Recent reads: October 2024

It’s been much longer than I thought since I’ve posted about books. September was a month of starting things, realizing they weren’t for me, and setting them down. But if there’s one book in this list that I think everyone should read it’s the first one, Blood in the Machine, I could say so much more about it, but I’ve opted to let it all settle in, think more about it, and quite possibly, I’ll read it again soon.

Blood in the Machine

A look a the Luddite movement and what really happened with it and how the myth of the Luddites was born. Contrary to what people today think, they weren’t against the new machines. The Luddites were interested in treating workers well, not taking away their livlihoods and in preventing the growing inequality the new factories were creating. What I enjoyed most about this book was how well Brian Merchant takes the history and directly relates it to tech work today, in particular AI. I highly recommend this one.

We can look back at the Industrial Revolution and lament the working conditions, but popular culture still lionizes entrepreneurs cut in the mold of Arkwright, who made a choice to employ thousands of child laborers and to institute a dehumanizing system of factory work to increase revenue and lower costs. We have acclimated to the idea that such exploitation was somehow inevitable, even natural, while casting aspersions on movements like the Luddites as being technophobic for trying to stop it. We forget that working people vehemently opposed such exploitation from the beginning. (loc 1811)

Bee Sting

A novel that made a lot of lists in 2023 and it’s how it got on my list. It’s a tragedy that I kept thinking would somehow resolve differently so I kept reading. The Barnes family is reeling after the 2008 financial crisis, which hit Ireland particularly hard, and the book follows each member as they try to find their own way out. I didn’t dislike the book, but it wasn’t a great time to be reading a tragedy like this with all that’s going on in the world

Rich People Problems

Given what I wrote above about Bee Sting it was fitting to follow it up with the final book in the triology about extermely rich families from Singapore and Hong Kong with all the back stabbing and maneuvering you’d expect when the matriarch of the family is dying. I did like this one better than the second book, and it’s served the purpose to lighten things up that I definitely needed.

The Magicians

The first book in a series where the young hero, Quentin, finds out the magic he’s doing is real magic and he’s soon whisked off to a boarding school to learn more. The set up of the book is long, but given that it’s the first in the triology that makes sense. I didn’t find the world building or Quentin’s character anything that drew me in and made me want to continue the series, but I didn’t dislike it and I finishes it, so that’s saying a bit.

Reader, Come Home

I found this book when Ezra Klein interviewed the author, Maryanne Wolf and was intrigued. The book is comprised of letters about reading and the digital world and how to educate children to read deeply and be able to gain knowledge in both the print medium and digital mediums. The first few letters and the final letter were the most interesting to me as I’m not heavily involved in teaching children to read so the details on that didn’t grab me as much. But what Wolf does really well is show in the final letter how reading has a direct effect on the world we live in. If you don’t know how to read critically and think deeply how can you understand what’s going on and since the world of digital reading has sunk into small snippets on social media, we’ve lost a lot.

If we gradually lose the ability to examine how we think, we will also lose the ability to examine dispassionately how those who would govern us think. The worst atrocities of the twentieth century bear tragic witness to what occurs when a society fails to examine its own actions and cedes its analytical powers to those who tell how to think and what to fear. (p 199)

North Woods

The way in which this book is written was so good. It centers on a house in the woods and tells the story of the people who live there over the centuries from Puritans to modern day and beyond. It was a slow start but then as the threads began to weave themselves together, I was hooked. I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil anything, but I found using the house to move the plot super interesting and different.

Funny Story

By far my favorite of Emily Henry’s books so far. Maybe it’s because one of the main characters is a librarian, maybe because I relate to some of her family issues, or maybe because she’s a planner and never late. A perfect light read, made me laugh out loud several times. I also loved the characters surrounding the main couple. Highly recommend if you like her books or contemporary romance.

Swimming Home

A slim novel that follows a family from England on holiday for a week in France. There is something sinister at work in this story, which I felt right from the beginning. The family and the folks traveling with them are slowly coming apart as the book spans the week of the holiday. A quick read, one that made me think, but also not the most uplifting thing.

The List

A short novella by Mick Herron that is a part of the Slow Horses series, but as an aside almost. I enjoyed it, what happens with spies when they retire? And, as usual, there were some twists and turns that I didn’t quite see coming. I really enjoy Herron’s writing and story telling. (I could only find this book for sale used and collected with another novella, but I read the copy from my library.)