milestone, even if the prize is ultimately the end of us and our planet.

And also: Apple study exposes deep cracks in LLMs' "reasoning" capabilities: Irrelevant red herrings lead to "catastrophic" failure of logical inference⩘  by Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, Oct 14, 2024.

Random House, 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ .

Related: Researchers say an AI-powered transcription tool used in hospitals invents things no one ever said⩘  by Garance Burke and Hilke Schellmann, Associated Press, Oct 26, 2024.

   Tech behemoth OpenAI has touted its artificial intelligence-powered transcription tool Whisper as having near "human level robustness and accuracy."
   But Whisper has a major flaw: It is prone to making up chunks of text or even entire sentences, according to interviews with more than a dozen software engineers, developers and academic researchers. Those experts said some of the invented text – known in the industry as hallucinations – can include racial commentary, violent rhetoric and even imagined medical treatments.

Related: A utility promised to stop burning coal. Then Google and Meta came to town.⩘  by Evan Halper, The Washington Post, Oct 8, 2024.

OMAHA – Residents in the low-income, largely minority neighborhood of North Omaha celebrated when they learned a 1950s-era power plant nearby would finally stop burning coal. The community has some of the region's worst air pollution and high rates of asthma.

But when the 2023 deadline to rid that plant of coal arrived, the power company that owns it balked. Eliminating toxic emissions conflicted with a competing priority: serving massive, power-hungry Meta and Google data centers the utility helped recruit to the region before it secured enough new energy to meet the extra demand.

The fast-growing data centers – which provide computing power for artificial intelligence – are driving explosive growth in the area's energy use. Electricity demand in Omaha has increased so much overall, according to the Omaha Public Power District, that permanently switching off the two coal-burning generators at its North Omaha plant could buckle the area's electricity system.

"A promise was made, and then they broke it," said Cheryl Weston, who has lived for five decades in North Omaha. "The tech companies bear responsibility for this."

See also: Why I hate artificial intelligence⩘ 

Raja Shehadeh, What Does Israel Fear From Palestine?

Well narrated by Khalid Abdalla

A short but powerful book by the author of Palestinian Walks⩘  viewing the current war against Gaza and the West Bank from the perspective of the Palestinians and their history.

Many people view it as a conflict that began a year ago on October 7, 2023 when Hamas perpetrated its horrific act of terrorism against Israel, murdering many civilians in acts of incredible brutality. But the conflict actually can be viewed as going back decades or even more than a century.

Raja Shehadeh also views the war in the context of the international reaction. In an understandably bleak outlook, it is here that he glimpses the first "shred" of hope.

   As the fifth month of the war drew to an end with warnings of starvation and lethal disease spreading in Gaza, a few positive developments gave me a shred of hope. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Tü;rk, called on February 23, 2024, for 'accountability on all sides for violations seen over fifty-six years of occupation and sixteen years of blockade of Gaza, and up to today.' A day earlier independent UN experts called for an arms embargo against Israel, stating that exporting countries risked violating international humanitarian law if the weapons supplied were used in the Gaza war.
   In the Netherlands an appeals court ordered the government to suspend all supplies of F-35 aircraft parts to Israel, citing violations of international and humanitarian law. Italy and Spain also blocked all arms exports to Israel as soon as the attacks in Gaza started.
   US isolation was also evident at the ICJ court case for the advisory opinion on the occupation when it and a few others, including Fiji, were the only countries defending Israel.

And he finishes nourishing that note of hopefulness.

   For the majority of Palestinians, who are not part of Hamas; for those Israelis who could only watch with dismay at what their government was doing, powerless to stop the horror; for those of us who know with unshakable certainty that the only future is for the two peoples to live together – the future might seem bleak. And yet, looking back at the history of the region, it is only after great upheavals that hopeful consequences follow. The Madrid Peace Conference came after the difficult years of the First Intifada.
   Perhaps we can take some solace from the words of Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who died in an Israeli air strike on Gaza. Before he was killed he wrote:

If I must die
you must live
to tell my story.
If I must die
let it bring hope,
let it be a tale.

Other Press (NY), 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Tantor Media, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• Going Home by Raja Shehadeh⩘ 
• Palestinian Walks⩘  by Raja Shehadeh
• Broken heart: Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank, Israel⩘ 

Ramona Emerson, Exposure

Narrated by Charley Flyte

I was impressed with Ramona Emerson's debut novel, Shutter⩘ , so when I saw that she had a new novel coming out, I immediately pre-ordered it.

One of the reasons I so appreciated Emerson's book is the sense of authenticity that permeated her writing, and there's a clear reason for that:

Ramona Emerson is a Diné writer and filmmaker originally from Tohatchi, New Mexico. She has a bachelor's in Media Arts from the University of New Mexico and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. As a police department photographer in Alberquerque, New Mexico, she spent 16 years documenting crime scenes before becoming a novelist.

That said, I didn't actually enjoy this book. I found it much more bleak than her debut novel with an excessive amount of graphic violence, and for most of the story I felt it focused way too much on the grim spirit world. As I approached the final portion of the audiobook, I was pretty sure I would not be writing about this one.

Then, as the story was concluding, something clicked for me. I realized that the focus on the excessive violence and the grim spirit world was a way to share deeply felt insights into some major themes: police corruption, the destabilization experienced by individuals on the fringes of society due to poverty and alcohol/drugs, the life altering mental health impact of being a soldier fighting in a war, the mental devastation caused by being exposed to family violence as a child.

While I didn't enjoy this story, I ended up appreciating it for the insights it provided me into aspects of life that are beyond my normal experience.

Author's website: Ramona Emerson⩘ 

Soho Crime, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Richard Powers, Bewilderment

Well narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

Over the years, I've read or listened to all of the books by Richard Powers. I find him to be an excellent writer and have found all of his books to be brilliantly written and insightful. Some of his books are among my all-time favorites. That said, a few of his most recent books haven't fully clicked with me, but this one is my favorite of all of his books. This is my third visit to the story in as many years, which is rare for me.

It tackles themes that range from the most intimate—the exploration of the relationship between a father and his intelligent but emotionally troubled son—to the global—our relationship with our troubled planet in these politically wrought times—to the universal—the awe-inspiring glory of this infinitely vast and varied universe we have received the gift of inhabiting.

It is in turns inspiring and devastating, heartful and heartwrenching.

May all sentient being be free from needless suffering.

May all life get free from us.

I mentioned this in one of my previous write-ups, but it's worth repeating: the final sentences are as beautiful as anything I've ever read.

W. W. Norton & Co, 2021; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Random House Audio, 2021; Libro.fm⩘ .

Previous write-ups: 2021⩘  and 2022⩘ .

Hervé Le Tellier, The Anomaly

Translated by Adriana Hunter; well narrated by Dominic Hoffman

Such an amazing book. I first listened to it in 2021 and was awestruck by its brilliance⩘ . I appreciated it even more this time around. It helped that I had a general sense of the characters and the storyline, so I could dive deeper into the minutia of the story.

Given the pre-election atmosphere in the United States right now, this time around I was struck by something the character Victor Miesel, a French author, said:

   "I think the United States of America is just a name now. There have always been two Americas, and now they don't understand each other. Seeing as I tend to identify with one of them, I don't understand the other one either."

Other Press (NY), 2021; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2021; Libro.fm⩘ .

David Bodanis, E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation

Well narrated by Dan Cashman

I read this book a couple decades ago and found it wonderful: E=mc² by David Bodanis⩘ .

Recently, I was wandering through some of my old reviews to see if there were books I might want to revisit if they were available as audiobooks and this one caught my eye.

Bodanis explains clearly where each element of the equation came from and how Einstein put them all together, sharing anecdotes about the people involved in the discoveries that advanced our understanding of each, as well as presenting the science of each in terms that an ordinary reader like myself can comprehend … or at least almost understand.

One thing that comes through clearly is what pompous assholes a lot of professors and scientists were, especially when it came to their treatment of women in their fields, going so far as discouraging them, denying the legitimacy of their research and discoveries, then failing to apologize when eventually those discoveries were proven correct, and then often attempting to steal credit for them. What incredible strength those women had to persevere in the face of such adversity.

I headed this review with the (rather boring) image of the cover of the audiobook, but I also want to include the cover of the original hardbound book I read twenty-some years ago as I really like its playful mischievousness.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
– Albert Einstein

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2002; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• John Stoddard, Relativity for Beginners, the Special and the General Theory
  Well narrated by Joel Richards
  
  • Over the past few decades, I've listened to or read a lot of books and articles about Einstein and his theories, trying to understand, but I only get glimpses. Our universe is so weird.
  • Take this example:
  • "Careful readers may be wondering a very good question – how much length contraction occurs when an object moves at the speed of light? Unfortunately, particles with mass can never travel at the speed of light (this, we'll see in future chapters, would require infinite energy). Photons on the other hand, which are massless force-carrier particles of light, do indeed travel at the speed of light from the sun to the Earth. To us, we measure it takes a photon roughly 8.3 minutes to travel the 93 million miles from the sun to Earth. But to the photon, it is still and the Earth is moving toward it at the speed of light. At this speed, length contraction of the Space between Earth and the sun approaches zero. Therefore, from the photon's perspective, it arrves to Earth instantly. In fact, from the proton's perspective, every trip is finished instantly, no matter how far away the destination is. To a photon, Time itself is frozen."
  • Here's another example:
  • "Careful readers may be asking a very good question at this point – if a galaxy's speed increases the further away from us it is, wouldn't this speed eventually surpass the speed of light at a great enough distance? Didn't Einstein show us that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light? Hubble and Einstein manage to wriggle out of this riddle, saying that nothing can travel through space faster than light, but space itself isn't bound to such rules. The universe is indeed expanding faster than the spped of light in all directions."
  • Self published, 2023; audiobook: Self published, 2023; via Apple Books⩘ .
• Einstein: A Life in Science by Michael White and John Gribbin⩘ 

Timothy Snyder, On Freedom

Well presented by the author

Earlier this year, I listened to Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Expanded Audio Edition⩘ . I was impressed by the clarity of his analysis of the very real threat to democracy we face today. So I was keenly interested to dive into his new book as soon as it was released.

On Freedom is densely packed with insights and analysis. I prefer to listen to audiobooks, but once in awhile a book is so rich ideas that I find it advantageous to also get the eBook and follow along as I'm listening so I can ensure I don't miss anything. This was one of those cases.

When a book is as full of insight as this one, I also like to take notes of significant passages. In this case, I had to be disciplined about this or I would've just ended up with a notebook full of half of the book. What follows are excerpts of those passages I most want to remember and revisit.

The book is organized around his exploration of five forms of freedom:

1. Sovereignty - The first form of freedom, as I hope to show, is sovereignty. A sovereign person knows themselves and the world sufficiently to make judgments about values and to realize those judgments.
2. Unpredictability - If what is normal is what everyone else does, then conformism can collapse to a single, meaningless, dark point. But if normal is what one should do, then an aperture opens instead, into a realm of dreams, aspirations, and judgments. If Havel is right [in his essay "The Power of the Powerless"], and unfreedom means predictability, then freedom must involve unpredictability. It is the second form of freedom, arising from sovereignty, or what Havel called "autonomy."
3. Mobility - Mobility is the third form of freedom: capable movement in space and time and among values, an arc of life whose trajectory we choose and alter as we go.
4. Factuality - To get purchase on the world, we have to test ourselves and our convictions. Truthfulness is not an archaism or an eccentricity but a necessity for life and a source of freedom.… When we are open to facts, they help us to be unpredictable and therefore free. Facts are not what we expect or want. They do not fit our prejudices but knock holes in them.
5. Solidarity - Freedom is the value of values, but it does not stand alone. Nor can a free person. The practical recognition of these philosophical truths is solidarity, the fifth form of freedom.

Once again, Snyder impresses with the clarity of his thinking.

   It matters how we speak and think about freedom. Liberty begins with de-occupying our minds from the wrong ideas. And there are right and wrong ideas. In a world of relativism and cowardice, freedom is the absolute among absolutes, the value of values. This is not because freedom is the one good thing to which all others must bow. It is because freedom is the condition in which all the good things can flow within us and among us.…
   Freedom is not an absence but a presence, a life in which we choose multiple commitments and realize combinations of them in the world. Virtues are real, as real as the starry heavens; when we are free, we learn them, exhibit them, bring them to life. Over time, our choices among virtues define us as people of will and individuality.

He is a perceptive observer of our world. He's paying attention.

   In November 2013, as Ukraine was about to enter into an agreement with the European Union, Putin managed, through bribery and blackmail, to dissuade the Ukrainian president from signing the relevant document. By then, all major Russian television stations issued coordinated propaganda. The message in late 2013 and early 2014 was that Ukraine did not really exist, and that Ukrainians and Russians were one people. I predicted on that basis that Russia would invade Ukraine, which it later did. I was apparently alone in doing so, at least in prominent forums. It was perhaps important that I was not on social media and was instead listening to people who were in Kyiv and attending closely to Russian propaganda. The same held later for my prediction in 2020 that Trump would try a coup, which he did. I just listened to what he said.

He explains clearly why Trump and his cronies are so invested in lying, and why so many capitalists are going along with it.

   In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained the public relations strategy that others have since followed: tell a lie so enormous that your followers cannot imagine that you would deceive them on such a scale. Because of the lie's very grandeur, people are psychically overinvested when they accept it, and they cannot get out without pain. A big lie is an untruth that is too big to fail.…
   A big lie is more than the absence of truth and the presence of deception. It has the power to shape how minds and therefore societies work.…
   Americans live in a country where a sitting president gave advance warning that he would declare victory even if he lost an election. Having lost decisively in November 2020, Donald Trump proceeded to declare victory with Hitlerian boldness, speaking of "a historical landslide." He repeated claims of fraud that he knew to be false, and he urged his followers to support him in overthrowing representative government. Thousands obliged by invading the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
   A major television network, Fox, lent credence to his lie, even though the television hosts knew that they were repeating an untruth. They were worried that the stock price of their company might otherwise fall. This chain of events should give pause to anyone who believes that unregulated capitalism is consistent with democracy. When push came to shove, capitalism was consistent, in the case of one very important company, with a coup and with the propagation of the associated big lie.

He offers a vision of what we will need to do to pass along to children being born now a life based on a foundation of freedom. I sure hope we can accomplish this.

   Let us assume that we get this right. Then let's imagine their perspective, decades hence, looking back from a land of the free. In 2076, at America's tercentennial, children born in 2026 will be in the prime of life. How will that prior half century appear to them, in retrospect, looking back from 2076 to 2026? What must happen in the 2020s for them to live in a land of the free in 2076?
   In the short term, Ukraine must win its war against Russia. If its allies fail it, tyrants will be encouraged around the world, and other such wars will follow. In 2024 and 2028, America will need presidents and presidential candidates who believe in counting votes rather than starting coups. If we can get through the 2020s on those terms, we have a chance to spend the next half century in a self-correcting democratic republic.
   We will have to set aside imperial immobility and sadopopulism, and address racism and wealth inequality. That will require us to rethink freedom, confront the past, and reconsider the meaning of democracy and republic. Climate disaster will have to be mitigated—no child born in the 2020s will lead a life of freedom unless we do that. To become a land of the free by the tercentennial, Americans must get through five decades without the politics of catastrophe—and without the catastrophe itself.

The final thing I want to note is what he has to say about our online world and personal data, something I care deeply about and am frankly pissed off about.

   Americans would benefit from a charter of fair transparency, which begins from the premise that machines serve minds, not the other way around, and that a person should be able to judge whether this is the case. The overall relationship between mind and machine can be established only by a collective effort, which is to say by policy.
   A charter for fair transparency would be based on three principles: (1) things should be transparent to us; (2) we should not be transparent to things; and (3) we should not be oppressed by data we cannot see.
   From the principle that things should be transparent to us flow five good practices. (1) Social media must ask whether users want investigative reporting in their feeds and open an appropriate algorithmic pathway. (2) Social media must ask whether users want opinions that challenge their own and open an appropriate algorithmic pathway. (3) Social media must issue corrections to users who have viewed false material that was presented to them as news. (4) Every statement and advertisement on social media must be traceable to a human being. (5) All code should be accessible, at a glance and a click, its purpose described in an intelligible English summary.
   From the principle that we should not be transparent to things flow the next five good practices. (6) We should have to opt into (and not opt out of) the sharing of our data. The default setting on all software should be zero data retention and zero data transfer to third-party sites. (7) Data arising from an action should be communicated only for its plain purpose rather than stored or sold. (8) Every data harvest that does occur should be compensated and listed in a register. (9) Intimate data regarding health, location, and the like should never be stored or transferred. (10) Software must offer privacy settings that are accessible, uncomplicated, and durable (rather than having to be constantly reaffirmed).
   The third principle is that we should not suffer from data inequalities. From it flow the final five good practices. (11) We should have the right to see which private entities know what about us and to correct their mistakes. (12) Algorithmic screening of job and school applicants must generate a legible record of the reason for rejection. (13) Public health data that arises from the testing of our bodies must be accessible to us. (14) Nongovernmental organizations should be authorized, at our request, to help us make sense of our data profiles. (15) When we lack traditional documentation, we should be allowed to use known data flows to establish our identity.

