Eva

A novella about life and storytelling and retelling one's life while also encountering one's own past. It's very meta and decently done, but lacks a playfulness, and ultimately leaves one pretty unaffected. I was still curious about where it all goes, how all the branching would finally merge. But I also had a slight antipathy towards the audiobook narrator's voice, which progressively then extended onto the book's main protagonist as well. The narrator never fully becomes a person, let alone a person to root for. But it was short!

At some point in the story the younger Lena asks him why he'd want to mess with the story, make his alter ego follow his path to the same miserable outcome, and that just felt like a great summary of my sentiments towards the character and the story at that point.

A very US-centric history of all the industries that make money off your attention. Propaganda, tabloids, radio plays, game shows, celebrity hype, reality TV, click bait, instagram influencers... you think you get what you came for, but truly you're always the product, and your attention is what will be monetized. The new technologies didn't advent that, they just accelerated a trend that's been around for more than a century.

It was good to be immersed in this world again, and in Barry's language, that's sparse and simple and sometimes just knocks you over with beautiful raw emotions. This time, the center of attention is Winona, the Indian adoptee of Thomas McNulty and John Cole, who gets into a bit of trouble in the rough years after the American civil war. At the heart of the story is still love and family, loyalty and doing what's right. Which were all the ingredients that made [b:Days Without End 30212107 Days Without End Sebastian Barry https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1471281193l/30212107.SY75.jpg 50666270] so special. And I enjoyed this story for its own merits as well, but it just didn't feel on par. When it comes to recent sequels to beloved novels, this was definitely tons better than [b:Find Me 44581535 Find Me (Call Me By Your Name, #2) André Aciman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1557077508l/44581535.SY75.jpg 66927396] but not as engaging as [b:The Testaments 42975172 The Testaments Margaret Atwood https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1549292344l/42975172.SY75.jpg 66802198].3.5

Berenice Einberg grandit sur une petite ile proche a Montreal. Ses parents se querellent tout le temp, et etant de religions differentes, ils ont divise leur deux enfants entre eux. La seule personne que Berenice adore librement, c'est son frere aine. Pour le reste de la monde elle ne ressent que de la furie et une haine compliquee. Personne ne sait comment la traiter. Elle est sauvage, elle veut vivre pleinement sa vie, une vie d'aventure et violence, elle veut conquerir et detruire tout. Elle est une poete folle, une philosphe, elle est intelligente, et son cerveau est en feu.

Parfois il etait dure a suivre Berenice a travers ses associations folles et ses reves et ses philosphes. Mais le personnage est tres unique et une force, et peut-etre un petit morceau de nous tous.

As a junior in her marketing job Jiyoung is asked to write a report about some marketing research. She does it well, too well, and gets told it reads like an article. What she was supposed to supply was the report the journalists use to write their articles. She goes back, reworks it and subsequently receives a career push when her report is successfull and picked up by multiple outlets.
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This is one of those books where its effect and the whole discourse around it elevates it to another level. It's the life story of a stereotypical South Korean woman, from childhood to university to married life and motherhood, told in a detached analytical voice. Scattered throughout all of her life are the cultural norms that place South Korean women below men. The boys who get served their meals before the girls, the university career advisers who never recommend women for jobs, the workplace colleagues who rather share inappropriate photos instead of reporting them, the women who abort instead of having yet another baby girl, and the supportive husbands who are so understanding yet would never give up an ounce of their own freedom in exchange for a family.

I liked how the story wasn't just stereotypical misogyny, but featured strong and able women, that fought against and succeeded within the system, in their ways (Jiyoung's mom!). Yet, the fine and hard-hitting bottom-line is, that even when presented with all the facts and stats (that Cho Nam-Joo referenced in footnotes) of this ‘report', there are still so many people out there, who can't connect the dots.

An interesting dilemma, in an interesting setting. But I was mainly mad at one of the characters for making a specific decision, and wanted to shout at them to be less selfish.

The future of A.I. through the perspectives of its two biggest players: the US and China. Super interesting look at how their different cultural and political norms influence how they collect data, what they fund, and where their research is focused.

China surged onto the A.I. scene after DeepMind's AlphaGo defeated its Go champions. Encouraged and supported by the government it spent years learning and mimicking - the “copycat years” - but has now reached A.I. independence. No other nation has as many smartphone and app users generating data. No other nation is as lenient and nonrestrictive about its data laws. The combination of these two factors makes China the most furtile ground for future groundbreaking A.I. applications and research.

