Books 2024

This book is a lot; a near-future account of mostly the 2030s, while climate change begins to really make itself known. In what seems to be a trend (and reality) in the genre, it's not a story of one big cataclysm. It's about being boiled (ha) bit by bit over years, and even more so, about a handful of very different people who might as well be characters in a classical Greek tragedy. Desperately trying to exercise free will while the inevitability of fate just marches on. Protests, almost-wins, reactions, denial, more violent protests and more violent reactions. There's no happy ending, but it is hopeful. In my words: if we all just keep failing, we might be ok in the aggregate.

Paul Theroux kept quoting Heart of Darkness all through Dark Star Safari, so I thought I'd dig it out of the library (couldn't find it, had to buy a new copy) and read it for the first time since senior year LHS, with "Mr. Meech" whispering "the horror" and drawing out the word "lugubrious" at the front of the class. Glad I did --- heavy handed but just as rich as I remembered.

Cliff Stoll’s detailed account of the German hacker that waltzed through the academic and military proto-Internet back in the Eighties. Reading this stuff brings me back in time, the way world events and other touchstones do for normal people. Almost a half-century of hacking history ... read more

A weird, interesting and fun buddy comedy/thriller in which a nerd and an impusive AI try to save Metropolis, the gem of a near-future, urban-planned America. It moves quickly and has a great (if predictable) end scene. Pretty quick read and definitely worth the time.

Good, twisty, globe-spanning thriller plot --- exactly what it advertises. I'm a bit over the protagonist of these though. I love the ideals but it comes off as caricature; so so so much description of his lofty ideals and loyalty and commitment to country and all that. Less humblebragging would be way more effective, Mr. Thor.

The original off grid adventure! Dick Proenneke built his Alaska cabin in the 70s and left an amazing treasure of journals, pictures and video (not to mention his actual cabin, which you can visit at Lake Clark National Park & Preserve). The thing I really, really love about this book is his engineer's eye for everything he does: notching logs, building hinges, lining a chimney, keeping warm --- everything is a problem to be solved with enthusiasm and pride in the result. A truly admirable man; if you'd rather watch than read, an amazing documentary is available for free on YouTube.

Theroux was one of the first Peace Corp teachers in Malawi, there during the twilight of colonial rule. Dark Star follows his early 2000s return to the continent, traveling overland from Cairo to Cape Town on buses, trains, cars and a dugout canoe. He's a great storyteller and a keen observer; it's a great look at the richness and diversity of a part of the world that's often just blended together for us in the west. He has no patience for "donor culture" --- charity that has become permanent and doesn't seem to be fixing anything --- but neither does he excuse the blatant corruption and wasted opportunities of the independent governments themselves. Mostly he just clearly loves the place and the people and does a great job helping us to see it all.

I really enjoyed this one. Jahren tells the story of her life as a scientist --- quirky and brave and seriously relatable --- mixing in super-engaging observations on plant biology along the way. Jahren's love of trees is spiritual without being creepy; you can't help but share her joy at discovering how things, big and little, really work. It so happens that I'm nursing an apple tree seedling right now, and could see much of what she talks about in real time. It was magic. Read and share, it's a winner.

An amazingly well-told story of climate change and adaptation --- not some huge dramatic apocalypse, but the much more likely slow burn. More storms, more extremes, fewer services and more refugees. Wanda and her family stick it out in rural Florida and, eventually, learn to live in an altered world. A wonderful story about resilience and the power of nature to persist. I just wish it wasn't so likely to be telling our real future.

You can always count on pulp 50s/60s science fiction to deliver some solid commie bashing! The USSR dominates the world in 1999, 30 years after releasing a bioweapon that makes the citizenry dependent on a monthly vaccine. The twist at the end comes out of nowhere, but the main story is creative and engaging and it's a super-quick one-weekend read.