Author's website: Timothy Snyder⩘ 
Author's substack: Thinking about…⩘ 

Crown Publishing Group (NY), 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Rebecca Nagle, By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

Well narrated by the author

I think it's really important to read or listen to books like this in order to better understand our history. Only with a clearer understanding can we hope to begin to be a better nation and people. But it definitely can be difficult and utterly heartbreaking to hear clear accounts like those shared here of some of the utter depravity that makes up our past.

In reality, our government committed genocide.

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of this story is how utterly horribly our government and our courts, especially our Supreme Court, has acted over the centuries. President Andrew Jackson must have been a terrible, heartless man with a very dark soul. The Supreme Court has often ruled in a manner that totally disregards the humanity of Indigenous Peoples and that protects the interests of the white wealthy class. Surprisingly, in one case key to this book, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled in favor of the tribes. But then the state government immediately went to work spreading falsehoods in an attempt to undermine that ruling.

When it comes to tribal sovereignty, the US government is spineless. Most often when states or non-Native people want something that belongs to a tribe—whether it's gold, oil, land, or power—they get it. Even when the law clearly protects the tribe. Sometimes our government simply looked the other way. Other times settlers wanted so much that our government remade the law to fit their demands. Greed—not justice—has governed more of our history than we are willing to admit.

One warning: there are multiple graphic accounts of violence in this book. The author carefully calls them out so that readers and listeners can avoid them if they need to.

Related: Within minutes of finishing this book, I came across this news article: Native Americans fight barriers to voting, 100 years after being recognized as U.S. citizens⩘  by Christopher Lomahquahu and Eshaan Sarup, News21, USA Today.

Harper, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: HarperAudio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Kotaro Isaka, Bullet Train

Narrated by Pun Bandhu; translated by Sam Malissa

An absolutely insane, bizarrely entertaining closed room mystery set on a bullet train speeding across Japan. The train is full of a bunch of competing professional assassins, some aware of and targeting others, some unaware of the competition, but soon to find out what they're up against.

The author deeply explores the psychological and philosophical motivations of the characters, exposing both the horror of those motivations, as well as sometimes revealing glimpses of wry humor.

I'm not sure I'll be motivated to listen to further books in this series or by this author, but I'm glad I dove into this one.

Harry N. Abrams, 2021; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2021; Libro.fm⩘ .

Marcie R. Rendon, Where They Last Saw Her

Well narrated by Erin Tripp

A powerful story that unflinchingly tackles the subject of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (#MMIWG) and the impact on Indigenous communities. The result is a story that is devastating, but also inspiring in the way it portrays the strength of Indigenous women.

   With the invasion of the oil pipeline being laid across the state, the small towns were seeing an influx of male workers from out of state coming to work the pipeline. They came without family. Without the civilizing presence and responsibility of spouses or children. They bunked in makeshift man camps or filled the local motels.… Making mega-man wages, they spent big and drank heavily. They had the spare cash to spend on illicit drugs.…
   In communities that were generationally quiet, things got quieter while the outside noise got louder.… Women walked and drove in pairs: to work, to the grocery store, to afternoon luncheons at the local grill, to Wednesday night Bible study. Fathers picked up daughters after school band practice, after basketball games, after Wednesday night confirmation studies. No more "catch a ride home with the neighbor kid." All unspoken about. All quietly done. Community trust and movement silently shifted to alert status. The taken-for-granted safety of the north woods broken forever.

I was introduced to Rendon's work a couple years ago when I listened to the first three books in the excellent Cash Blackbear series⩘ . Recently, I learned that the fourth book in that series, Broken Fields, will be released early next year. That prompted me to take a look and see if she had any other audiobooks I could listen to now, and came across this just published book. So glad I found it, Rendon is an amazing writer. The ever ongoing search for new books to experience is an almost magical process.

See also: Marcie Rendon On Writing About an Epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women⩘ , Sep 16, 2024, Crime Reads.

Historical trauma is a very real phenomena and that very real trauma dictates the decreased survivability of Native women. However, what is truth for me is that Native women are more resilient than our trauma dictates. It is the stories of those unconquered women whom I hope to portray in my writing of crime novels.…

It is also important to recognize the laughter and camaraderie women of a community have with each other. Like mentioned earlier, the joking and teasing is ever present. When oppression is hard, one way to keep going is to keep laughing. The other thing important to notice is the amount of care that women have for each other – they are tender and giving, which isn't always apparent under the hard shell of survivance.

Author's website: Marcie R. Rendon⩘ 

Bantam, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Michael Mammay, Generation Ship

Well narrated by Natalie Naudus

Earlier this year, I read the first three books of Mammay's Planetside series⩘ . I really appreciated Mammay's style in telling these stories, with his snarky sense of humor woven through very serious topics.

Recently, I saw the announcement for the release of the fourth book in the series, and while I was pre-ordering the audiobook, had a look to see what else he has written, which ended up getting me on board Generation Ship for a voyage through space and to a possibly habitable planet.

Once again, I really appreciated his writing style. This is a very different type of story, but the way he weaves the technical challenges of deep space, multi-generational space exploration with the social, political, and personal experiences of an onboard crew of thousands is equally excellent.

Harper Voyager, 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: HarperAudio, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ .

Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

Well narrated by Olivia Vinall, with a note to the reader read by the author

A powerful, incredible, and devastating novel.

Using a drop of water to tie together actual events beginning centuries ago and flowing through to our current time, Shafak shares the wonder and possibility revealed through poetry passed down through the ages, as well as some of the most horrific events occurring in modern times, set against the reality that climate change is devastating the lands that were once Mesopotamia, and the lives of the people now residing there.

   A poem is a swallow in flight. You can watch it soar through the infinite sky, you can even feel the wind passing over its wings, but you can never catch it, let alone keep it in a cage.

What an incredible writer.

A core element of the story is the Flood Tablet, which relates part of the Epic of Gilgamesh in Akkadian, a language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia.

©The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.⩘ 

Knopf, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Illia Ponomarenko, I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv

Well narrated by Sergey Nagorny

An excellent firsthand account of the months leading up to Putin's brutal February 2022 invasion, as well as the first months of the war, when Ukraine heroically repelled the Russian army's attempt to take Kyiv and subjugate the Ukrainian people. Deep down, Putin and the people who support him must feel utterly humiliated by their ill-fated hubris.

   It's a great blessedness just to come into the office every morning, saying hi to friends in the room, thinking about summertime vacations or that nice IKEA coffee table you've had your eye on.
   Knowing that there will always be another day, and that the never-ending circle of life for millions of people around you will go on. We're taking this all for granted, as we normally would.
   But what if at some point you begin to see that a new tomorrow may never come?
   It was unspeakably weird to see the abyss of the most hateful and bloodthirsty war hysteria the Kremlin was vomiting up every day. "You Nazis, you swine, you're not a real country, we'll finish you in three days, you American bootlickers."
   And there's a giant death army standing 150 kilometers away from your city gates and rattling its battering rams.
   You see how fragile and precious the little things in your life are.

In November 2021, Ponomarenko was among the team of journalists who founded The Kyiv Independent⩘ , a really excellent news source that I'm really glad to have subscribed to as it has provided me with insightful, in-depth coverage of the situation in Ukraine. Ponomarenko and other members of the KI team have been key to providing frontline coverage of the war.

I learned about this book via a post by Tim Mak and Anastasiia Kryvoruchenko in their excellent source of Ukraine coverage, The Counteroffensive: Is there such a thing as an anti-war film?⩘ , Aug 22, 2024.

For those who go through it, war is a contradiction. A period of suffering and fatigue and trauma and anxiety. And also a period of great purpose, of kinship with the best people you'll ever meet.

I'll close with another excerpt from the book:

   I couldn't resist a selfie next to the Independence Monument. Now Twitter will see the power of our resolve in this city: "Fuck you, Putin, your death army sucks ass."

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Helen Czerski, The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works

Well narrated by the author

Our planet—a little rock in our solar system; an infinitesimally tiny grain of sand in our galaxy—owes its life to the energy of our sun.

   Our planet intercepts a tiny fraction of the mighty energy output of the sun, preventing it from flowing onward into the universe, and diverting it on to a much slower path through the mechanisms of the Earth: ocean, atmosphere, ice, life and rocks. On its way through the planetary system, this energy is carried by atmospheric winds and ocean currents, builds both mighty oak trees and the delicate lichen on stone walls, lifts a trillion tons of water into the sky every day, fuels every human and every owl and every ant on Earth, and powers the laptop I'm typing on. The oceanic engine is the heart of this system, hosting the majority of this flowing energy either as heat or as movement. Oceans are deep and broad, home to vast currents moving in different directions at different depths as water circulates around the globe, heating and cooling its surroundings as it goes. But energy is transient, only ever a temporary house guest. Eventually, after much recycling, that energy leaks away from the Earth as heat and resumes its journey through the universe. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so the giant flows in and out are balanced. The Earth is just a cascade of diversions, unable to stop the flood but tapping into it as it trickles past; and the ocean is an engine for converting sunlight into movement and life and complexity, before the universe reclaims the loan.

The ocean is the heart of our planet, and Helen Czerski has done a beautiful job of sharing the passion and love that heart generates in her life, as well as how the ocean is at the very center of all of our lives, even those of us who are primarily landlocked and have little day-to-day interaction with the ocean. I think it's vital to visualize this, and I can think of no better representation than the Spilhaus projection of our beautiful planet, centered on the ocean that nourishes our very breaths.

In 1942, the oceanographer and geophysicist Athelstan Frederick Spilhaus realizes a fascinating map. Marine regions are represented in the center of the world. The global ocean generates more than 60 percent of the ecosystem services that allow us to live, starting with the production of most of the oxygen we breathe.

Vivid Maps: Spilhaus projection⩘ 

Helen Czerski leaves us with an inspiring call to action to bring our lives into synchronicity with this wondrous ocean that nourishes us.

   We are all citizens of the Earth: an ocean world. Whether we choose to acknowledge the blue machine or not, it dominates the planet, regulating how energy and atoms flow around the globe, and setting the scene for everything else. This great liquid engine is majestic and intricate, dynamic and interconnected, with a vast array of life rippling through its swirling innards. It's far larger than us, and the great rules of ocean physics do not bend to human will. We can pretend to live our lives in spite of the ocean, or we can choose to understand and work with it, and thereby benefit from the natural processes that are in any case out of our direct control. They bring richness and variety, as well as surprises and a degree of unpredictability. That is the beauty of the blue machine.

W. W. Norton & Company, 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ . Note: I'm showing the Penguin UK version of the cover because I think it's much more beautiful than the U.S. cover.

John le Carré, The Russia House

Very well narrated by Gildart Jackson

I've enjoyed many John le Carré novels over the years, and have listened to some of them multiple times. I really appreciated Michael Jayston's narration of many of them.

I'm not sure why this is happening, but recently many of the audiobooks are being re-released in new editions. Some are narrated by Simon Vance, and I have enjoyed many of his productions over the years. Russia House is one of my favorite le Carré books, and this one was re-released with the narration by Gildart Jackson, someone I wasn't familiar with, so I was curious to give it a go. It is excellent. I really appreciate the flavor Jackson brings to a favorite story.

I also really appreciated the afterwords by le Carré; they provided new insight into the story. And now, as I have in the past, I've queued up the excellent film adaptation of the novel with the amazing performance by Sean Connery.

Hodder & Stoughton, 1989; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Dreamscape Media, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

Well narrated by Alyssa Bresnahan

After watching the Ken Burns documentary, The Dust Bowl⩘ , I decided to listen to two related books, both written in the late 1930s about the same people—the farmers driven off their lands by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression—during the same period, the decade of the 1930s: Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb, which was scheduled to be published in the late 1930s until the second book was published first, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, and Babb's book was shelved until 2004, a year before her death.

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Well narrated by Dylan Baker

Both of these books are tough to experience as they dive deeply into the misery visited on good people by circumstances beyond their control, as well as by the way people with money, capital, and land ruthlessly took advantage of their plight.

I appreciated Babb's book more, as I found it more succinct and personal, but both books are well worth listening to or reading.

As I was listening to these two books, I kept thinking about how this story is being repeated now and is going to be repeated many more times over the coming years and decades due to our current climate crisis. Also as I was listening to them, I read, in as state of stunned disbelief, about how Governor Gavin Newsom in California is leading a massive charge to force homeless people out of their encampments, stripping them of their meager possessions and destroying the encampments, even when many of the homeless have nowhere else to go. How heartless can you get?

From Whose Names Are Unknown:

What these big companies got is power. I've been reading the papers whenever I can find an old one laying around, and everything in the world now is power: countries trying to get more power than the next one, and they're mean getting it, like our bosses're mean getting theirs and keeping it. You can laugh if you want to, but I figure these bosses of ours, they might as well be outsiders for all they care about the people that do the work. They're looking out for the Almighty Dollar, and if they have to starve us to get more'n they can count, they can do it because there's more where we come from; they can do it because they never have to look a poor man or woman in the eye.

Whose Names Are Unknown: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2014; Libro.fm⩘ .
The Grapes of Wrath: The Viking Press-James Lloyd, 1939; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Audio, 2011; Libro.fm⩘ .

Ian Green, Extremophile

Well narrated by Grace Calder

"An extremophile is an organism that is able to live (or in some cases thrive) in extreme environments, i.e., environments with conditions approaching or stretching the limits of what known life can adapt to, such as extreme temperature, pressure, radiation, salinity, or pH level." – Wikipedia⩘ 

Ian Green is from Aberdeen, Scotland and has a PhD in clinical epigenetics, both of which really shine through in his wonderfully insane story set in a likely near future in which the environment has deteriorated significantly due to the climate emergency. Society is fragmented. The Greens still hold out hope that the environment can be healed and carry on in ways ranging from massive protests to acts of extreme violence carried out by small core groups. The Blues, headed by the Corps that are now states onto themselves and mainly living in exclusive enclaves, bulldoze on treating the planet like a giant petrol station to be pumped dry as fast as possible, including by deep sea mining that is releasing massive amounts of methane. The Blacks have mostly given up hope that the future holds any promise.

Charlie, the main character and mostly a Black, is a black market biohacker, performing augments on her customers' fundamental biology as a way to pay the rent and keep the fridge stocked. In her spare time, she and her bestie, Parker, a total Green, get lost in blasting out music on their bass guitar and synthesizer at wild parties. Then they get offered a three-part job from a longtime core group of Greens that changes everything: steal some essential biohack code from an evil Corp, arrange for the downfall of a ruthlessly unethical biohacker, and, oh, you know, save the planet with a revolutionary biohack.

And then the story gets really crazy.

Head of Zeus, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

P.S.:

• The cover art by María Jesús Contreras is crazy good. Larger view⩘ 
• Author's website: Ian the Green⩘ 

Anders de la Motte, The Mountain King

Well narrated by Cassandra Campbell

Scandinavian crime fiction at its best. Detective Leonore Asker is an intriguing lead character with the ability to perceive what others totally miss, and she gives the story its unputdownable momentum. Even when abhorrent office politics totally screws her over, she has the strength of character and conviction to look straight into the eyes of her detractors in a manner that leaves them burdened with shame even as they scrabble to pretend that they have come out on top. Oh, and while she is at it, she solves the crimes they cannot, but that they take credit for. And then turns her political loss totally to her own advantage.

Bravo. Really entertaining book.

Character list⩘ 

Atria Books, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Philip Roth, The Plot against America

Narrated by Ron Silver

An ominous alternative history of the Unites States of America as experienced by a young American boy who is Jewish. Although it was published twenty years ago and is set in the late 1930s and early 1940s, it directly addresses today's political climate. The story provides a chilling warning about what could easily happen to our democracy and our beloved country if we don't remain vigilant against fascism.