Kai-Fu Lee also talks about how A.I. industries will disrupt the current job market, and he ends on his hope that we'll figure out a way to use artificial intelligence as a tool and possibly the reason to become more focused on human and social connections. This aspirational section of the book feels almost naive, the same way the first section of the book feels very devoid of any critical look at China's politics. But nonetheless, this book gives a great glimpse at a field (and country) that will probably domineer so much of our future.

Investigative journalism looking at the financial corporation that's turning into the evil shadow mastermind of our times. BlackRock, the world's largest investment manager, controls around 10% of the world's wealth. It controls so many mutual funds and retirement portfolios, that BlackRock has an important voice on most shareholder meetings. If countries go bankrupt, they hire BlackRock to analyse their books. Their super software Aladdin calculates investment risks and advises clients on investment decisions. Those clients are banks, countries, insurance companies, pension funds. And because BlackRock is ubiquitous, their investment propositions are usually for stock they also co-own. No matter the financial transaction, BlackRock gets a cut.

They manage to amasses more and more power in this financial luftschloss that's full of loopholes and ripe for a systemic overhaul. Because they operate outside of clear regulations somehow, they seem to get away with it so far.

I don't understand an iota of what's going on in the financial industry, so this was my foray into trying to scratch at the surface. The book is well researched and also easy to follow, but sometimes it became too dense for me, with too much name-calling and too many numbers.

The 10000 hours myth about how only riguous training makes you an expert in a field, only applies to very narrow procedure-based fields (sports, musical instruments, chess, ..). The book presents how these qualify as “kind” learning environments, where the playing field is clearly staked out, the rules are rigid and the feedback is straightforward and quick. Yet most of our world and most modern-day problems lean towards “wicked” learning environments: Where the playing field might change from day to day, rules evolve and feedback is delayed or innacurate. Epstein shows how lateral thinking and interdiscplinarity (in people, and in teams) triumphs over specialication in these scenarios. A good approach is to find a balance between procedure-based training and abstract thinking. You still need specialists for specialists tasks, but you need generalists - who are good at abstract and lateral thinking - if you want to innovate your discipline. Creativity is the ability to change/improve one's discipline. Creativity comes from observing and dabbling in many different ideas and fields. Epstein says that nowadays there should be less need for specialists, because knowledge and information is shared widely. There's a higher need for generalists - “connectors” - to make use of and innovate on top of the available knowledge. Epsteins defines: Specialist ... as experts in very narrow fieldsGeneralist ... to have elementary knowledge in many different fields Polymath ... as generalists with one focus specialisationGreat popsci book, easy to read, and full of real-world examples. The first chapters about kind and wicked learning environments were novel to me, the rest of the book though, its praise of interdisciplinarity is rather similar to Steven Johnson's [b:Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation 8034188 Where Good Ideas Come from The Natural History of Innovation Steven Johnson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1311705993l/8034188.SY75.jpg 12645873].

I really loved Jiles' [b:News of the World 25817493 News of the World Paulette Jiles https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440342988l/25817493.SX50.jpg 45674421] so i came to this, hoping for a similar adventurous story, but this just fell flat. The main character never fully took form for me, the love interest was built up too fast and really didn't deserve his own POV. Also, there were way too many historical text snippets included. Even though I enjoyed the writing of certain passages, I resorted to only skimming the second half of the book, to at least somewhat finish it. I should stop reading American civil war / frontier stories with daring heroines. They always disappoint me (see [b:Neverhome 33977608 Neverhome Laird Hunt https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1485250940l/33977608.SY75.jpg 32074256], [b:Whiskey When We're Dry 45358821 Whiskey When We're Dry John Larison https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1557478221l/45358821.SX50.jpg 58185404]).

A chronicle by a young woman, who comes from the analog world of publishing, and falls into a career in Silicon Valley, working for a series of technology startups. She observes and participates in the lifestyle, guided by the allure of money, the potential of digitization, of optimization for optimization's sake. Her new world is full of free snacks, self-importance, company sponsored ski-trips, and a echo-chamber of philosphies by thinkers that idolize startup billionaires. No one questions what all their data-harvesting will lead to, or how their industry transforms their neighborhoods. I thought this was quite brilliant. Obviously you need to come to it with a certain knowledge of the scene. Then you can chuckle at Wiener's hilarious digs and truths, cleverly hidden-in-sight references for people and companies, all part of a culture that seems to be a parody of itself. The commentary is wry and witty, the prose quite exquisite, lots of feminism, and there's a self-awareness in it, that only let's you off the hook if you read this for pure entertainment. I'd line this up with the writing of [a:Ellen Ullman 80270 Ellen Ullman https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1375987657p2/80270.jpg]. SF's earlier coding culture had a similar energy, and now probably comes off as the more grounded parent of startup-culture's self-propagating pipe dreams. Glossary “the ebook start-up” ... Oyster“the data-analytics start-up” ... ? “the open-source start-up” ... Github“the search-engine giant” ... Google “the microblogging platform” ... Twitter“the home-sharing platform” ... Airbnb“the social network everybody hated” ... Facebook“the online superstore” ... amazonPatrick ... Patrick Collison, CEO of payment processor Stripemore glossary can be found here

