Books finished in August:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)

Apex: Nexus Arc Book 3 (2015) by Ramez Naam. Action-filled conclusion to Naam’s Nexus trilogy (Nexus, Crux, Apex). Against a backdrop of geopolitics, drug policy, fear of the unknown, development policy, and human rights, transhumans, AI, and humans clash. The first book (Nexus) provided the basic “science fictional” elements, here we see how these play out on the political scene, with its many actors with different motivations. Recommended.

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World (2014) by Steven Johnson. Popular history of six innovations: Glass, cold (refrigeration), sound (recorded), clean (hygiene), time, light (artificial). Ideas that went through several phases and continually changed societies and opened up new possibilities and unintended consequences. A wealth of stuff to learn, but pay attention, otherwise things will go past you, as happened to me on this reading. Nevertheless recommended. Apparently also a TV series, favorably reviewed by Cory Doctorow.

Between the World and Me (2015) by Ta-Nehisi Coates. A long letter from the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son about being black in the United States. From slavery to today’s frequent killing of black men, by other blacks, police, and others, “black bodies” have been or been in the danger of being “taken”. Coates is pessimistic and despairing, even though the US of today is surely an improvement from slavery, and from even 50 years ago. However, his aim is neither to count the successes, nor discuss policy, but to emotionally tell (his son) how bad he thinks the situation still is, and how he sees today’s wrongs as a continuation of the past’s. Recommended.

Ratings and old books are in the library.

Books finished in July:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)

Reamde: A Novel (2012) by Neal Stephenson. Not what I expected from the author of Cryptonomicon and the Baroque cycle. It starts off promisingly with modern, hot topics like a bitcoinlike virtual currency, the mmorpg T’Rain and its gold farmers, and ransomware, but quickly develops into a simple action story packed full of unbelievable coincidences, with a conflict between evil, largely unidimensional Muslims and others. Disappointing.

The Book of Daniel: A Novel (1971) by E. L. Doctorow. Novel based on the story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were put on trial for espionage and executed for treason in 1953. In the book they are called Paul and Rochelle Isaacson, and the story is told through their son Daniel. From his viewpoint, the pair, and particularly the father, come off as self-righteous and somewhat narrow-minded, though harmless, and likely innocent. According to Wikipedia, in the real world the children also believed in their parents’ innocence for a long time, though were convinced otherwise in the end. Finished the book a few days after the death of E. L. Doctorow. Interesting to learn about the people executed for espionage against the US in recent times, but I would not really recommend the book. (Trivia: The story ends in Disneyland, where Cory Doctorow‘s novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom takes place, but apparently the two are not related.)

Ratings and old books are in the library.

Books finished in June:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)

Confessions of a Bad Teacher: The Shocking Truth from the Front Lines of American Public Education (2013). Owens (according to himself) quit a good job in publishing to make a difference as a schoolteacher, but was driven out in less than a year by an impossible (and in the end even criminal) principal. Of course everything in the book is from Owen’s own viewpoint. Anyway, two main points are that too many demands and responsibilities are placed on teachers (individualized teaching; keeping order; contact parents; please principal, etc), and that the culture of blaming the teacher for all wrongs must stop. That sounds sensible enough, but he is way too unnuanced in the discussion of data and measurement, of which there are supposedly no advantages. Paradoxically, one of his own recommendations is even more comprehensive tests, which of course would raise all the same issues. Overall, the book is an easily accessible viewpoint in the school debate, but should hardly be taken as a final word.

Ratings and old books are in the library.

Books finished in May:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)

Now, May was a really busy month.

Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis (2015) by Robert Putnam. Putnam’s (born 1941) generation grew up in the post-war period and experienced the economic boom and opportunities for upwards social mobility of that era. Their kids, the subjects of this book, have not done as well, however. Drawing mostly on interview material, Putnam tells the stories of many struggling families and how a class divide is growing. That divide is partly economic, but the cultural dimension is just as important, in particular the one having to do with parental behavior. Resourceful parents plan when to have kids, manage to exploit all opportunities, prevent risks, and raise their children to have the right attitudes, while parents with bad parenting styles don’t. Residential and social sorting is part of the problem – kids of not-so-great parents get less exposure to other good role-models than before. Putnam is concerned, first on the part of these people themselves, but also on part of democratic governance, as “the opportunity gap undermines political equality and thus democratic legitimacy (p.239)”, and “[a]n inert and atomized mass of alienated and estranged citizens, disconnected from social institutions (p. 239)” might give rise to “antidemocratic extremism (p. 239)” when pressured, as in Germany in the 1930s. He stresses that we have not seen the worst yet, as he believes that this type of inequality is still growing, and that we will see that when today’s kids become parts of the labor and education statistics. Recommended.

Until It Hurts: America’s Obsession with Youth Sports and How It Harms Our Kids (2010) by Mark Hyman. American culture in general and parents in particular are driving kids and youth in sports until it hurts. An example is overuse injuries and surgery for young athletes becoming much more common. Hyman recounts several stories of crazy parents and coaches, and though these surely exists, I believe he too often loses sight of the positive sides of sports. But I support the general advice to take it easy and listen to kids and stop before it hurts.

Ratings and old books are in the library.

Books finished in April:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)

Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence (2014) by Laurence Steinberg. Importance of self-regulation and self-control. The age of puberty is creeping downwards, documentable from things like when girls develop breasts and get their period and when boys’ voice starts to crack. The reason is not better health, rather lack of sleep, more body fat, more light exposure that triggers melotonin production, various chemicals. For boys this development is not necessarily bad, but for girls it is, since when they mature physically before mentally and emotionally, they will often orientate towards older peers without being able to handle the corresponding challenges. A key is that the pre-frontal cortex, which handles self regulation and control do not develop earlier. The brain does develop substantially is adolescence, though, so there may be much to gain from interventions and guidance in this period. Perhaps by exploiting that the adolescent brain is particularly tuned to pleasure (which may be why memories from that period are so vivid)? Much in the book’s later parts is common sense advice, but overall it is an interesting read.

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (2011) by Tim Wu. Goes through the modern “information” businesses in the US – telephone, radio, television and film, and internet. A recurrent theme is how upstarts become (power-abusing) empires. The communication network determines who gets heard. Bell vs Gray controversy over the invention of the telephone. The Bell company exploiting its monopoly and sabotaging competitors. Broadcasting and sports. Modern mass media is sometimes accused of weakening local communities, but Wu claims that at least radio had the opposite effect. Tinkering and voluntary sharing important in the early days of radio, but less and less, like internet and computers today. Hollywood censorship code possible to implement because of centralization of power. A second recurrent theme is “the utopia of openness vs the perfection of the closed system.” Will today’s information giants be different from before? Do not bet on it.

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt (2014) by Michael Lewis. Makes a compelling case for the waste of resources in zero-sum games and manipulation of parts of the finance sector. Great read like most of Lewis’ books, but much is hard to evaluate, and I feel that there is still much that I do not know.

Ratings and old books are in the library.