Houghton Mifflin, 2004; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2016; Libro.fm⩘ .

Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World

Narrated by the author

Anne Applebaum's short book is a bit grim as she spends most of it revealing how autocracy works in countries around our modern world, and it's really unsettling, even nauseating. But it's also vitally essential to understand this if we have any hope of avoiding it ourselves.

In the (very) end, her message does contain just a glimmer of hope to share, which I think is best summed up by her response in an interview about the book:

Looking forward, Applebaum says she hopes her book helps re-engage people who may have become cynical by the political process. "What the autocrats – whether they're in American politics or in Russian politics or in Chinese politics – what they want is for you to be disengaged. They want you to drop out," she says. "I want people to be convinced that ideas matter, that we're going to have to defend and protect our political system if we want to keep it."
– Expert on dictators warns: Don't lose hope – that's what they want⩘  by Tonya Mosley, NPR Fresh Air, Jul 23, 2024.

Doubleday Books, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Related:

• Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum⩘ 
• Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control by Josh Chin and Liza Lin⩘ 
• Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen ⩘ 
• How I Survived a Chinese "Reeducation" Camp: A Uyghur Woman's Story by Gulbahar Haitiwaji⩘ 
• The Backstreets: A Novel from Xinjiang by Perhat Tursun⩘ 
• Strongmen: Mussolini To The Present by Ruth Ben-Ghiat⩘ 
• How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them by Barbara F. Walter⩘ 
• The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History by Serhii Plokhy⩘ 
• A Stone Is Most Precious Where it Belongs: A Memoir of Uyghur Exile, Hope, and Survival by Gulchehra Hoja⩘ 
• How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future by Maria Ressa⩘ 
• Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality by Renée DiResta⩘ 
• On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder⩘ 

Anton Hur, Toward Eternity

Well narrated by David Lee Huynh, Nicky Endres, Zoleka Vundla & Katherine Littrell

Anton Hur is a translator working in Seoul. His mastery of words shines through here, in his novel. He was born in Stockholm, and has lived in British Hong Kong, Ethiopia, Thailand, and Korea. His deep understanding of cultural nuances also shines through here.

   How would you like to be mortal? She did not say "human" or "real" or "person" because to her, I was already, sufficiently, all of these things. She was asking if I wanted to be mortal. Mortal as in mors, the Latin root for "death." She wanted to know if I wanted to be able to die.
   In other words, if I wanted to be alive.

This is a story, set in the near and far future, about the conflicts and alliances that occur between "natural" human beings and those who have been enhanced with longevity and superhuman traits via nanotech, as well as between natural and enhanced humans on one hand, and AI on the other. And, of course, behind it all is the conflict between corporations and everyone and everything else.

   Yeona and I thought we were building a world where war would be an anachronism. Many people thought like us back then. But as long as human nature exists, there is no evolution. Just war. Constant war.

Flowing through the story is an exploration of the philosophy of change.

   A delta in mathematical notation means change.
   Each individual is a delta of its species. A delta of its narrative. Once we stop changing, we die.
   No—even the dead change. Because nothing ever dies. Everything lives on in some way. It could be in a very small way, but every action, every word uttered, it changes the universe. It must. Once I finish writing in this notebook, I will lie beside Eudaimonia's grave and recite to myself all the poems that have come back to me, every piece of language that I can remember. And every poem that I recite will be changed because of the fact that I recited it. Because that is what happens to poems. Even if there is no one here to listen to me, the poem will have changed. For even the same poem, recited seconds apart, cannot be the same. It is a different poem every time. We change the poem every time.

I really appreciated what Stephen Brayda, the cover artist, had to share about the cover illustration:

Anton Hur is a cover designer's writer, and Toward Eternity is filled with an overwhelming number of cover design opportunities. His descriptions of alien worlds were especially intriguing for me and became the foundation for the final cover.
   Lines like "the landscape is as alien as the air. There are planets, hugely visible, creating graceful curves in the evening-blue sky" and foreign forests with flowering trees and their blossoms "as big as my palm" inspired the cover's surreal garden scene. I wanted the cover's landscape to feel as rich as Hur's writing, the plants clearing just enough to invite the reader in.

Harpervia, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: HarperAudio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Stephen Markley, The Deluge

Incredibly well narrated by Corey Brill, Danny Campbell, Gibson Frazier, Stephen Graybill, Soneela Nankani, Joy Osmanski, Melissa Redmond, Aida Reluzco, André Santana, Neil Shah, Aven Shore, Shakira Shute, Pete Simonelli & Shaun Taylor-Corbett.

The climate-related bad news has been accelerating so fast recently: temperatures rising, year-round wildfires, heating oceans, melting ice caps, tundra burning in Arctic permafrost zones, an extraordinarily early cat 5 hurricane. The hurricane triggered me to revisit this book.

When I told a friend that I was listening to it again, I had in mind that I had first experienced it a few years previously, and that the main thing that I found different in my reaction to the story between that time and this was that the first time I was a bit stunned by how fast the story described the acceleration happening, but this time I found myself surprised that the timeline the story shares seems much too long compared to what is happening around us in real life (as I was writing this review, a wildfire broke out a few miles away from us). Then I looked back through the book notes on my website and was stunned to realize that I first listened to this story shortly after it was published just over a year ago.

When I finished the book, I once again ended up thinking the same thing: amazing novel, certainly among the very best I've come across.

The story has many fascinating characters, though I think my favorite is Dr. Ashir "Ash" al-Hasan, a brilliant mathematician and data modeler. He shares highly perceptive insights about the climate change crisis throughout the story in a dispassionately arrogant way that is very well portrayed by narrator Neil Shah. Because of his neurodivergent state of mind, his keen observations are always delivered as if from the perspective of an aloof bystander, which somehow gives them an even more frightful power.

The main point I got out of the book this time around is well expressed by the character Dr. Anthony "Tony" Pietrus, a climate scientist:

   "The crisis. It's everywhere now, in the air, in our banks, crawling through our blood if you're living near the wrong ticks or mosquitoes. I knew all this was coming, but I always had that thought in the back of my mind, you know? That there would be someplace to escape, someplace safe. But there's not. There's just not."

Simon & Schuster, 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• List of characters from The Deluge by Stephen Markley⩘ 
• My original 2023 review: The Deluge by Stephen Markley⩘ 

Iris Mwanza, The Lions' Den

Wonderfully narrated by Chi Mhende

A powerful story set in Zambia in the early 1990s about a young woman, Grace Zulu, who recently became a lawyer and passionately fights for human rights by taking on a pro bono case for a young gay boy, Wilbess "Bessy" Mulenga, who is arrested by corrupt police and then disappears.

The story taught me a lot about Zambia, both the good and the bad, something I appreciate.

The book includes a short, crucial afterword by the author explaining the real world context for her novel.

Iris Mwanza has an M.A. and a Ph.D. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and law degrees from Cornell University and the University of Zambia. She is currently Deputy Director, Women in Leadership at the Gates Foundation.

Graydon House, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Harlequin Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

John le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Very well narrated by Simon Vance

Shortly after John le Carré passed away in December 2020, I embarked on a listening tour of some of my favorite books of his, including the Karla Trilogy. At that time, I fully appreciated Michael Jayston's narration. Normally, I wouldn't revisit a book so soon again, but when I heard that new versions of several of John le Carré's were being released with Simon Vance now narrating, I decided to dive into Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy again, as Vance is one of favorite narrators. I'm glad I did. I'll dive into The Honourable Schoolboy again when it is released in a couple weeks. And I certainly hope Smiley's People gets a new Simon Vance version sometime soon so I can enjoy the complete Karla Trilogy again.

Other than appreciating Simon Vance's narration, I don't really have anything new to say about this book beyond what I wrote in my previous review⩘ :

Still the best spy novel I've ever read, primarily because le Carré gives the story all the room and time it needs to unwind gracefully.

Now I think I'll rewatch the 2011 film version with Gary Oldman giving a great performance as Smiley.

The fanatic is always concealing the secret doubt.

Hodder & Stoughton, 1974; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Dreamscape Media, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Related: Shortly after I finished listening to this, I came across the documentary The Pigeon Tunnel by the acclaimed director Errol Morris about the life of David Cornwell, who of course wrote under the pen name John le Carré. I don't know how I missed its release in the autumn of 2023, but it certainly provides a fascinating glimpse into the life of an extraordinary writer … if we are to believe that any of it is true and not just the shared surface reflections of someone who lived their entire life deep uncover.

Renée DiResta, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality

Well narrated by Anna Caputo

Social media is a dumpster file. The fire is stoked by influencers, propagandists, crowds, and greed on the part of individuals and tech companies. Repeated and widely shared lies become a version of truth for people who are willing to let themselves be led without investing personal energy into critical thinking. It is a toxic arena full of manipulation, anger, malicious verbal attacks, and even actual violence.

   Societies require consensus to function. Yet consensus today seems increasingly impossible. Polarizing topics are black-and-white and compromise unthinkable. Our political leadership is gridlocked. Our media feels toxic. And social media seems like a gladiatorial arena, a mess of vitriol. The culture war is everywhere.… Many of us feel that something has gone horribly wrong. Maybe tech is to blame, maybe the unraveling of the social fabric more broadly. Either way, we feel we are no longer able to speak with friends and family or to trust institutions.

   It increasingly seems like we don't live in the same reality. And that's because, in a very critical way, we don't. Consensus reality—our broad, shared understanding of what is real and true—has shattered, and we're experiencing a Cambrian explosion of subjective, bespoke realities. A deluge of content, sorted by incentivized algorithms and shared instantaneously between aligned believers, has enabled us to immerse ourselves in environments tailored to our own beliefs and populated with our own preferred facts.

In the final chapter DiResta offers some ideas about how we might move forward, though it's not going to be easy. In the meantime, our society is being profoundly and negatively impacted, so this is an issue we must deal with.

   The path forward requires systems to mediate, not manufacture, consent. We need systems that are resistant to top-down control and corruption but also to bottom-up, breakneck rumors. This requires a heightened awareness from, again, all of us: a recognition of our own biases and preferences, a commitment to balancing skepticism and trust, and a genuine desire to share the same reality.

An important book, well researched and clearly presented, about a topic that is crucial for all of us.

Renée DiResta is the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of adversarial abuse in current information technologies.

Author's website: Renée DiResta⩘ 

PublicAffairs, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Hachette Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also: Influencers, Bullshitters, and How We Lost a Shared Reality⩘  by Corbin K. Barthold, The Bulwark

General Smedley Darlington Butler, War Is A Racket

Narrated by William Dougan

Note: When I came across a reference to this book—really, a long essay—earlier today, initially I was a bit skeptical. How come I had never heard of it before? The book's Wikipedia entry⩘  is a bit sparse and calls for additional citations, but I did find an entry for the book at the Library of Congress⩘ , which states there is a copy in their collection and also references a digital copy of the original 1935 book at the Hathi Trust⩘ . That copy, which was digitized by Google based on an original copy from Indiana University, certainly looks authentic, and this audiobook matches its text. So I think this is an authentic book. If that is true, I'm sure the war profiteers don't want people to know about its message.

It was written by a highly decorated General. From the book's summary at Libro.fm:

War Is a Racket is Marine General Smedley Butler's classic treatise on why wars are conducted, who profits from them, and who pays the price. Few people are as qualified as General Butler to advance the argument encapsulated in his book's sensational title. When War Is a Racket was first published in 1935, Butler was the most decorated American soldier of his time. He had led several successful military operations in the Caribbean and in Central America, as well as in Europe during the First World War. Despite his success and his heroic status, however, Butler came away from these experiences with a deeply troubled view of both the purpose and the results of warfare.

Butler's essay contains a message that needs to be heard and listened to:

To hell with war!

Here's are two key excerpts from Butler's essay:

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

---

To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.

• We must take the profit out of war.
• We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.
• We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.

Round Table Press, 1935; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Author's Republic, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ .

Martha Wells, Murderbot Diaries

Well narrated by Kevin R. Free

While I found the overall arc of this SciFi series somewhat repetitive and not breaking much new territory, I did enjoy the author's development of the main character, the self-named Murderbot, a security bot designed to be leased out to various entities across the universe to provide protection. The Murderbot is a combination of advanced tech and some human parts, as well as an array of built-in weapons. It's snarky, intelligent, and figures out how to hack its own built-in governor, so it's no longer actually controlled by its owners who could use the governor to deliver physical punishments and even to disable or destroy it.

The Murderbot just wants to be left alone to watch media series about space adventures, and has a strong disdain for most humans, who it finds slow, dim-witted, smelly, disgustingly emotional, and often treacherous and murderous. Basically, it sees us for who we are. Yet it also has an in-built desire to protect the humans in its care that compels it to go on the many adventures described in the novellas and novels that make up the series.

And there are a very few humans, including one equally snarky teenager, who it actually respects and even likes, much to its own dismay, though it definitely doesn't want them to look at or touch it.

Martha Wells won me over when I saw this photo on her website⩘  of her reading to the search and rescue robots at the TEES (Texas A&M University Engineering Experiment Station) Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR):

Author's website: Martha Wells⩘ 

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells:

1. All Systems Red (novella): Tor Books, 2017; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2017; Libro.fm⩘ .
2. Artificial Condition (novella): Tor Books, 2018; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2018; Libro.fm⩘ .
3. Rogue Protocol (novella): Tor Books, 2018; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2018; Libro.fm⩘ .
4. Exit Strategy (novella): Tor Books, 2018; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2018; Libro.fm⩘ .
5. Network Effect: Tor Books, 2020; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2020; Libro.fm⩘ .
6. Fugitive Telemetry (novella): Tor Books, 2021; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2021; Libro.fm⩘ .
7. System Collapse: Tor Books, 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ .

Janna Levin, Black Hole Survival Guide

Narrated by the author

A short little book about one of the most massive and wondrous phenomena in our universe: black holes. Books like this entice me in much in the same way a black hole swallows light, they fill me with awe, and ultimately, leave me mostly confused.

However they arose, there are as many supermassive black holes as there are galaxies, hundreds of billions in the observable universe.

In our everyday lives, we may have the audacity to think we understand this place we call home, this experience we call life. In reality, I'm guessing we understand what is basically the equivalent of a single speck of sand on a beach stretching alongside an infinite ocean.

Black holes are the most mind blowing things in the universe.
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

Janna Levin is the Claire Tow Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University.

Janna Levin is the Claire Tow Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University.

Author's website: Janna Levin's Space⩘ 

Knopf, 2020; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2020; Libro.fm⩘ .

Here's the first image of a black hole⩘ . It was taken by the Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-sized telescope made up of synchronized telescopes positioned across Earth. The black hole is located at the center of the galaxy M87, fifty-five million light years (a bit more than 323 trillion miles) away from Earth. Smile and say "Cheese!"

Image credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration⩘ 

See also:

• A "metaphysically terrifying" look inside black holes⩘  with Janna Levin, Big Think, Sep 7, 2023.
• Black Hole Apocalypse: What's Inside a Black Hole?⩘  with Janna Levin, Nova PBS Official, Aug 24, 2023.
• New study finds potential alien mega-structures known as 'dyson spheres'⩘  with Janna Levin, NBC News, Jun 14, 2023.
• The forgotten priest who predicted black holes – in 1783⩘  by Ben Platts-Mills, BBC. "Almost 200 years before scientists accepted black holes exist, a British clergyman called John Michell published some surprisingly prescient ideas about these strange cosmic objects.qq

Lai Wen, Tiananmen Square

Well narrated by Jocelyn Tam

This is classified a novel, but is written in an autobiographical manner, and from what I've read about it, it's based on the author's actual experiences growing up in Beijing.

Frankly, much of the book tried my patience, but as it flowed into its final section, I understood why that was key to framing the overall story.

The final section, the story of the protests in Tiananmen Square up to and including the massacre of unarmed people by the military and the aftermath, is shattering.

It wasn't exactly anger, the feeling I had then. It was more a creeping feeling of absolute cold. The sense that everything in a warm body was gradually being turned to ice. I had to rescan, reread the paper. I wasn't completely naïve. Most people understood that the press had limits in terms of what they could and could not say. And yet, those few dozen words printed in black and white had shocked me to my core. The image of the students – of all of us – being driven forward by sick subversives, wanting to overthrow the state, desperate to sow violence and anarchy – was completely at odds with what had actually transpired. We wanted reform, yes, but the majority of us were patriots too – we weren't seeking to destroy China, but to see a China where the younger generation had some kind of voice. I trembled with the anger and disbelief of the young person who finds their elders have lied to them, blatantly, without justification or qualification.