A group of humans escapes from earth to start afresh on a wild lush planet. Their intention is peace, yet as we follow along their progress in generational steps, listening to the voices of each generation's current “moderator”, we learn that intentions aren't always easy to upkeep. Especially when you are attempting to form alliances with other sentient beings.

This was great. The novel is like a tabula rasa for civilization. Where lessons of the past are intentionally or unintentioally hidden, giving our protagonists (fauna and flora) the opportunity to relearn conflict resolution, language, collaboration. Within their own specis and also with others. And even plants discover that it is hard to balance emotions with facts.

Bad bad orange trees! :)

I especially liked that the book had enemies but ultimately chose to show that collaboration is always the right path towards a healthy environment.

Yancey Strickler is one of the co-founders of Kickstarter, which enables the support of creative projects that wouldn't get a foothold in our current markets. In addition, instead of going the shareholder-benefit way, they registered Kickstarter as a public-benefit organisation. The book looks at how our economy and therefore our culture today is completely ruled by financial maximization. It looks at how we got here (all the financial incentives and short-cuts that enabled monopolies to arise) and how people's values have shifted over the last couple of generations (“having a meaningful life” has lost to “being financially well off”). All of which is super fascinating, and reads like an easier-to-digest version of [a:Mariana Mazzucato 2137305 Mariana Mazzucato https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1501937786p2/2137305.jpg]'s theories about how we need to reinvent our measures for successful and healthy nations. The second half of the book presents Strickler's philosophy called bentoism: Now me, Future me, Now us, Future us. Which is a toolkit that could help invidicuals and companies when making decisions. I found the first part of the book was stronger, and it was a bit lacking when it came to the how-do-we-change-this-shitty-world part. But if that part would be easy to write, then we wouldn't need this book :) So this is a great book to get us all thinking.

Vanessa is 15, shy and talented, a pupil at a boarding school, when her English lit teacher grooms and seduces her. By lending her [b:Lolita 7604 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377756377l/7604.SY75.jpg 1268631] nontheless. The affair and relationship stretches off-and-on over the next decade, rendering Vanessa blind to its abusive nature. We follow along in alternating timelines: we experience the sweet and sickening beginnings at the boarding school through the eyes of a teenage girl, and we also encounter how a grown-up Vanessa has to come to terms with her trauma, when the #metoo movement flares up and various allegations about her former teacher emerge. I just really need it to be a love story. [...] Because of it isn't a love story, then what is it?Even though this is about a scandalous story, this isn't a scandalous book. It's darkly fascinating and uncomfortable, but nuanced, and not all black and white. It does a great job at depicting the psychological torment that's hidden in Vanessa, in the past and the present, toggling love and repulsion, self-awareness and submission. The book shows how hard or sometimes impossible it can be, to dig your way out of something so traumatic. She is marked by this story, unable to escape it, seeing and seeking similarities in the people and relationships around her.

Of guilt and atonement, or the lack thereof if there's a war propaganda industry that prevents it. Same as in [b:Das achte Leben 22896424 Das achte Leben (Für Brilka) Nino Haratischwili https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407775304l/22896424.SY75.jpg 42466516] we meet characters spread across several timelines and between Russia (this time the focus is on Chechnya) and Germany. A dark secret from the Chechen War in the 1990s is haunting a Russian General, and as he meets “Katze”, who shares an uncanny similarity with a ghost of his past, he decides the time has come for a last reckoning. My second Nino Haratischwili, and it's again easy to fall into her stories, but I have to admit I would have preferred a shorter, more focused version of this particular tale. The characters are less likeable, which adds a lot more pressure on the plot, but it ultimately ends slightly lackluster. I was really disappointed when it was revealed that Nura *chose* her death. Making it seem the General had done her a favor. Together with Ada's suicide, there was a lack of female independence in this book.

