Rating: Recommended
Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir
by
Project Hail Mary is another excellent book by Andy Weir. This one follows an astronaut that wakes from a coma realizing that they have to figure out how to stop the “space algae” that is eating the energy of the Sun causing Earth to cool down which will have a dire affect on the climate, and
The Shock Doctrine – Naomi Klien
by
Naomi Klien looks at how natural disasters, war and terrorism are used by government and business to further capitalism and take away benefits to poor people. Most often non-white Americans, or entire other countries, bear the brunt of the capitalist push to use a shock to reset what is normal. Purchase The Shock Doctrine on
Your Face Belongs to Us – Kashmir Hill
by
Kashmir Hill takes us on a look at Clearview AI’s founding and where it currently sits with it’s facial recognition technology. Is it a good thing to give up privacy to catch child abusers, which actually happened during the course of research for this book, or should we combat this so we don’t loose privacy?
Scarcity – Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir
by
I continue to come back to this book as one that informs my thoughts about many scenarios, especially when I’m faulting someone for a decision I think is a bad one. Scarcity makes a great case, though not explicitly, for universal basic income, because if we can take away monetary scarcity from people they have
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty – Awaeke Emezi
by
This was an excellent look at finding love after heartbreaking loss. One of the best fiction books I read in 2022. Purchase You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty on Amazon
American Gods – Neil Gaiman
by
We follow Shadow as he’s released from prison into a world where his wife is dead and an unknown stranger offers him a job out of the blue. Via Shadow we get a front row seat to the struggle of the New Gods of America versus the Gods that came across the ocean with immigrants.
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
by
I think the ending of this book encapsulates my feeling of the story, sometimes stories end in a sad manner because that’s how things end. In fact, much of Painter’s recent life has been sad due to failing his friends. While Yumi helps him repair that rift, the pain is still there and it was
The Lost Art of Reading
by
This is a book examining the cultural significance of reading. We’ll pull out a few highlights. David Ulin talks about the purveyors of fake news working hard to normalize that which should never be normalized. We see it both in the content the anti-Semitic content that Elon Musk shares on his social media site, and
Nurtureshock
by
The title of this book refers to the author’s idea that sometimes parents don’t “just know” how to raise a child and thus they are lost trying to figure it out. The goal of the book is to show us what science says about how children should be raised. One thing recommended here that we’ve
Knife of Dreams
by
The highlight of this book for me is Perrin chasing down the captor’s of Faile (his wife) and the alliances he makes with those he’d rather not join. In the end, respect is earned from both sides that comes back in later books to aid in the battle with the Dark One. Purchase Knife of