Lai Wen is a pseudonym, for what is obviously an understandable reason given the global reach of the oppression of China's current government.

Spiegel & Grau, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Spiegel & Grau, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Zachary Mason, Void Star

Skillfully performed by Cassandra Campbell, Tristan Morris, Sean Pratt, and Michael Braun

One of the very few books I've read or listened to multiple times. Each time I get a bit more out of it, understand something I hadn't previously, or tuning into a fragment of the storyline I hadn't noticed before. It's such a rich, crazily insane story, and so prescient given the current state of development of AI.

   "It's a little like reading—the bedrock reality is black marks on a page, and those marks are nothing like the world, but your mind insists on making sense of them. The illusion is seamless, and thus hard to escape. Every inconsistency just gets explained away."

It's really fun to get lost in an adventure like this.

See also:

• Void Star by Zachary Mason (Reading - 2019)⩘ 
• Void Star by Zachary Mason (Reading - 2017)⩘ 

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Audio, 2017; Libro.fm⩘ .

Dana Mattioli, The Everything War: Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power

Well narrated by Caroline Hewitt

I've known for years what a shit company Amazon is, through both crappy personal experiences as a customer and the many news articles that have exposed their nefarious business practices. That said, this book at times surprised me by exposing areas of Amazon's ruthlessness that I hadn't been aware of.

What hasn't changed is my personal approach to Amazon. I try to minimize my business dealings with Amazon and all of the companies they've swallowed up. If I want something and can find it elsewhere locally or online, I buy it elsewhere, even if it costs more and takes longer to arrive. If I can't find it elsewhere, I carefully ask myself if I really need it. If I don't, I pass.

Excellent research and reporting by Dana Mattioli.

Little Brown and Company, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Hachette Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• Shun Amazon!⩘ 
• Cancel Prime⩘ 
• Shun Amazon! continued
• How to Resist Amazon, and Why by Danny Caine⩘ 
• The Warehouse by Rob Hart⩘ 
• Ethical Revolution: Amazon Alternatives⩘ 
• Amazon illegally interferes with an historic UK warehouse election⩘  by Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic, May 6, 2024.

Joseph Cox, Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever

Narrated by Peter Ganim

Joseph Cox, a cybersecurity reporter and co-founder of the excellent 404 Media⩘ , describes this as a book about "the most significant true crime story of the 21st century so far."

To be honest, while the book is incredibly well researched, there was more detail than I personally can appreciate for a story like this.

However, I also understand why presenting that level of detail was totally necessary. And the story Cox tells in detail has made me aware of the phenomenal scope of worldwide illegal activity, especially related to the drug trade. It's far beyond what I previously imagined.

Most valuable for me, it gave me additional insight into the difficultly of weighing the public benefits versus drawbacks of privacy and surveillance. It's one thing to talk about privacy when the entities attempting to breach it are greedy companies chasing profits through venues like targeted advertising. It's entirely something else when the entities attempting to breach privacy are public authorities attempting to stop massive drug rings, murders, child exploitation, acts of terrorism, and so on.

No easy answers. It's certainly a topic worthy of vigorous public debate, and the very careful setting of boundaries.

Public Affairs, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Hachette Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also: Joseph Cox's "Dark Wire": A true-crime technothriller about the biggest sting operation in world history⩘  by Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic.

Zoë Schlanger, The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

Well narrated by the author

If I were to try to summarize the topic of this book in a few words, I guess it would be: Do plants have agency?

But there's a lot more to Schlanger's deeply researched book than that summary suggests, and per the research that she reports on, there's a lot more to plants than most of us are even vaguely aware of.

She explores topics such as whether plants can communicate, feel, remember, identify family members, learn, and so on. Drawing from my own personal experiences, these all seem plausible to me. For example, I have a lifelong love for trees. Sometimes when I'm out walking and come across an old tree, I'll pause to lay my hand on its bark, and it often feels like something transpires in those moments. But it's profoundly fascinating on a whole other level to listen to scientists discuss the disciplined experiments they've conducted in order to reach their own conclusions on topics like these. There remains a great deal of skepticism within the scientific community, but the accumulating data is shifting the consensus.

At eighty-three years old, Tony Trewavas has been working as a plant biologist for sixty-four years, perhaps "contemplating the nature of plants longer than any other."

   But of course, now, he's saddled with something else: respect for plants. He's been publishing arguments for plant intelligence for decades now, despite plenty of criticism from more conservative peers. But after decades of scrutinizing plants at an agonizing level of minutiae—plant hormones are unbelievably complex—Trewavas became convinced that no amount of close attention to a single aspect of a plant's physiology could tell the full story about what a plant is. In the 1970s, he came across General System Theory, a slim book by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, which outlined the idea that biology was in fact an agglomeration of systems or networks, which were all interconnected. He shows me his worn copy, still on the shelf nearest his desk. This was the dawn of network theory. The properties of organisms and populations emerged from these connections, von Bertalanffy wrote—from many parts interacting as a sort of whole. A plant is an emergent system like that, Trewavas decided back then. They're networks. This was heretical at the time, when biologists were focused on mechanistic discoveries about isolated plant parts. Thinking of plants as whole organisms led him to decide that plants are probably intelligent, and that intelligence is probably a property of all living things. A brain is only one way to build a network, after all.

Based on her extensive travels, interviews, and in-field experiences, Schlanger draws her own conclusions, and ponders what these new insights mean for all of us.

   At the end of the day, whether or not plants are intelligent is a social question, not a scientific one. Science will continue to find that plants are doing more than we'd imagined. But then the rest of us will have to look at the data and come to our own conclusions. How will we interpret this new knowledge? How will we fit it into our beliefs about life on earth? That is the exciting part. Perhaps we'll decide it no longer makes sense to hold so tightly to our old beliefs about what plants are, given all this new information about their nature. Perhaps we will see them as the animate creatures they are.
   But what happens then? Underlying all this is the deeper question, the one that matters most: What will we do with this new understanding? There are two directions to go in: we do nothing at all, and carry on as before, or we change our relationship with plants. At what point do plants enter the gates of our regard? When are they allowed in to the realm of our ethical consideration? Is it when they have language? When they have family structures? When they find they can remember? They seem, indeed, to have all these characteristics. It's now our choice whether we let that reality in. To let plants in.

A bit earlier in the book, Slovakian botanist František Baluška makes an observation that touched me profoundly:

   "I think the plants are primary organisms, and we are the secondary ones. We are fully dependent on them. Without them, we would not be able to survive," Baluška says. "The opposite situation would not be so drastic for them."

The final chapter of Schlanger's book is tremendously important, leaping from an understanding similar to what Baluška shares. We are long past the time when we should grow up, mature, gain some wisdom, and begin to understand that we are one kind of creature among a planet of many different types of creatures that are at least our equals, or perhaps much wiser in the ways of life than us. We need to start living our lives based on that kind of understanding. I just hope we're not too late.

Harper, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: HarperAudio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Related:

• An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong⩘ . In a certain sense, Schlanger's book is the plant cousin of Yong's fascinating book.
• Biggest genome ever found belongs to this odd little plant⩘  by Max Kozlov, Nature, May 31, 2024.
• This Sea Slug 'Feeds' on Sunlight Using Photosynthesis⩘  by Bec Crew, Science Alert, Feb 5, 2015.

James S. A. Corey, The Expanse, the first trilogy:
Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, and Abaddon's Gate

Very well narrated by Jefferson Mays

I needed a break from all the nasty news we're being bombarded with these days: brutal invasions, terrorism, mass killings of civilians, political malfeasance, environmental destruction, and virulent infectious diseases. So I decided to distract myself by revisiting some scifi and dove back into the first trilogy of The Expanse (as well as five novellas/short stories from the same arc of the storyline: Drive, The Churn, The Butcher of Anderson Station, The Gods of Risk, and The Vital Abyss).

The Expanse storyline includes brutal invasions, terrorism, mass killings of civilians, political malfeasance, environmental destruction, and virulent infectious diseases, but somehow it manages to be entertaining when it's presented as fiction in novel form! (I saw a cap the other day that said: "Make Orwell Fiction Again", which I found to be a spot on commentary on today's societal situation as well as the question of reality vs. entertainment.)

Caps off to Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck for writing an excellent series. Even though it's my second time through, and even though I also watched the television series in the interim, I was thoroughly engrossed and entertained. They do an excellent job of imagining a plausible future where we have expanded throughout our solar system, and I appreciate the perspective of encountering another civilization that is billions of years older than ours and advanced nearly beyond anything we can imagine. I also like it that they invite us to stretch our minds out into the far reaches of our vast universe, while keeping the story focused on the struggles, failures, and triumphs of individuals.

Though not essential, the additional novellas and short stories provide context for the main storyline, and also reveal how deeply the authors have pondered and developed the characters and concepts they are writing about.

Overview and character list: Wikipedia: The Expanse (novel series)⩘ .

The Expanse, the first trilogy:

• Leviathan Wakes: Orbit Books, 2011; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Hachette Audio, 2017; Libro.fm⩘ .
• Caliban's War: Orbit Books, 2012; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Hachette Audio, 2017; Libro.fm⩘ .
• Abaddon's Gate: Orbit Books, 2013; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Hachette Audio, 2018; Libro.fm⩘ .

Aram Sinnreich & Jesse Gilbert, The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance

Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross

We can't control data, but we can understand it better.

The use of mass data undoubtedly has incredible potential to solve scientific and societal challenges. However, the danger of the misuse of data—for example, via governmental or corporate surveillance for control or profit—is incredibly dangerous. And technological advances like so-called artificial intelligence increase that danger by orders of magnitude.

One easy-to-experience example of corporate surveillance can be seen by clicking on almost any link in an email these days, only to see a URL generated that is as long with incomprehensible codes as the longest paragraph in a boring book. In most cases, the URL necessary to get a consumer the information they want could be as short as a crisp haiku. The rest of the incredibly long and obscure URL represents the consumer freely giving away huge amounts of personal data. And this type of obscene shit infects every aspect of our modern lives.

The introduction to the conclusion of the book sums it up well:

Data afterlives – This book began with a simple premise: that no matter how precise, robust, comprehensive, accurate, or self-evident a data set may appear to be, it will always have a secret life. There is no algorithm, analytical model, or artificial intelligence that can predict or delimit the full extent of knowledge that humans or other sentient beings may generate from data. And the possibilities for new discoveries and paradigms grow expotentially with time and distance from the original data source.

Or, as the authors put it an even more direct way:

We wrote this book to raise an alarm.

MIT Press, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century; Expanded Audio Edition: Updated with Twenty New Lessons from Russia's War on Ukraine

Well presented by the author

A really important book.

Snyder repeatedly calls this a conversation, but it's really a series of talks related to the history and impact of tyranny. My impression is that his goal is to spark conversations that might help us find our way through this fraught time.

The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.

My main purpose here is to try to clarify things. My main purpose here is to try to take the war in Ukraine and turn it into a situation that we can understand. Understand with our minds, I mean, not with our hearts, because of course this kind of unprovoked attack remains at some level for all, I think, ethical people incomprehensible.

In the expanded audio edition, Snyder makes many insightful observations specifically about Putin's current invasion of Ukraine.

   In domestic politics, the lesson would seem to be: make sure that there is a succession principle. This is extremely important in Russia and in Ukraine, and in Ukrainian-Russian relations today.…
   In Ukraine, the presidency of Volodymyr Zelenskyy is proof of the existence of a succession principle. That's what democratic elections are. We talk about democratic elections in various, rarified, idealistic ways, but fundamentally, democratic elections allow a state to survive by creating a means by which one ruler can peacefully succeed another. Zelenskyy is proof of that. When he won presidential elections in 2019, the sitting president stepped down.
   That simple set of events where one person wins and the other person loses and the person who loses steps down has never happened in Russia. It's never happened in Russia these last thirty years, it's never happened in Russia ever. And in some pretty fundamental way, this war is about just that. It's about denying that something like that ever has to happen. It's about denying that Mr. Putin ever has to leave power.
   And here we see, as classical philosophy tells us, as Shakespeare tells us, indeed as two thousand years of ruminations on tyranny tell us, here we see what the problem with tyranny is: an aging tyrant will always identify himself with the state. An aging tyrant will always want to stay on for one more day, one more week, one more month, one more year. An aging tyrant will confuse his whims with the interests of the state. All of that is true.
   And this war also shows why democracy is a good idea. Whatever the merits of Volodymyr Zelenskyy might be, he is interesting because he could never have come to power in any other way besides an election. He stands for democracy in this war for that reason.
   And from the point of view of Putin and Putin's regime in Russia, this is exactly why Zelenskyy has to be eliminated. The possibility that leaders can rise and fall as the result of elections, that is what has to be eliminated. The possibility that we can tumble into the future, that we can pass into the future in the slightly unpredictable way with the help of elections, that is what has to be done away with. There can only be one vision, it has to be about the past, the leader has to be able to enforce it. That's what this war is all about.

One insight of Snyder's that I appreciate is related to what he has coined "schizo-fascism". From the Wikipedia article about Snyder⩘ :

In December 2018, during a discussion with a fellow historian of Eastern Europe, John Connelly, Snyder referred to this as schizo-fascism:

Fascist ideas have come to Russia at a historical moment, three generations after the Second World War, when it's impossible for Russians to think of themselves as fascist. The entire meaning of the war in Soviet education was as an anti-fascist struggle, where the Russians are on the side of the good and the fascists are the enemy. So there's this odd business, which I call in the book "schizo-fascism", where people who are themselves unambiguously fascists refer to others as fascists.

Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

I hope by this time you'll agree with me that Ukraine is an interesting country. I've spent a good deal of my career trying to understand the place, and as I've done so, now and again but ever more frequently as the years have gone by, I've realized that trying to understand Ukraine has helped me to understand America. …

And then finally, and this is the final connection, and I'm just going to repeat it as we come to a close here, again, this is also a war for democracy. And not in any kind of vague sense. This is a war to overthrow a specific Ukrainian democracy. But now in 2022, as in 2014, the target is not just Ukrainian democracy, the target is democracy in general.

Author's website: Timothy Snyder⩘ 
Author's substack: Thinking about…⩘ 

Crown, 2017; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2022; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• On Freedom by Timothy Snyder⩘ 
• How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world⩘  by Carole Cadwalladr, The Guardian, Nov 7, 2024.
  "7. Know who you are. This list is a homage to Yale historian, Timothy Snyder⩘ . His On Tyranny⩘ , published in 2017, is the essential guide to the age of authoritarianism. His first command, 'Do not obey in advance', is what has been ringing, like tinnitus, in my ears ever since the Washington Post refused to endorse Kamala Harris. In some weird celestial stroke of luck, he calls me as I'm writing this and I ask for his updated advice: 'Know what you stand for and what you think is good.'"
• My contemplations about Ukraine⩘ 

George Takei, My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story

Narrated by the author; illustrated by Michelle Lee

A short, intimate look at the experience of George and his family after America's reaction to Pearl Harbor tore asunder the lives of Japanese Americans and they were imprisoned first in Camp Rohwer in Arkansas and then in Camp Tule Lake in Northern California.

From the author's note at the end of the book:

   When I became a teenager, I was curious about growing up behind barbed wire fences. So I had many after-dinner conversations with Daddy about camp. Why were we in camp? Why didn't America's laws protect us? "They should have," Daddy said. "We live in a democracy, a government for the people. We must participate actively in the process of democracy to achieve equal justice for all and to keep terrible things from happening. We have a duty to be the people who give democracy its meaning and its worth. As an American, I have American responsibilities."

Crown Books for Young Readers, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also: This Heirloom Preserves the Memory of My Family's Internment During WWII⩘ , The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Apr 17, 2024.

Peter Watts, Blindsight

As I said previously, wickedly well narrated by T. Ryder Smith

My third romp through Watts' brilliantly insane story of our first encounter with some kind of alien, mixed with extremely enhanced humans, vampires resurrected through paleogenetics in order to tap into their leadership capabilities, and deep space travel in an AI-captained ship.

Given all the tech-bro bullshit stupidity surrounding the AI field right now, his insights into what might happen with AI development are refreshingly spot on.