While I found my beloved [b:Kristin Lavransdatter 6217 Kristin Lavransdatter (Kristin Lavransdatter, #1-3) Sigrid Undset https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388289230l/6217.SY75.jpg 1370150] highly immersive and it had me entirely absorbed by plot and heroine, my reading experience of Jenny was different in that I was constantly aware of its cultural context. At first, it's the portrayal of an independent woman living in Europe's early 1900s, and we get an interesting perspective on the freedoms and shackles that existed for women at that time. And second, Undset actually published this in 1911 which is impressive, considering that some of what the characters think/feel/do was definitely considered amoral at that time. Both those aspects raise my appreciation of the novel. It's a psychological study of a young artist, who's freespirited and adventerous while also holding on to high morals. Jenny's torn between what society tells her to want from life, and her own inability to love the right way, or find a love that's right for her. It's heartbreaking, and I really wished for her to find her fulfillment in the end. May in be in her artistic practice or in another person. I was rooting for Gunnar there, at the end. Especially considering how the two other men in her life were such wusses. But when I read about Gunnar's regrets of never having *possessed* her, I knew it was for the best. That whole coda about him romantically shaping his life around his grief for her, was incredibly poignant and definitely made fun of men, right?And how deeply distrubing and sad was that scene of Helge overwhelming her that last night? Self-absorbed and completely unaware of her state or the fact that she had refused him. Horrifying. And incredibly courageous of Undset, this harsh portrayal of misogynistic behavior by men who otherwise come of as gentle and harmless. This book leaves a lot of thoughts.

I've been wanting to read about the disinformation propaganda age, from a non-US focused perspective, and Peter Pomerantsev delivers. At the center of this book is Russia and how it seems to have perfected a politics based on behavioural changes through psy-ops, trolls and gaslighting. Spearheaded by a leader who smirks while invading nations claiming to rescue them from situations that were media-engineered by his bot farms. Trump follows in the footsteps. Truth and facts lose their meaning. People are united and radicalised under a common lowest denominator, while being micro-targeted based on their own personal fears. Populism not as ideology but as strategy. And those fighting against the populists and dictators have no choice but to learn to adapt the same tools.

The book goes from Duterte's influencer-supported win in the Philippines, to Moscow's Internet Research Agency, to Russia's cyber-attacks on Estonia, to Russia's strategic information warfare and the brutal consequences in the Ukraine, to Brexit, to ISIS recruitment tools, to China's propaganda. Entwined along is Pomerantsev's own family history, his parents fleeing Ukraine from the KGB, and dedicating their lives to entwining the lies and to help ex-soviets free themselves from the Kremlin's propaganda.

The book doesn't necessarily leave you with any hope, just with a disquieting and oppressive feeling of being overwhelmed by today's twisted reality game full of political agendas. Eye-opening and scary.

A surreal satire that blends metaphysics, Austrian culture, and society's unspoken agreement to deny its dark secrets. A hidden Austrian mountain village seems to exist outside of time and outside of governmental registers. The village sits on top of a former mine, that inexplicably expands and slowly causes the landscape, streets and buildings to rupture. A dark secret from the past seems to be tied to the cave and a mysterious countess seems to possess sole authority and ownership over everyone's destiny. Satires and surreal stories in general make it hard to emotionally connect with them. But this book is smart enough, and full of interesting angles that invite interpretation, that I still could enjoy this a lot. A knowledge of Austrian history and Austrian mentality, might be a requirement though. The writing and the feeling to drift out of control in a surreal world, reminded me of [b:Der Vogelgott 38607105 Der Vogelgott Susanne Röckel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1518897589l/38607105.SY75.jpg 60216062]. The village repeating the seemingly sisyphean task of filling the hole underneath their feet, is reminiscent of [b:The Woman in the Dunes 9998 The Woman in the Dunes Kōbō Abe https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1361254930l/9998.SY75.jpg 58336]. I think I am slightly disappointed by the ending, but right now I couldn't come up with a different more satisfying ending to this story.

An exploration of the minds of cephalopods (octopus, cuttlefish, squid) who are among the smartest creatures in the animal kingdom, while also being furthest removed from human brains, on the evolutionary tree of origin. Which makes them the most interesting “other minds” around, to study.

All the anecdotal descriptions of the cephalopod world, their sneaky behaviors, their watchful eyes, their forming of underwater society octopolis, and many more, were fascinating. The image of the lab-kept octopus with an attitude, who rejected its unsatisfactory meal by demonstratively dropping it into the tank's filter drain, while also making sure that the keeper watched, will definitely stick :)

It's also interesting to learn about the octopus's distributed neural system, and their color-changing and color-sensing skin. Such a crime that most of these fascinating creatures only get to live 2-3 years. All in all good read, but the book slightly lost me when it left the octopi world and dug more into general theories of consciousness.

