Booknotes 5.9

Mira’s Last Dance, by Lois McMaster Bujold, published 2017, fantasy, 109 pages. One of the Penric & Desdemona novellas. Earthy bits aside, I enjoyed it as usual, and oh, what a sad day it will be when I finally run out of new Bujold to read. Luckily I still have a good amount left, and even after that, she is on my very short list of authors I plan to reread.

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan, published 2006, history, 416 pages. Whew, that was harrowing — all the more so because the tragedy was avoidable, if only they’d known what they were doing. For me, the whole thing was a strong warning against having a careless relationship with the earth, and a reminder that there are better, healthier ways to meet our human needs without plundering and savaging this precious world we live in. Greed continues to ruin everything, as always.

Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, by Brian Merchant, published 2023, history, 561 pages. An important book, and one that feels particularly relevant right now, at least to me, as I watch my chosen industry mutating in ways I find reprehensible. I am a Luddite in spirit. Enjoyed the interwoven literary angle — Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Lord Byron — and reading about George IV as prince regent shortly after reading Greville’s memoirs, and about Mary Wollstonecraft shortly after reading Godwin’s biography. I like making things and I’ve found factories interesting from that perspective, but the human cost doesn’t seem worth it to me — the horrendous working conditions, the effects on the workers they replace, etc. There must be a better way. From the book:

But it is much more absurd to pretend there are no possible alternative arrangements—to think that technology, the product of concerted human invention and innovation, can only be introduced to society through reckless disruption, or that it’s unthinkable that advancements in technology might be integrated into our lives democratically and with care. If we are ingenious enough to automate large-scale production, build spacecraft, and invent artificial intelligences, are we not ingenious enough to ensure that advancing technology benefits all, and not just a few?

Stoner, by John Williams, published 1965, fiction, 219 pages. This has nothing to do with drugs, and no, not that John Williams. This is the fictional biography (a form I love) of an English professor in the first half of the twentieth century. Other than the earthy parts, I found it compelling even in its mundanity, though happy it is not. Humanity is messy. In the course of reading it I realized it was making me want to be a compassionate person, one who builds up those whose paths I cross in life. (I don’t remember what it was about the book that spawned those feelings, though.)