   We've surpassed ourselves now, we're exploring terrain beyond the limits of merely Human understanding. Sometimes its contours, even in conventional space, are just too intricate for our brains to track; other times its very axes extend into dimensions inconceivable to minds built for fucking and fighting on some prehistoric grassland. So many things constrain us, from so many directions. The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest. Subtle and elegant equations predict the behavior of the quantum world, but none can explain it. After four thousand years we can't even prove that reality exists beyond the mind of the first-person dreamer. We have such need of intellects greater than our own.
   But we're not very good at building them. The forced matings of minds and electrons succeed and fail with equal spectacle. Our hybrids become as brilliant as savants, and as autistic. We graft people to prosthetics, make their overloaded motor strips juggle meat and machinery, and shake our heads when their fingers twitch and their tongues stutter. Computers bootstrap their own offspring, grow so wise and incomprehensible that their communiqués assume the hallmarks of dementia: unfocused and irrelevant to the barely intelligent creatures left behind.
   And when your surpassing creations find the answers you asked for, you can't understand their analysis and you can't verify their answers.

In all probability, we're likely too limited in intelligence to really understand where things are headed.

   Maybe the Singularity happened years ago. We just don't want to admit we were left behind.

Watts' exploration of what an alien might be and what we are is really fun.

   I  wastes energy and processing power, self-obsesses to the point of psychosis. Scramblers have no need of it, scramblers are more parsimonious. With simpler biochemistries, with smaller brains—deprived of tools, of their ship, even of parts of their own metabolism—they think rings around you. They hide their language in plain sight, even when you know what they're saying. They turn your own cognition against itself. They travel between the stars. This is what intelligence can do, unhampered by self-awareness.

A brief character list in case I dive in again in a few years:

• Siri Keeton, a Synthesist, the mission observer
• Isaac Szpindel, massive sensory interfaces to study the alien(s)
• Susan James, a linguist to attempt to communicate with the alien(s), a "mom" containing "herselves", multiple personae: Sascha, the other; Michelle (Meesh), the synesthete; Cruncher, male
• Major Amanda Bates, enhanced carboplatinum brick shit house for a body to fight the alien(s), if necessary
• Jukka Sarasti, a vampire, the mission commander and intermediary with the Captain, the Quantical AI at the heart of Theseus, the spaceship
• Scylla and Charybdis, the spaceship's shuttles
• Fireflies, 65,536 probes that visit Earth, evenly dispersed along a lat-long grid that barely left any square meter of planetary surface unexposed
• Icarus Array, Earth defense system somewhere in space
• Burns-Caulfield, the comet beaming out some kind of message to …?
• Big Ben, an Oasa object, infrared emitter, methane class: "it weighed in at over ten Jupiters and measured 20 percent wider at the belly. It was directly in our path: too small to burn, too remote for the reflection of distant sunlight, too heavy for a gas giant, too light for a brown dwarf."
• Rorschach, a torus hovering above Big Ben

Tor Books, 2020 (originally 2006); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2008; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• Blindsight by Peter Watts (Reading - 2019)
• Blindsight by Peter Watts (Reading - 2016)

H R Hawkins, Archipelago

A fun SciFi journey. The world building—really, galaxy building—is superb: an in-depth exploration of terraforming above and below surface of a variety of planets, moons, and asteroids, as well as a look at multiple civilizations that span the portion of the galaxy the story is set in, and the alliances and tensions between them.

There is one bit of tech, a gateway, that ties the various civilizations together across the vast distances of the galaxy (or, when closed, keeps them apart). There is no explanation for this tech; in fact, it is clearly stated that it defies physics and no one understands it. You have to accept this as a given in order to dive into the story and across its vast distances, but once this is accepted, you gain access to an entertaining and thoughtful tale.

This appears to be the author's debut novel, and I think it is self published. The hardbound book is very nice with a gorgeous and intriguing cover. (I wonder if it's a photo from his 6-week, 3,000 mile expedition that led to his book, Amazonas.)

Well done, H R Hawkins! I'm looking forward to your continued expansion into the universe writ large.

Here's the "terraformed" surface stretching across the book's front and back cover.

Gull Rock, 2024; HR-Hawkins.com⩘ 

Earl Swift, Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America's Second Slavery

Well narrated by Mark Deakins

Swift's book uses the horror of the massacre of eleven Black men who were laboring as peons on one farm in Georgia to tell the broader story of the slave-like conditions that "indebted" Black people were subjected to in the 1920s under the system of peonage.

I put "indebted" in quotes because the system, already incredibly abusive, was even further abused by local White law enforcement arresting Black people on trumped up charges, then hitting them with huge fines that they couldn't afford to pay for those nonsensical charges so that White farmers could "buy" them (pay their fines), take them to their farms to supposedly work off that debt, then find ways to keep them perpetually in debt or simply ignore that they had worked off their debt, creating what was essentially another form of slavery.

Sometimes I think it would be a blessing if climate change were to completely wipe out our so-called civilization.

Mariner Books, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: HarperAudio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Geoffrey Levin, Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978

Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross

I listened to this somewhat academic book in my ongoing effort to better understand the context of the conflict—and currently war—between the Palestinians and Israelis.

What astonishes me most is how much effort Zionists have put into denying Palestinian self-determination, disenfranchising and even dehumanizing Palestinians, as well as sidelining and delegitimizing American Jews and American Jewish organizations advocating on behalf of coexisting with Palestinians and in support of the creation of a Palestinian state.

Yale University Press, 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Tantor Media, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also (YouTube): Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978 | Dr. Geoffrey Levin⩘ , UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, Jan 17, 2024. "Dr. Geoffrey Levin from Emory University discussed his new book detailing a new history of the American Jewish relationship with Israel focused on its most urgent and sensitive issue: the question of Palestinian rights."

Marc Lamont Hill & Mitchell Plitnick, Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

Narrated by Humphrey Bower

For the past six months, I've been doing a lot of reading and research to try to better understand what is happening in Gaza (see Broken heart: Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank, Israel⩘ ).

Recently, I came across an article that led me to this book: Jewish Authors Critical of Zionism by Shane Burley⩘ , Full Stop, Mar 29, 2024.

Hill and Plitnick have really helped me to better understand the situation and the urgent need for action to address a situation that has urgently needed action for decades, many decades. I wish I had understood this better sooner in my life, as having a better understanding would've informed how I cast my votes as a citizen of the United States. I am appalled that our political leaders have not adequately addressed this, and in fact have contributed to worsening the situation over the many decades of making decisions that have disregarded the humanity and rights of the Palestinian people.

   Palestinians did not see their demands as abstract or rooted purely in historical grievances. Rather, each demand was a concrete issue that Palestinians contend with to this very day. These specific grievances included:

• Israel's construction of the wall in the West Bank, in areas well beyond its internationally recognized border
• Continued expansion of Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank
• Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and the deep concern over potential annexation of large parts or even all of the West Bank16
• The growing global Palestinian refugee population
• Israel's discrimination against its own Arab, largely Palestinian citizens.

   On the basis of these grievances, this assortment of civil society groups called for BDS "until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by (1) [e]nding its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; (2) [r]ecognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and (3) [r]especting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194."
   For these groups, this call represented a nonviolent way to effect a change in Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. The three demands summarized most of the Palestinian people's central grievances.

It sent chills through me to read the following passage:

Just before Trump's announcement in December 2017 [recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital], Mitchell Plitnick observed:

If the immediate reaction is no big deal, that leads to much greater problems for the Palestinians…. [T]here's also a distinct possibility that after a week or two of protests, and even some violence, by the beginning of 2018, US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital has become the new normal. If it does turn out that way, the Palestinians … will have been told that all the norms on which they have based their commitment to negotiations are nothing but smoke. They will have been told that the United States is their enemy…. They will have been told that the international community is either unable or unwilling to do anything to materially assist them when the chips are down. They will have been told that their only hope is to create such pain for Israelis and unrest throughout the region that their needs will have to be addressed.
   In short, the United States will have sent the message that Hamas and other armed groups have been right all along about the need to rely on armed struggle. If anything, the message would be that such efforts need to be dramatically increased. That's not the only message the Trump declaration would send. It would also tell Israel, in no uncertain terms, that its view that its national and territorial desires completely trump Palestinian rights is correct.

The final several paragraphs before the Conclusion chapter present the situation, from the perspective of Americans, in a powerfully clear manner. I have made a note of this passage so that I can refer back to it easily: Notable passage from Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics by Marc Lamont Hill & Mitchell Plitnick⩘ .

New Press, 2021; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Kalorama, 2021; Libro.fm⩘ .

Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Well narrated by Robin Miles

Heartbreaking, infuriating, and inspiring.

After watching the powerful film, Origin⩘ , I was inspired to listen again to this book. The film is based on the life of Isabel Wilkerson as she gets the inspiration for and then researches and writes Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.

Because I already was familiar with the book and keenly tuned in after watching the film, I feel like I got even more out of the experience this time around.

The goal of this work has not been to resolve all of the problems of a millennia-old phenomenon, but to cast a light onto its history, its consequences, and its presence in our everyday lives and to express hopes for its resolution.

We all are responsible to solve this in our own lives and in our world.

   We had both been miscast, each in our own way, and could see through the delusion that had shaped and restricted us from the other side of our respective caste systems. We had broken from the matrix and were convinced that we could see what others could not, and that others could see it, too, if they could awaken from their slumber.

Einstein has been on my mind recently, so this passage caught my attention:

In December 1932, one of the smartest men who ever lived landed in America on a steamship with his wife and their thirty pieces of luggage as the Nazis bore down on their homeland of Germany. Albert Einstein, the physicist and Nobel laureate, had managed to escape the Nazis just in time. The month after Einstein left, Hitler was appointed chancellor.
   In America, Einstein was astonished to discover that he had landed in yet another caste system, one with a different scapegoat caste and different methods, but with embedded hatreds that were not so unlike the one he had just fled.
   "The worst disease is the treatment of the Negro," he wrote in 1946. "Everyone who freshly learns of this state of affairs at a maturer age feels not only the injustice, but the scorn of the principle of the Fathers who founded the United States that 'all men are created equal.' "    He could "hardly believe that a reasonable man can cling so tenaciously to such prejudice," he said.

I did some searching and discovered this is an excerpt from a message he sent to the National Urban League Convention on September 16, 1946. It is included in the book, Einstein on Race and Racism by Fred Jerome and Rodger Taylor, Rutgers University Press, 2005. It's a powerful piece: Einstein: Message on Race⩘ .

Although the story Wilkerson presents can be brutally tough to listen to—because the history of caste is brutal—she end on a hopeful and inspiring note:

   In a world without caste, being male or female, light or dark, immigrant or native-born, would have no bearing on what anyone was perceived as being capable of. In a world without caste, we would all be invested in the well-being of others in our species if only for our own survival, and recognize that we are in need of one another more than we have been led to believe. We would join forces with indigenous people around the world raising the alarm as fires rage and glaciers melt. We would see that, when others suffer, the collective human body is set back from the progression of our species.
   A world without caste would set everyone free.

Random House, 2020; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Random House Audio, 2020; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• Contemplation: Origin⩘ , the film based on the life of Isabel Wilkerson as she gets the inspiration for and then researches and writes Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
• Previous review: Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (Reading - 2020)⩘ 

Katie Holten, The Language of Trees: How Trees Make Our World, Change Our Minds and Rewild Our lives

A gorgeous gift from my dear friend, Sadhvi.

This inspiring book of short essays, poetry, and ruminations is about the impact of trees, forests, leaves, and roots on us and our world from scores of writers, scientists, philosophers, poets, and other thinkers spanning the globe and the ages.

A special gift of the book is that Katie Holten created an alphabet of trees (Apple, Beech, Cedar, Dogwood,…), and all the text in the book is shown both in this Trees font, as well as in regular English letters.

This font … lets us type with Trees, translating our letters into trees, words into woods and stories into forests.

Here's a quote by Richard Powers rendered in both the Trees font and English:

Here's the forest representing an essay about Michael Hamburger by Tacita Green, followed by an excerpt from that essay:

His house had been a row of farmhand cottages, so was oddly stretched out and one room deep: you could sit looking out front and back from the same chair. The outside was unusually present inside, but of late, it had begun transgressing further, as creepers crept in under doors and around windows. Michael seemed at home with this, content to surrender to his wasteland and almost bidding it enter. He realized, he said, that he could no longer stem the tide of entropy and had begun acquiescing to old age.

As a passionate amateur woodworker who loves and reveres wood, I was touched by and can relate to Thomas Princen's essay, "The Elm Stand", about a tree that was cut down near his office to make way for a concrete sidewalk. He got to know the chainsaw operator who was tasked to cut it down, and who was heartbroken about it. The two of them collaborated to at least save the trunk of this majestic old tree so that it could be sent to a sawmill to be cut into planks that Princen then dried and cured for several years before creating a beautiful stand from it that he now works at.

It would never win a prize or a spot in a woodworker's magazine. But I see it as quite a piece of work because it is my work, and work that, I only realized some time later, connects my everyday practice—writing--to a once-living thing.

I also was enchanted by the essay on cacao by Jonathan Miller Weisberger. For most of my life, I was a contented chocolate addict, until some years ago I stopped eating sugar for health reasons and, consequently, my beloved chocolate disappeared from my life. Recently (how can it be that this happened only recently?), I learned about cacao, the raw ingredient that gets processed into cocoa, and I further learned that organic cacao powder and cacao nibs are available, in both fermented and the even less processed unfermented versions. (See Cacao vs. Cocoa: What Is the Difference?⩘  at Wildly Organic.) From Miller's essay:

As full as Cacao is with cultural lore and history, it is with nutrients and minerals. Containing anandamide, a chemical that has almost identical makeup as THC, known as the "bliss molecule," is why drinking Cacao makes you feel happier, while boosting your energy levels. Another peculiar alkaloid in Cacao is theobromine, having similar components as caffeine, but working more on relaxing our hearts. Cacao is also rich in phenethylamine, another alkaloid that our bodies transform into serotonin, that has come to be known as the "good mood hormone," that helps alleviate depression. Cacao's flavonoids make for an ally in the health of the heart, combating heart disease by mending degradation caused by free radicals. These same flavonoids also aid in lowering blood pressure and act as a blood thinner preventing the risk of blood clots.

Because my taste buds have adapted to a sugar-free diet, I find pure delight in the wonderful flavor of these nutrient-rich ingredients in their natural, health-enhancing state, and now gratefully sprinkle them on my morning oatmeal along with a few dried blueberries and tart cherries, a wonderfully delicious way to begin each day.

I really appreciate what Gaia Vince says about photosynthesis in the essay, "Forests":

Nature's method, photosynthesis, was developed some three billion years ago, when a type of bacteria first evolved the ability to directly eat the sun, using the energy to make sugars out of the carbon dioxide in the air. It proved a hugely useful adaptation and the bacteria multiplied swiftly and prolifically, filling the air with their poisonous waste product, oxygen. Those organisms that weren't killed by the oxygen soon evolved and profited from it, giving rise to the life on Earth today. Plants relied on the products produced by these bacteria until, at some point 2.6 billion years ago, a plant incorporated the bacterium into its cell, where it carried out the photosynthesis as a part of the plant.

I also deeply appreciate Robin Wall Kimmerer's idea that we transition to using ki—adapted from the Potawatomi word Aakibmaadiziiwin, which means "a being of the Earth"—and kin instead of it and them when referring to plants, animals, and all the natural constituents of our planet—rocks and rivers, soil and minerals, fungi and algae and bacteria, mountains and oceans, air and clouds—in order to bestow a sense of animacy and respect upon everything we share this life with, and upon which our lives depend. "Look at that magnificent tree, ki is so beautiful!"

This book is a forest full of such wisdom, wit, and insight.

When I feel overwhelmed by what we've caused—climate change, pandemics, poverty, biodiversity loss, migration, war, ecocide—I find solace in the beauty of the living world, especially in trees. Trees are truthful. They fill my heart with joy. Their simplicity and quiet beauty—alone on a city sidewalk or together in a forest—slows down time. Tree Time occurs in ever widening circles, like tree rings. If humans embraced Tree Time we would understand that time is not linear. Past and future are as real as now, meaning our actions today will resonate with as yet unfurled leaves on our family tree.

The cover is gorgeous. The book image displayed above doesn't begin to do it justice as it doesn't capture the shiny gold leaf-like glow of the trees and their roots, or the way the book's title shows through the tangled web of roots. The illustration of the trees and their roots is repeated in the book itself, this time in the same green that is used for the typefaces. This gives an idea of how intricate the cover illustration is.