J'ai apprecie beaucoup cette histoire sauvage, un portrait societal moderne de Paris, peuple de personnages dans et autour des medias et des arts, aux prises avec de nouvelles realites de la scene, leur age, ou tombant dans l'obsolescene.

Au centre se trouve Vernon, un ancien proprietaire de disques et passionne de musique, qui traverse des moments difficiles. Apres avoir perdu son appartement, il fait un tour de canape chez ses vieux amis et connaissances. En mentant sur sa situation.

J'aime vraiment comment les segments de l'histoire ne sl'aignent pas correctement, mais sautent plutot dans le temps ou s'entrelacent legerment. C'est rafraichissant.

La seule chose que je critiquerais, c'est que je ne crois pas qu'une personne adepte des medias ne puisse pas trouver le nom d'un scenariste francais, alors qu'elle connait deja son prenom, et d'autres petits details sur sa biographie.

An epic multi-generational story crafted as lose biblical retelling of Adam and Eve's fall to sin, and Cain and Abel's rivalry. Mixed with deep psychological and philosophical analysis of human spirit and motivations. There are characters who are plain evil, characters who are plain good, and then there are the more interesting characters in between, who grapple with their instincts.

Lots of captivating moral dilemmas emerge from this very black+white view on good and evil. I was especially intrigued by Adam's decision to reject his son's gift and the repercussions that followed.

I was definitely wholly absorbed in the story. Possibly a 5 star absorption. And yet there's an unevenness, and i would have probably shortened the middle of the book, because I found the two brother relationships bookending the story, the most compelling. I'd even fault the book for placing Adam at its center, because I'd consider him the least interesting and likable character.

In a story mostly populated with men, Cathy was fascinating, and could have been polished by omitting those liquor-induced moments used to show her true face. And then there's Steinbeck's apparent inability to describe female characters without mentioning their breasts. So I'll round this down to 4.

A meeting between neighbouring regents, in the kingdom of Myrcia, serves as setting of this political intrigue. Rulers, crown princes, bastards, sorcerers, ladies-in-waiting, mining engineers all arrive in town, each with their own hidden intentions, guided by ambition or traitorous and romantic backstories.. In the middle of it all, locked away in a tower for the last 17 years, is a queen who's been going a bit stir-crazy...

The first of many, and you can appreciate the layering of rich history, customs and characters that's woven into this fantasy verse. There's an exciting whodunit that keeps you guessing, and a great tragedy to the ending that brings the plot to a nice full circle.

The fantasy was very light on fantasy, which I appreciated :)

This started out as a perfectly-fine western with a young female protagonist. An adventurous coming of age tale of a young woman with a knack for shooting, who dresses up as a man while searching for her brother. Sounds perfect for some easy entertainment, but somewhere in the second half it lost my interest, and I basically just finished to finish it. All characters felt conveniently lined up symbols, demonstrating the injustices of the time (women, people of color, lgbtq). And there was something too American and too preachy about it.

Is it comedy or tragedy, this tale of a young woman who is committed (delivers herself?) into a psychiatric hospital to save her brother. But we soon suspect that our heroine is a unreliable narrator, and what if her lies become her reality?

I'd say this is a tad unpolished, but shows lots of potential.
Nostalgia for the Austrian life.
3.5

Quite an eye-opening book on the refugee experience. Mixed together with different refugee stories, Nayeri tells her own live story, how her family fled Iran a few years after the Islamic Revolution, first to Dubai, then a camp in Italy and finally to America, in order to avoid prosecution after converting to Christianity.

Chronologically she goes through the steps every refugee has to endure: the actual escape, the restless waiting at an interim camp, the quest for official asylum, the never-ending assimilation process. And every step along the way, the refugee needs to create their narrative, tell their truths in such a way that it convinces immigration officers that one is worthy to receive help.

There's a cultural clash between what western cultures want to hear (the American wants heroic tales, the Dutch wants pure facts without contradictions) and how other cultures tell their stories. And lot of the time those stories are not easy to tell, just consider experiences tied to shame (persecution of homosexuality, rape victims).

In a world that will see more and more refugee crisis in the years to come, the question as to who is worthy to receive asylum, is a tricky one. Niyari points out the cruel contradiction that the West hates the ‘economic' refugee, while at the same time badmouthing the ‘broken' immigrant who has a hard time assimilating and contributing.