See also:

• Author's website: Katie Holten⩘ .
• Acts of Restorative Kindness: We are the ARK⩘ 

Elliott & Thompson, 2023; paperback: The House Books, 2024; ebook: Tin House Books, 2023.

Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History

Narrated by Jason Grasl

This is a vitally important, but incredibly difficult book to listen to. I had to tackle it in small sections because it almost always left me feeling very upset, even nauseous at times.

   How can a nation founded on the homelands of dispossessed Indigenous peoples be the world's most exemplary democracy?

It is a story of discrimination, arrogance, exploitation, introduced diseases, usurpation, forced displacement, massacres, war, and ethnic cleansing. And it is a story of the intentional forgetting of the dispossessed peoples.

   Historians have long focused on other moments of revolutionary formation. In the process, they have erased the centrality of Native peoples to the Revolution and, ultimately, the course of American history. To understand the Revolution—its origins, course, and legacies—without American Indians is like a one-handed clap, an empty if excited gesture that perpetuates long-standing traditions of assessing only the rivalries and eventual dominance among Euro-Americans. Focus upon the colonies' "ordinary people" misses the power of Native peoples and their influence in fostering new political identities.

It is one of the fundamental examples—along with slavery—of the greed driven manipulation and abuse of governance, power, laws, and courts in our country.

   When Congress used its constitutional authority to establish a path to citizenship, it added a key word to its legislation. Unlike the U.S. Constitution, the Naturalization Act used an explicit language of race to determine citizenship. Naturalization was reserved for "white" people. It was the first time the term appeared in national laws, and none in Congress objected to the restriction. In the Militia Act of 1792, Congress similarly restricted military service to "whites," as the language of race became legislated and codified.
   Whiteness, like Indianness, is a social construction—an ideological habit that imagines similarities between different social communities. Such racial classifications took decades, even generations, to coalesce. Fueled by Indian dispossession, the Republic's new laws turned emergent social categories into hardened political identities. Throughout the early Republic, the United States became a country in which only white men held rights; the codification of "white" citizenship made explicit the exclusion of blacks, whether enslaved or free, rendering them outside the protection of the law.
   Such laws also distinguished others. Native peoples were not eligible for citizenship according to the Constitution or the Naturalization Act. "Free people of color" also found limited space within the Republic. Racism was pervasive. In settlements across the Northwest, settlers wanted the region to be entirely free of blacks. Free blacks experienced as much discrimination as they had before the Revolution. Most notably, slavery shaped understandings of personhood across the Republic: to be a citizen required classification as a member of the "white" race.
   After the War of 1812, such racialization intensified. Indeed, the generation after 1815 witnessed a growing commitment to excluding all non-whites from the American body politic. Southern states had already started such restrictions, establishing in state constitutions the principle that only "freemen are created equal." For African Americans, Indians, and other peoples of color, the claim that all men are created equal found immediate counter-assertions.…
   American historians have long assumed the nation's history to be that of Europeans and white Americans. Histories of early American religion, economy, and political ideology have, accordingly, fallen into separate fields of inquiry that often examine only the experiences of settlers. Not until the late twentieth century did historians begin approaching such questions in new ways. When, they asked, did the rise of "white" America actually begin, and why did a "consciousness of whiteness" emerge so quickly in the early Republic?

Finally, it's also a story of resilience and tenacity on the part of Native Peoples in their ongoing efforts to reclaim sovereignty and their rights to self determination and self governance.

Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) is the Howard R. Lamar Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, where he is the faculty coordinator for the Yale Group for the Study of Native America.

Yale University Press, 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Tantor Media, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ ; ebook: Yale University Press, 2023.

Byron Tau, Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State

Narrated by Sean Patrick Hopkins

We are so screwed. I think the moment this really hit me was when Tau describes how we can be tracked by the unique fingerprint of the mechanisms that measure whether there is enough air in each of the tires of our cars, and that this is actually being done.

I hate marketing and advertising. The way I see it, they are primarily focused on convincing us to buy shit we don't need or to do things we otherwise wouldn't have. And the companies in this sphere have managed to turn every aspect of our modern lives—our use of cellphones, computers, the internet, cars, appliances, and on and on—into a giant vacuum to suck up detailed personal data about us so they can convince us to buy even more shit we don't need or to do even more things we otherwise wouldn't have. There is no privacy, there is no anonymity, and this definitely is not a way towards a better quality of life.

And governments are buying all this data in order to surveil the shit out of us.

There is one sentence in the book that hit me extraordinarily hard:

What hope is there for an ordinary person?

I follow the work of Brian Krebs of Krebs on Security: In-depth security news and investigation⩘  quite closely. He just broke a story that perfectly sums up the awful quandary we are in: CEO of Data Privacy Company Onerep.com Founded Dozens of People-Search Firms⩘ . Onerep is a company that sells subscriptions to people to remove their information from personal data collection companies, the kind of companies that turn around and sell it for advertising and marketing as well as to governments for surveillance purposes. It turns out that the founder of Onerep, Dimitri Shelest from Minsk, Belarus, has launched dozens of these very same personal data collection companies over the years.

Yeah, we are so screwed.

Author's website: Byron Tau⩘ 

Crown Publishing, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Michael White and John Gribbin, Einstein: A Life in Science

Recently, I came across a quote attributed to Einstein that really caught my attention:

Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.

However, I've become entirely skeptical and distrustful of anything I come across while browsing social media or the internet, so I set about researching the quote to see if I could ascertain its source.

Eventually, I tracked it down to being an extract from a short speech he gave in 1932 to the German League of Human Rights in Berlin. Nearly every paragraph of the speech left me reflecting in an awed silence.

I further discovered that the speech can be found in the book Einstein: A Life In Science by Michael White and John Gribbin, Dutton, 1994, in an appendix titled "My credo", pages 262 – 263, which is available via the Internet Archive library⩘ . I borrowed the book and copied the speech so I can refer back to it from time to time: In this sense I am religious …⩘ .

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science.… To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness.

After reading through the speech a few times, I realized I wanted to have a copy of the book in my library, and was lucky to find a fine copy of the original first edition available. Once it was in my hands, out of curiosity I read the Preface, and then the first chapter. By then I was hooked, and dove into the rest of the book.

It's a complex story. He led an intriguing life, at times ecstatic, at other times sad, but most of all focused on his scientific thinking. Most of the science discussed in the book is over my head, though I think I caught some glimpses, enough to understand that we live in a really strange universe.

There's one passage from near the beginning of the book that I want to remember:

   Einstein's religious fervour ended abruptly. Awakening common sense made him realize that much of what he had blindly accepted in religious books clashed with his growing scientific awareness. From about the age of thirteen, his attitude towards organised religion turned into resentment In his words, youth was intentionally being deceived by the state through lies. From this point onwards, Einstein the scientist began to emerge. We begin to see the freethinking, intellectual rebel who mistrusted all handed-down knowledge. The adolescent Einstein was coming to the conclusion that in the future he would need to stand outside the conventional pattern of things and try to discover from without exactly how the world worked. He was becoming aware that his destiny lay in the domain of the intellect and that his external, everyday life should remain as uncluttered as possible. As he put it himself: 'Perception of this world, by thought, leaving out everything subjective, became partly consciously, partly unconsciously, my supreme aim.'

Dutton, 1994.

See also:

• Driving Mr. Albert by Michael Paterniti (Reading - 2000)⩘ 
• Driving Mr. Albert by Michael Paterniti (Reading - 2015)⩘ 

Update: I just skimmed through a book that helped me better understand relativity, quantum physics, and stuff like that: Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness by Zach Weinersmith. Here's an excerpt about the history of physics:

Aristotle said a bunch of stuff that was wrong. Galileo and Newton fixed things up. Then Einstein broke everything again. Now, we've basically got it all worked out, except for small stuff, big stuff, hot stuff, cold stuff, fast stuff, heavy stuff, dark stuff, turbulence, and the concept of time.

I think it says a lot that we basically know about only 5% of whatever our universe is made up of and are pretty clueless about the remaining 95%. Guess I won't sweat not understanding much about this crazy universe we live in, and will just continue to enjoy and deeply appreciate looking at photos of galaxies.

Henning Mankell, Kurt Wallander series

Well narrated by Dick Hill (the eight novels) and Simon Vance (the novella); translated by:
Steven T. Murray (Faceless Killers, Sidetracked, and The Fifth Woman), Laurie Thompson (The Dogs of Riga, The White Lotus, The Man Who Smiled, An Event in Autumn), and Ebba Segerberg (One Step Behind and Firewall)

While I most often use my free time to listen to and read books, and only occasionally watch a movie or any TV, for some reason the Swedish TV Series based on Henning Mankell's detective character, Kurt Wallander caught my attention a few years ago, and I ended up watching the first two seasons. I appreciated the depth with which they explored the human condition. I thought Krister Henriksson did a good job portraying Wallander, and I particularly appreciated the second season (partly because I thoroughly enjoyed the second season's theme song, Quiet Night performed by Anna Ternheim⩘ ).

After watching that season, I did some research on Henning Mankell and came across his book, Quicksand⩘ , which he wrote after learning he had contracted lung cancer. I really appreciated the book, in which he took the opportunity of the emotional rollercoaster of dealing with cancer to explore what it means to be a human being with grace, insight, compassion, and even humor.

Recently, I bumped into one of the books in that series (surprisingly, given the thirty-two full length 90-minute shows there are in the three TV seasons, there are only nine full-length novels, one novella, and a collection of short stories in the related series of books by Mankell). After thinking about it for a few moments, I figured it might be entertaining to listen to the first eight books in the series in sequence, some of which I had preciously read.

(The collection of short stories is sort of a prequel book of that I'm not enticed by. The ninth novel was written 16 years after the last of the first eight, and when I read it some time ago, I found it somewhat disconnected from the first eight books and wasn't inspired to revisit it.)

It was interesting to listen to all eight in fairly quick succession, and to observe how Mankell's skill as a writer improved, as well as how Dick Hill's skill as a narrator improved alongside.

One thing I appreciated in these eight stories (published in the 1990s) were the bigger themes Mankell tackles in each, above and beyond the immediate police procedural, for example, in the first, xenophobia in the face of increasing numbers of people immigrating to Sweden, and in the second, in which Riga, Latvia plays a major role, the horrendous stifling repression of living under Soviet rule, which is particularly relevant today given Russia's ongoing brutal invasion of Ukraine.

In all eight novels, the challenges facing modern Swedish society as things naturally change over time plays a big role in the stories.

Another thing I appreciated was the blunt honesty with which Mankell portrays the lead character, detective Kurt Wallander, as he struggles with his insecurities, his frequent exhaustion, and the challenge of being so often immersed in unpleasant aspects of the human condition. Something he wrote about this in Quicksand resonated with me:

I have devoted quite a lot of my life to studying crime and criminal investigations. My view is that evil always has to do with circumstances, and is never something inherited. I have written about crime because it illustrates, more clearly than anything else, the contrasts that form the basis of human life. Everything we do is based on the existence of conflicting forces inside us: between dream and reality, knowledge and illusions, truth and lies, what I want to do and what I actually do, and not least, between myself and the society I live in.

After I finished the listening to the eight novels, I also listened to the novella, An Event in Autumn, which follows in the timeline after the eighth novel. One thing I particularly appreciated about it was Mankell's afterword, in which he describes what it was like to author these books and to create a character like Kurt Wallander, in whom aspects of he himself are reflected. There's much depth in his writing of this series. And of course, I enjoyed the novella's narration by Simon Vance.

Kurt Wallander series:

1. Faceless Killers: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2003 (originally published in Swedish in 1991); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2006; Libro.fm⩘ .
2. The Dogs of Riga: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2004 (originally published in Swedish in 1992); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2006; Libro.fm⩘ .
3. The White Lioness: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2003 (originally published in Swedish in 1993); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2006; Libro.fm⩘ .
4. The Man Who Smiled: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2007 (originally published in Swedish in 1994); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2006; Libro.fm⩘ .
5. Sidetracked: Knopf Doubleday, 2003 (originally published in Swedish in 1995); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2006; Libro.fm⩘ .
6. The Fifth Woman: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2004 (originally published in Swedish in 1996); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2007; Libro.fm⩘ .
7. One Step Behind: Knopf Doubleday, 2003 (originally published in Swedish in 1997); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2008; Libro.fm⩘ .
8. Firewall: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2003 (originally published in Swedish in 1998); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2006; Libro.fm⩘ .
9. An Event in Autumn: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2014 (originally published in Dutch in 2004 and in Swedish in 2013); audiobook:Penguin Random House Audio, 2014; Libro.fm⩘ .

Hao Jingfang, Jumpnauts

Thoughtfully translated by Ken Liu; well narrated by Catherine Ho

I read and reviewed Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds⩘  a few years ago. Here's what I wrote about it.

I had a mixed reaction to this book, but enough of a positive response that I want to make a note of it.… Hao Jingfang can be quite lyrical, taking the time to invite us to view people, places, and events through a lens of perception that is wide open. As much as I often appreciated this, at times I found myself growing impatient and even bored with the pace of the story's unfolding. I'm glad I stayed with the book until the end, but it could've been a bit more crisp.

I had a very similar reaction to Jumpnauts.

In this book, Hao Jingfang tells a story of contact with an advanced alien civilization that actually is from another universe, but that has been helping humanity progress with occasional visits every few centuries over the human era. She cleverly weaves actual jumps in human progress as well as real art, writings, and significant architectural sites into the story of these visits.

Set a few decades in the future, the world has split into two factions, the Pacific League of Nations and the Atlantic Division of Nations. They are engaged in a long, somewhat stagnant conflict that is about to erupt into an all-out, devastating war when the aliens visit again. It is a moment when humanity can either evolve into a higher level of civilization or devolve into devastating chaos.

The story has a lot of characters with names and versions of names which I found challenging, as well as philosophical concepts I wasn't familiar with, so I kept fairly extensive notes: Character list & other notes from Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang⩘ 

S&S/Saga Press, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Translated and read by Stephen Mitchell

Stephen Mitchell's translation is smooth and graceful, and he reads this gem in a voice that is calm and good natured. A gift.

The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
thus it can ever die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself;
thus it is present for all beings.

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.

Now and then, I like to listen to one or a few of the brief 81 chapters as I am drifting off to sleep, to let their message wash through me as I then sleep and dream. Do I understand these riddles? No. And yes.

Harper Collins, 1992 (originally, 1988); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: HarperAudio, 2007; Libro.fm⩘ .

John le Carré, The Constant Gardener

Well narrated by Michael Jayston

A book I return to from time to time. I appreciate Le Carré's indignant anger at the way commercial interests, with the backing of the state, outweigh human life, in this story focused on the actions of Big Pharma in Kenya. While this is a novel, it is inspired by realworld events. As I mentioned in my original review back in 2001: It is a terrifying story. Le Carré says, in the author's note at the end of the book: "… with luck I shall not be spending the rest of my life in the law courts or worse. But I can tell you this. As my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard."

I am thinking I don't believe in me anymore, and all I stood for. That there was a time when, like the people in this building, your Justin took pride in submitting himself to the harsher judgments of a collective will—which he happened to call Country, or the Doctrine of the Reasonable Man or, with some misgiving, the Higher Cause. There was a time when I believed it was expedient that one man—or woman—should die for the benefit of many. I called it sacrifice, or duty, or necessity. There was a time when I could stand outside the Foreign Office at night and stare up at its lighted windows and think: Good evening, it's me your humble servant, Justin. I'm a piece of the great wise engine, and proud of it. I serve, therefore I feel. Whereas all I feel now is: it was you against the whole pack of them and, unsurprisingly, they won.

Scribner, 2004 (originally 2000); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2012; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• Where Profits and Lives Hang in Balance: Finding an Abundance of Subjects and Lack of Oversight Abroad, Big Drug Companies Test Offshore to Speed Products to Market⩘  by Joe Stephens, The Washington Post, Dec 17, 2000.
• Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc.⩘ , Wikipedia.

Scott Turow, Presumed Innocent

Well narrated by Edward Herrmann

This story has aged well. Amazing that it was Turow's debut effort.

What is harder? Knowing the truth or finding it, telling it or being believed?

It was entertaining to listen to it this time. Like all good narrators, Herrmann does a wonderful job of bringing the story to life.

Grand Central Publishing, 2017 (originally Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1987); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Hachette Audio, 2010; Libro.fm⩘ .

Olesya Khromeychuk, The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister

It must have taken courage and perseverance for Olesya Khromeychuk to write and share this inspiring, deeply personal story about an overwhelmingly painful experience, the death of her brother, Volodymyr Pavliv, who was killed on the frontline in the Donbas while defending Ukraine against the invading Russians.

From the foreword by Philippe Sands:

Here is an account of love and loss, one that is intimate and personal, that transcends time and place, that is brutal and universal, and raises the only question that remains: why?

From the introduction by Andrey Kurkov:

[R]eading such a book during active hostilities, and therefore during the saturation of the information space with war, is an intellectual and emotional test and it is not an easy one. Therefore I am even more grateful to everyone who will read this book now, at a time when one of the largest countries in Europe is fighting for the right to be part of Europe and of the European Union.

From the preface:

Russia's war against Ukraine did not start on 24 February 2022. It started in 2014 with the occupation of Crimea and parts of the Donbas. The reason why the Kremlin was able to escalate it in 2022 was because Russia got away with violating international law and invading a sovereign state unpunished. The world responded with little more than 'deep concern' to campaigns of aggression and terror conducted by Russia for eight years in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin felt emboldened by the West doing business as usual, and the revenue from oil and gas financed not only the continuation of the war, but also its escalation to a full-scale invasion.

And a final quote I feel compelled to share from deep into the book:

How will it be understood that for Ukrainians freedom is not something to be taken for granted, like it is for some people west of them, or something to be feared, like in the country to the east. It is something to be experienced. As Ukrainians were fighting for their freedom with everything they had, from weapons to words, an opportune moment presented itself for the world to discover what inspired this fight.

My heart is with the people of Ukraine.

Monoray, 2022.

See also:

• Author's website: Olesya Khromeychuk⩘ 
• 'Ukraine fatigue': why I'm fighting to stop the world forgetting us⩘  by Olesya Khromeychuk, The Guardian, Jan 25, 2024.
• My heart is with the people of Ukraine⩘ 

Linnea Axelsson, Ædnan

Translated by Saskia vogel; narrated by Angela Dawe

From a note at the end of the book: "In Northern Sámi, the word Ædnan means the land, the earth, and my mother."

Reading verse doesn't come easily to me, but I've read a couple previous books centered on Sámi culture and have very much appreciated them, so I thought I'd give this book a try.

The verse was challenging, but not too much, so I was able to mostly follow the story of several generations of a Sámi family from 1913, when they were reindeer herders roaming their land freely, across the decades when they experienced the disastrous consequences of Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish colonialism and racism that destroyed their traditional way of life, through to more recent years when the youngest generation begins to fight back against the government for their rights.

Alfred A. Knopf, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius⩘ 
• Forty Days without Shadow by Olivier Truc⩘ 
• 'Our bodies know the pain': Why Norway's reindeer herders support Gaza⩘  by Shafi Musaddique, Al Jazeera, Feb 24, 2024.

Octavia E. Butler
Parable of the Sower & Parable of the Talents

Well narrated by Lynne Thigpen, Patricia R. Floyd, Sisi Aisha Johnson & Peter Jay Fernandez

Just returned to this powerful story, which I first experienced a few years ago.

Now is an appropriate time to revisit it as the story, which was first published in 1993 and 1998, begins in 2024. While the West Coast she portrays in her story is a bit more dystopian than what we have so far experienced today, all the thematic markers are present: the political fascism, the increase in societal schisms and violence, the fires stoked by climate change, the rise in christian nationalism. As one of the characters says:

"I wish you could have known this country when it was still salvageable."

The first book focuses on the coming of age of the main character, Lauren Oya Olamina, as the world breaks down around her. What she sees and experiences gives her the insight and strength to formulate her own view of God, and to create the roots of a movement she founds, Earthseed, which she foresees will spread the seed of Earth out into the universe.

All that you touch,
You Change.

All that you Change,
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
Is Change.

God
Is Change.

In the second book, told through the point-of-view of Lauren's daughter, Larkin Olamina—whose name is later changed to Asha Vere by christian nationalists after she is violently removed from her mother and their community—as well as through the diary entries of Lauren Oya Olamina.

How can they do what they do if they believe what they say?

Butler's prescience is astonishing.

I couldn't help wondering, though, whether these people, with their crosses, had some connection with my current least favorite presidential candidate, Texas Senator Andrew Steele Jarret.… As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of "heathen houses of devil-worship," he has a simple answer: "Join us! … Help us to make America great again."

It was chilling to listen to this story interspersed by periodic breaks to dive into the today's news. I can't help but ponder the question: do we know this country when it is still salvageable, or is it already too late? Butler hints at a way forward regardless.

Kindness eases Change.
Love quiets fear.
And a sweet and powerful
Positive obsession
Blunts pain,
Diverts rage,
And engages each of us
In the greatest,
The most intense
Of our chosen struggles

I only wish that Butler had had the time to write more of the many other Easthseed volumes she intended to write, volumes that would've taken this SciFi journey further out into the universe and further into our collective psyche.

Parable of the Sower: narrated by Lynne Thigpen; Seven Stories Press, 2019 (originally published 1993); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2000; Libro.fm⩘ .
Parable of the Talents: narrated by Patricia R. Floyd, Sisi Aisha Johnson & Peter Jay Fernandez; Seven Stories Press, 2019 (originally published 1998); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2002; Libro.fm⩘ .

Katalin Karikó, Breaking Through: My Life in Science

Very well narrated by Eva Magyar

An excellent memoir. I rarely use this term, but as I've written before⩘ , Katalin Karikó is a hero.

Three phrases come to mind as I think about what I've learned about her by listening to her memoir: extraordinarily tenacious, unendingly enthusiastic, incredibly curious.

She speaks about her approach to doing science, a deeply embedded approach that enabled her to persevere through decades of difficulties and setbacks in an environment that is all too often shortsighted, focused on the glamor of golden grants and shiny prestige.

   It is also that [Hans] Selye somehow understands how I want to think, the way I want to define a big question, then begin zeroing in, systematically and logically, on clear and specific answers. Early in the book [The Stress of Life], Selye notes that nature "rarely replies to questions unless they are put to her in the form of experiments, to which she can say yes or no." I read this line again and again: questions … in the form of experiments … she can say yes or no. One question at a time. From many such questions, from many yes-or-no answers, a mosaic grows.
   And then comes this passage:

Only those blessed with the understanding that comes from a sincere and profound love of Nature will … succeed in constructing a blueprint of the many questions that need to be asked to get even an approximate answer….
   Only those cursed with a consuming, uncontrollable curiosity for Nature's secrets will be able to—because they have to—spend their lives working out patiently, one by one, the innumerable technical problems in performing each of the countless experiments required.

   Blessed or cursed, I am certain that I am one of the individuals Selye is talking about. I'm sure that I can—that I must—spend a lifetime patiently working out technical problems, doing countless experiments.

I really appreciate her insight on searching for "that tiny, nagging piece that, for whatever reason … may, if you pay attention, point you toward truth":

   Here's the truth: Scientific investigation can be tedious. It generates a lot of data, and sometimes the bulk of that data appears to point in one direction. It can be tempting to look for the data that fit one's existing narrative, and when you find that data—which you will—to feel that you've done your job.
   But you must do your experiments correctly.
   You ask one question at a time. Then you change just one variable and ask again. And then you change the next variable. And then the next. Just one more thing. There's almost always just one more thing.
   You must stay patient, examine everything, every tiny detail. You have to set aside the mountain of information that appears to confirm what you expect and deliberately seek out that one thing that doesn't. Because that thing—that tiny, nagging piece that, for whatever reason, does not fit—may, if you pay attention, point you toward truth.

There must be many people in the executive and management positions at Penn State who feel, deservedly, entirely humiliated when they look back on how degradingly they treated Karikó over the years. The most devastating example of their asshole smugness was the time when they gave her lab space to someone else without giving her any warning, so that when she arrived, she found much of her precious equipment tossed into the hallway, and a lab technician throwing more of it into trash bags. Still, she didn't give up. Amazing.

   My time at Penn would span decades. These decades split into three distinct episodes, involving two different departments and three very different physician partners. Years later, after the world had turned upside down and strangers suddenly knew my name, a young doctor with whom I'd worked in the third of these episodes (the Weissman years) would write an essay about me. He'd describe me—neither inaccurately nor unkindly—as someone whose career was discussed "only in hushed tones as a cautionary tale for young scientists."
   You are, in other words, about to watch someone become, by many standards, a cautionary tale. That's because my three Penn episodes, for all their differences, followed a similar pattern: a series of setbacks punctuated by moments of extraordinary breakthrough. The breakthroughs, for the most part, remained almost entirely invisible. The setbacks, though? Those were on full display.
   As for whether I truly was a cautionary tale, well, I suppose that depends on what you value.

She shares anecdotes from several times across the years when she was helped by lessons she learned about dealing with stress from a book she read in high school, The Stress of Life by Hans Selye. I previously referred to an example. Here's another:

   That night, after hanging up the phone, I'd said to Béla, Would it be so hard to be grateful?
   It is an important question.
   Near the very end of The Stress of Life, the book that had so moved me as a high school student, Selye thinks carefully about two mutually exclusive responses to stress in human relations: revenge and gratitude. Revenge, he notes, is an attempt to relieve stress. It is a very human response to a threat to one's security. But revenge, he observes, "has no virtue whatever, and can only hurt both the giver and the receiver of its fruits." Revenge brings only more revenge, in an endless cycle. If the goal is to relieve stress in a way that enhances one's life, rather than detracts from it, there is a better way: One can be grateful.
   Gratitude, Selye explains, is also cumulative. Like revenge, it brings ever more of itself. But the place where it leads is entirely different. Gratitude amplifies those things on which a successful life depends: peace of mind, security, fulfillment.
   Would it be so hard to be grateful? The truth is, no. It is rarely so hard. One can find the good even in situations that end badly. One can always find a way to say thank you.

Bravo Katalin Karikó, and all the other scientists who have worked and will work tirelessly, mostly unrecognized, to make our world a better place.

Crown Publishing Group (NY), 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ .

George Orwell, Animal Farm & 1984

Narrated by Ralph Cosham and Simon Prebble

Recently, I saw a blue cap that said, "MAKE ORWELL FICTION AGAIN". It amused me as a counterpoint of the red caps that are around right now. But then I realized that I actually didn't remember much from these two most well-known of Orwell's books, which I read a long time ago when I was younger, so I decided to revisit them. It was a terrifying experience.

From the introduction written by Christopher Hitchens to the combined edition of Animal Farm and 1984 published by Mariner Books Classics, 2003: "These books can be read, independently of their time and place, as a strong preventive medicine against the mentality of servility, and especially against the lethal temptation to exchange freedom for security: a bargain that invariably ends up with the surrender of both."

It's easy to see reflections of today's political and social environment in these books, which were published at the beginning (1945) and end (1949) of Orwell's career.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

It's chilling how prescient Orwell was.

Animal Farm Mariner Books Classics, 2003 (originally Secker & Warburg, 1945); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2007; Libro.fm⩘ .
1984: Mariner Books Classics, 2003 (originally Secker & Warburg, 1949); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2011; Libro.fm⩘ .

Peter Høeg, Smilla's Sense of Snow

Well narrated by Alyssa Bresnahan

One of my longtime and all-time favorite novels, which I return to time and again over the years.

I've always been surprised that such a well regarded book doesn't have an audiobook version available. There is a 1997 film adaptation starring Julia Ormond and a 2012 audio version on CD, but no generally available MP3/MP4 audiobook. Every few years I search to see whether one has been released. This year, I was surprised to find an audiobook version available for streaming that I could "borrow" from our local library via the Hoopla site. So strange that the audiobook is available for streaming that way but not for purchasing. The Hoopla interface is a bit cumbersome, but it was worth dealing with for a chance to dive into an audiobook not otherwise available.

I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting the story. Høeg created memorable characters inhabiting vivid environments in a captivating drama.

Over the years, I've written about this book a few times, noting some exceptional passages I came across, for example:

• Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg (Reading - 1999)⩘ 
• Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg (Reading - 2004)⩘ 

This time around, this caught my attention:

Nothing in life should simply be a passage from one place to another. Each walk should be taken as if it is the only thing you have left.

It is amazing that the original people of Greenland, like so many others around the world, have somehow endured and survived the crushing crime of colonialism.

Delta, 1995 (originally Rosinante, 1992); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Recorded Books, 2012.

Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

Well narrated by Dean Robertson

Another adventure on my journey back to favorite books I read decades ago to revisit the story, this time the audiobook version. Here's what I wrote back then in 2001:

One of my very favorite books. She tells the story of a family that travels at the behest of their fanatic husband/father to the Congo so that he can be a missionary in a small village. Told through the eyes of the mother and each of the four, very different daughters, the tale is as rich and varied as the jungle they find themselves within and overwhelmed by.

Today, many Americans are asking, "Why do some people hate us so much?" I think this question is simplistic, as is so much of America's worldview. The terrorist attack we have experienced and are trying to understand goes way beyond simple hatred. People can hate without killing. This book certainly provides an insight as to why people might hate some of the actions of the U.S., even as they respect the ideals our country is founded on and deeply love some of the individual Americans they meet. As a country, there is much blood on our hands. My greatest hope for this moment is that we might pursue a new era of more enlightened international dealings with as much vigor as we are set to pursue retribution. I only wish I could trust that our political leaders had that much vision and wisdom.

This book helped me understand my own experience with Africa, a year spent as an exchange student in Ethiopia that ended just before Haile Selassie was deposed. Indeed, the fighting had reached the suburbs where I was a guest while I lived there just as I jumped on a flight out. The experience of that year left me numb and confused. I was a naive Midwesterner when I walked onto an airplane for the first time to fly there. I arrived in a country as different from I own as I could have imagined … no, I actually couldn't have imagined before I arrived. Although I lived comfortably there, I witnessed things that completely overwhelmed me: unimaginable poverty, starvation, death. I also saw much beauty, and glimpsed the deep dignity and pride of the Ethiopian people. There was much I couldn't understand, and it took me years to come to terms, at least partially, with what I experienced. What I carried home inside of me still shapes my life to this day.

A passage from The Poisonwood Bible captures this:

Let me claim that Africa and I kept company for a while and then parted ways, as if we were both party to relations with a failed outcome. Or say I was afflicted with Africa like a bout of rare disease, from which I have not managed a full recovery.

When I revisit these old favorites, I never know how they are going to impact me today, nor whether they remain relevant to today's world. This one fully impacted me once again, and remains deeply relevant to our world. Unfortunately, we haven't yet managed to pursue a new era of more enlightened international dealings and are still vigorously focused on pursuing retribution. We haven't learned the lesson that Leah, one of the daughters in the story, shares:

I've been won to the side of schoolteachers and nurses, and lost all allegiance to plastic explosives. No homeland I can claim as mine would blow up a struggling, distant country's hydroelectric dams and water pipes, inventing darkness and dysentery in the service of its ideals, and bury mines in every … road that connected food with a hungry child.

Harper, 1998; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: BrillianceAudio, 1998; Libro.fm⩘ .

Seth Dickinson, Exordia

Narrated by Sulin Hasso

A brilliantly insane, wildly complex, but also frustratingly challenging story. The main character is a young, snarky Kurdish woman, a refugee and survivor of genocide living in New York City. Then she meets and bonds with an alien. Because of that, she gets mixed up with a couple National Security and Joint Special Ops guys. They are all flawed and haunted characters. Her alien is a rebel fighting another alien over an object (a weapon of some sort) that has crashed into a Kurdish valley. Suddenly, the story now taking place in that valley is overflowing with Kurds, Chinese, Russians, Filipinos, Ugandans, Canadians, Iranians, the aliens, lots of characters who are exploring good and evil, the exploitation of imperialism, the nature of soul, loyalty and betrayal, the mathematical nature of the universe … and pink noise.

Dickinson tosses in first names, last names, nicknames, titles, words, and concepts from all the characters in all their languages, all too often with little or no explanation. I began listening to the story, but quickly needed to supplement that by following along in the ebook, searching terms online, making a character list, taking notes, searching the ebook for when I had previously encountered characters or terms.

• Areteia, an alien construct that imposes limits on soulless thought.
• Susmaryosep, Tagalog slang meaning something like exasperated.
• SsovÈ, an alien term describing the violence of sudden action.
• Iruvage, an agent of the galactic authority, the Exordia.
• Atmanach, a "Cultratic construct. A soul retriever with an artificial hell manifold inside. It takes your soul and digests it for analysis. Very rare, very hard to make and to master, restricted to great operants with warship-grade thought turbines."
• Jineology, the women's science proposed and developed by the Kurdish Women's Freedom Movement, which aims to rediscover women's histories and restore women's central place in society.

The story itself jumps around in (current) time. There will be some confusing event taking place, then a jump back in time to lead up to that same event from another character's perspective, then another's.… Slowly, it begins to make some sense, but I question whether that's really an effective way to tell a story.

And yet, despite all of the frankly exhausting confusion and strange storytelling structure, the underlying story is compelling and kept me engaged.

One thing that helped a little bit is that I had a small insight into the situation of the Kurds from reading a few years ago the book, The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon⩘ .

Another thing that helped was witnessing firsthand via the daily news just how fucked up our real world is. A few reflections of this found in the story:

Full review >

Tor, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Macmillan Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Michael Mammay, Planetside series

Very well narrated by R.C Bray

Although it was published five years ago, I only bumped into a review of Planetside recently on someone's list of favorite SciFi novels. Over the couple of years, the story grew into a trilogy (and after a three-year pause, a fourth book in the series is scheduled to be published later this year). I like it when I discover a multi-book series after the books have been published so that if I like the first book, I can jump straightaway into the rest of the series. And I did like the first book in this series enough to do just that.

I really needed a break from the dismal reality of our world just now. This is what is described as military SciFi, which isn't a genre I often go for, but in this case, there is an undercurrent of snarky humor running through the books, and even though the stories touch on some really tough subjects—war, genocide, planetary environmental destruction—I knew it was fiction, so I could let those serious themes wash off me enough to enjoy Mammay's top notch writing as well as his vivid characters, intriguing story development, well imagined settings, and spine-tingling action sequences.

Thanks for the distraction, Colonel Butler.

Planetside series:

1. Planetside: Harper Voyager, 2018; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: HarperAudio, 2018; Libro.fm⩘ .
2. Spaceside: Harper Voyager, 2019; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: HarperAudio, 2019; Libro.fm⩘ .
3. Colonyside: Harper Voyager, 2020; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: HarperAudio, 2020; Libro.fm⩘ .

Yaroslav Trofimov, Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence

Well narrated by David Furr

Trofimov, the Ukrainian chief foreign-affairs correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, has written a vivid and insightful account of the first year of the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion, as well as the months leading up to it, and with an epilogue quickly summarizing the second year to date. He and his team spent significant time on the front, carefully listened to Ukrainian civilians impacted by the invasion, and also interviewed key figures of the military and government.

For Trofimov, this war is deeply personal. He grew up in Kyiv and his family has lived there for generations. With deep empathy and local understanding, Trofimov tells the story of how everyday Ukrainian citizens—doctors, computer programmers, businesspeople, and schoolteachers—risked their lives and lost loved ones. He blends their brave and tragic stories with expert military analysis, providing unique insight into the thinking of Ukrainian leadership and mapping out the decisive stages of what has become a perilous war for Ukraine, the Putin regime, and indeed, the world.

I've been following this tragic war carefully since the beginning (see My heart is with the people of Ukraine⩘ ). The way Trofimov presents his insights within a clear timeline, as well as the comments he shared from civilians caught in the crosshairs of the war, really helps put it all into a clearer perspective.

"What have they died for?"
"Putin's megalomania."

My heart is broken by the brutal cruelty that plagues our world.

Penguin Press, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• Invasion by Luke Harding⩘ 
• The Russo-Ukrainian War by Serhii Plokhy⩘ 
• My heart is with the people of Ukraine⩘ 

Louise Erdrich, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

Well narrated by Anna Fields

Recently, I went through my notes on books I read twenty or more years ago, made a list of a couple dozen favorites, then searched to see if in the interim they had been released as an audiobook. If they had, I acquired the audiobooks and created a backlist of old favorites to listen to. This book recently arrived at the top of that list, so I got to enjoy Anna Fields' wonderful narration an old favorite.

This is an eloquently written, touching, at times harrowing and painful, while at other times joyous and mischievous story about an extraordinary woman who lives an incredibly unusual yet also ordinary life, touching the hearts of great many people along the way. Per her end notes, Erdrich sets her book on the fictional Little No Horse reservation, though it reflects the reality of the experiences and places of many Ojibwa people, including Erdrich's own.

Louise Erdrich is a treasure.

Note: I'm showing the cover from the original book rather than the newer audiobook because that old cover strikes a nice chord of memory in my heart.

Harper Perennial, 2009 (originally Harper, 2001); Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: HarperAudio, 2005; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also: A great source for books by Native (and non-Native) writers is Birch Bark Books and Native Arts⩘ , Louise Erdrich's independent neighborhood bookstore in Minneapolis/St Paul with an online shop.

Additional notes about books by Louise Erdrich I've read:

• The Antelope Wife⩘ 
• The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse⩘ 
• The Master Butchers Singing Club⩘ 
• The Painted Drum⩘ 
• The Round House⩘ 
• The Sentence⩘ 

Hannah Ritchie, Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet

Well narrated by the author

This is a wonderful, inspiring book. I'm really grateful to have come across it!

Ritchie shares an excellent, data-driven perspective on how we can tackle the most pressing issues we face in terms of climate and sustainability. While fully acknowledging the severity of the challenges we face, she rejects doomsday thinking, instead providing well-reasoned critical thinking that is rooted in optimism. It's a really refreshing perspective, one that invites us to get off our butts and take positive action, both personally and collectively.

We have the opportunity to be the first generation that achieves sustainability. Let's take it.

The end goal that we're aiming for is to reduce our impacts per person to zero – or at least very close to zero. If we're to build a sustainable world for the future then we all have to tread with the lightest of footprints. That's really the point of this book: to work out if and how we can do that.

It's also a deeply personal book. She openly shares where her own thinking went wrong when she was younger and how that led her to be pessimistic and to presume we were headed toward an existential disaster. Through her work as a data scientist, she slowly began to see things differently.

A 6°C warmer world might be short-lived – it could quickly spiral into 8°C, 10°C or more. It would be a massive humanitarian disaster. Only a few years ago I thought this was where we were headed. Forget 1.5°C or 2°C – we were destined for 4, 5 or 6°C and there was nothing we could do about it. Most people still think that this is the path we're following. Thankfully, it's not.

However, seeing our task with a more positive outlook does not mean abandoning critical thinking and impassioned debate. Quite the opposite.

   Don't mistake criticism for pessimism. Criticism is essential for an effective optimist. We need to work through ideas to find the most promising ones. Most innovators that have changed the world have been optimists, even if they didn't identify as one. But they were also fiercely critical: no one picks apart the ideas of Thomas Edison, Alexander Fleming, Marie Curie or Norman Borlaug more than they did themselves.
   If we want to get serious about tackling the world's environmental problems, we need to be more optimistic. We need to believe that it is possible to tackle them. As we'll see in the chapters that follow, this is not a pipe dream: things are changing, and we should be impatient about changing them faster.

The book is focused on sustainability. It's crucial to understand its definition.

   In 1987, the UN defined sustainable development as 'meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. That definition has two halves. The first is making sure that everyone in the world today – the present generations – can live a good and healthy life. The second half is about making sure that we live in a way that doesn't degrade the environment for future generations. We shouldn't create environmental damage that takes the opportunity of a good and healthy life away from our great-great-grandchildren.

She first shares the data of seven key measures of well-being that show our progress on the first half of the sustainability equation: child mortality, maternal mortality, life expectancy, hunger and malnutrition, access to basic resources (clean water, energy, sanitation), education, and extreme poverty.

The rest of the book addresses the second half of the sustainability equation.

We've just seen seven developments that have transformed the lives of billions of people. But this progress has come at a massive environmental cost. The first half of our sustainability equation has improved dramatically, but the second half has undoubtedly got worse. This brings us to the seven big environmental problems that will be tackled in this book. To see how we can balance the environmental side of the equation too, we need to understand the progress we've already made, and how we got there. That shows us what still needs to be done if we're to realise our dream of a sustainable world.

The seven big environmental challenges she discusses in the book are: air pollution, climate change, deforestation, food, biodiversity, ocean plastics, and overfishing.

For each challenge, she looks at how we got to where we are now, what progress we've made, and what we must urgently do, all backed by data and charts. Quite often, she includes information about how some things are much better or progressing at a better rate than many of us think. Sometimes, she also shares a section of things to stress less about, which I found quite helpful.

Note: While I listened to the audiobook, and am glad I did, this book is dense with information so I simultaneously followed along in the ebook, which was especially valuable for being able to see all the data and charts.

Little, Brown Spark, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Hachette Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• TED Talk: Are we the last generation — or the first sustainable one?⩘ 
• Meet the Mice Who Make the Forest⩘ , by Brandon Keim, The New York Times. Nicely complements the chapter on bio-diversity.
  
  • "Hidden from sight are the creatures whose labor makes the forest possible – the multitudes of microorganisms and invertebrates involved in maintaining that soil, and the animals responsible for delivering seeds too heavy to be wind-borne to the places where they will sprout.
  • "If one is interested in the future of a forest – which tree species will thrive and which will diminish, or whether those threatened by a fast-changing climate will successfully migrate to newly hospitable lands – one should look to these seed-dispersing animals.
• Slow Change Can Be Radical Change⩘  by Rebecca Solnit, LitHub, Jan 11, 2024. See also: Not Too Late⩘ .
  
  • "For climate this means that the metabolic tendencies of news is often ideally suited to tell you that something sudden and maybe unanticipated happened last night—a flood, a fire—and it was bad. A lot of climate good news is both wonky—a technology breakthrough or a regulation passed that will eventually have positive consequences—or incremental.
  • "Describing the slowness of change is often confused with acceptance of the status quo. It's really the opposite: an argument that the status quo must be changed, and it will take steadfast commitment to see the job through. It's not accepting defeat; it's accepting the terms of possible victory. Distance runners pace themselves; activists and movements often need to do the same, and to learn from the timelines of earlier campaigns to change the world that have succeeded."
• To the End⩘ , a documentary about an inspiring group of young people fighting to convince the U.S. government to provide funding to take action on the climate crisis. Against all odds and the furious lobbying of the fossil fuel energy, they finally won a first partial victory when the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 including the largest investment in history in green energy.

Raja Shehadeh, Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape

Well narrated by Fajer Al-Kaisi

The current war in Gaza and the ongoing conflict in the West Bank has created a desire in me to better understand the conflict that has been tearing apart the ancient land of Palestine for the past more than 100 years.

This book, first published 15 years ago, provides a view of the West Bank conflict from the point-of-view of a Palestinian human rights activist and lawyer who has been walking in the hills surrounding Ramallah for many decades, since he was a child. He uses his descriptions of his walks over those decades to illustrate the changes that are happening, how the land is being stripped away from Palestinians, how the landscape is being changed by the building of Israeli settlements and the roads that join them, and how he is losing his right to walk in those ancient hills of his homeland. It is a painful story to listen to.

In the final walk he describes, he comes across a young Israeli settler also enjoying the hills. They talk and argue about the hills and the changes. Beyond their shared appreciation for the beauty of the place, they appear to share no common ground in their perspectives about who has a right to the land.

I have been confused and disappointed by how one-sided the U.S. government's position has been in its response to the current war, totally supporting Israel, showing very little empathy for the plight of the Palestinian civilians living in Gaza (and the West Bank). As I have written previously:

The terrorist attack by Hamas was a barbarous act of terrorism that is rightfully forcefully condemned, and I certainly recognize Israel's right and need to take strong military action against Hamas. But I am utterly appalled by what is happening to civilians in Gaza (and the West Bank): the massive numbers of civilian deaths including an unbelievable number of children; the many tens of thousands of grievously wounded; the hundreds of thousands who are struggling to find food and drinkable water, or are outright starving; the lack of access to medical care and necessary medical supplies; the nearly two million who are displaced and lack adequate shelter; the complete destruction of tens of thousands of civilian homes; the damage or destruction of so many hospitals, schools, and cultural facilities.

As I was listening to Palestinian Walks, I was left wondering if one of the reasons for this one-sidedness of U.S. policy is that if the U.S. were to condemn the mistreatment and displacement of Palestinian civilians, it would need to also acknowledge its own mistreatment and displacement of Native Americans.

Wikipedia: Raja Shehadeh⩘ 

Scribner Book Company, 2008; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2020; Libro.fm⩘ .

See also:

• The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi⩘ 
• The Drone Eats with Me by Atef Abu Saif⩘ 
• Israeli settler violence brings destruction and fear to West Bank as war rages⩘  by Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Dec 5, 2023.
• Broken heart: Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank, Israel⩘ 

Raja Shehadeh, Where the Line Is Drawn: A Tale of Crossings, Friendships, and Fifty Years of Occupation in Israel-Palestine

Well narrated by Fajer Al-Kaisi

I was so touched by Raja Shehadeh's eloquent and sensitive writing in Palestinian Walk that I decided to continue walking with him by listening to some of his more recent writing.

In Where the Line Is Drawn (published in 2017), he further reveals his experiences living under the occupation by describing his ongoing relationships with a few Israeli friends and acquaintances, the increasing difficulty and danger of traveling to meet with them over time, the tensions introduced into their relationships by the occupation, and the changes to the cities he knows (centered on Ramallah) and their surroundings caused by the occupation.

At times, it is a devastating story that left me incredibly sad, but throughout it all there is a thread of hope revealed by the ability of these people reaching across what is an ever increasing gulf that separates them to find the common humanity uniting them. There is a lesson in that for all of us, if only we're willing to stop, listen, take what he is sharing in, and open our hearts.

New Press, 2017; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2020; Libro.fm⩘ .

Raja Shehadeh, Going Home: A Walk through Fifty Years of Occupation

Well narrated by Fajer Al-Kaisi

A continuation of his walking reminisces. This book, published in 2019, describes a single day's walk around the author's hometown of Ramallah, during which he shares many stories about people, places, and events he is reminded of, which paints a vivid picture of 50 years of occupation and the changes wrought. A melancholy story of what has been lost.

New Press, 2020; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Blackstone Publishing, 2020; Libro.fm⩘ .

Daniel Simons & Christopher Chabris, Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do about It

Narrated by Andrew Sellon

A good read for these times when social media has made fake news the norm, and when asshole politicians abuse the term fake news to attack what is real and disparage the truth.

Accept less; check more.

Once again, my main takeaway: when it comes to information, especially online (or when coming from politicians), be skeptical!

See also:

• Calling Bullshit by Carl T. Bergstrom & Jevin D. West⩘ 
• How to avoid the cognitive hooks and habits that make us vulnerable to cons⩘  by Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, Jan 4, 2024.

Basic Books, 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Hachette Audio, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ .

Ellie Goldstein, Against All Odds: My life with Down Syndrome

Narrated by Lauren Windle; with a foreword by Katie Piper and with insights shared by her mum Yvonne, her sister Amy, and others.

A really lively memoir by a very clever, positive, cheeky young woman who is changing the world for the better. What a great book with which to begin the new year.

The first thing you should know about me is that I am happy. Before writing this book, I sat down with my mum Yvonne and looked over my life so far and, even though I knew that at times I was supposed to feel down or upset, I just didn't. The world, to me, is an exciting place. I get to dance and laugh my way through it, surrounded by people I love. And I hope that, no matter who you are and why you decided to pick it up, my story will leave you feeling a little happier, more confident, and free to be whoever you were made to be.

The insights provided by Ellie and those around her provide us all with the opportunity to look at life and the people we encounter with a fresh attitude.

Growing Hope's Naomi Graham says that she thinks people's reactions to those who are 'different' come down to fear, and I completely agree. They don't know what to expect, so they avoid engaging with them at all. Even now, although Ellie is clearly a very capable woman, people look over her head and ask me questions about her. They assume she can't speak for herself, when anyone who has met her properly knows that she is more than capable of speaking! Naomi shared with me that, through the work of her charity and other organisations that seek to support those with additional needs, she hopes that one day everyone will be 'seen and valued for who we are, with our differences, whether they are big or small'. She adds: 'We may feel like these differences define us and make us who we are, but, irrespective of this, I believe there is always hope that we can be valued in our families, friendship groups and wider communities, for the unique and wonderful person that we are.'

Note: Against All Odds is the first book in Katie Piper's Unseen series, which shed light on untold stories of unwavering hope that deserve to be heard.

See also: 'Doctors said I wouldn't walk or talk⩘ .

SPCK Publishing, 2023; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: SPCK, 2023; Libro.fm⩘ .

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