I stumbled upon this one in a great used bookstore in Boulder. It's kind of stunning to think that after being a part of Egypt for hundreds of years (well into the middle of the 20th century!), today the Egyptian Jews are simply gone. I wanted to learn more, but it turns out that the book doesn't really go into the events or causes in much detail. Instead, it offers the open and honest perspective of an almost unbelievably privileged girl going through adolescence while great upheaval swirled around her. Honestly, what struck me the most was the accounts of her home-bound isolation during the 1956 Suez crisis; eerily similar to our lives during COVID lockdown --- mostly boring, without "hardship" per se, but taking a steady emotional toll. At the end of the day, I'm glad to have heard her story. So many unique experiences in this world!

A solid summer page-turning thriller ... good guys and bad guys. Although it's not entirely clear how to tell them apart for a good chunk of the book. Part of me is over the "strong silent ex-military" trope, but it's also kind of like a guilty pleasure --- a ton of fun every now and then!

Set in transitional 1950s Morocco, an honest man from the country supports his family by training to be a police officer with the French in Casablanca. A classic story, trying to live an honorable life while stuck between two worlds in conflict. The setting and characters are richly described and Johnson includes a murder mystery to boot. Thanks again https://www.justtherightbook.com.

I've read this so many times that I finally split the spline in half. I love a good "travelling" book, and Blue Highways is one of the very best. Vanlife before it was a thing, Least Heat Moon drove from Missouri eastward, then clockwise around the country on minor roads and highways, in the early 80s. It was a super-transitional time for rural communities, some places still living in the 1930s and others modernizing fast. The author is a true curmudgeon, but a great observer and open to anything. Just wonderful stuff. I guess I'll need to buy a new copy now.

Part plausable apocalyptic adventure; part relevant allegory about the perils of both-sides-ism; part spontaneously intelligent machines flexing their newfound muscles. All wrapped up in writing that moves quickly and kept me engaged throughout. Burke says a lot but you don't feel lectured at. Another successful pick by https://www.justtherightbook.com!

It’s almost impossible not to be worn down by the inanity of the public sphere; Enlightenment Now offers insight and tools that offer hope to those of us who believe in progress and innovation and the steady improvement of humankind. read more

One of the reviews called this a "one-sitting read" and that's a great description --- it took me a few days but I was staying up past my bedtime each of those, reading "just one more page." Written from the perspective of an incident investigator at not-Boeing-but-really-Boeing, Crichton pulls us into the insanely complex world of commercial flight technology. And of course, there are bad guys afoot. Reading this didn't make me a better person or anything, but it was super-fun,

A fictional band of mercenaries, attached to Kind Edward in the (real) 1346 campaign of the Hundred Years War. There's no shortage of action, the characters are super-engaging, and Jones does a great job of weaving his story around actual details of the history --- not just the broad timeline. The battle at Blanchetaque was one of those scenes where you just disappear into the book. Loved it!

Swisher lines up pretty much exactly with my years in tech, and has covered them well: the optimistic 90s, insane 00s and fraught 10s. Not that it all hasn't been insane, but the "vibe" has changed over the years. I so miss the Jobs/Gates era and 27-year-old Sean's confidence that we're on a steady path to Star Trek. Gotta believe we'll still figure it out; her clear-eyed and not-purely-cynical account is a great "checkpoint" to help us not get completley lost.

Camp Zero starts out as a familiar climate-future story: Americans building a new city in (warming) northern Canada. But it evolves into something much more interesting, told from intertwined and overlapping perspectives. The book spends a lot of time considering how women in particular might experience this "new" world (in quotes because a lot of the "old" predictably comes along for the ride). This was the first pick from a personalized Just the Right Book gift subscription... so far pretty great!

We've been loving Will Trent on TV, so tried this audiobook on the drive back from California. The narrator's accents are a little much, but the story is fantastic and I guess it is Georgia after all. Fair warning: some characters are VERY different in the book than the show... enough said. Unbelievably good plot twists!

A gift from my daughter, with whom I've spent hours (days) watching Alex and his compatriots explore historical British agriculture in the time of the Stuarts, Victorians, Edwardians and WW2 (but not the Tudors, thanks a lot Tom). In a nutshell, Langlands' premise is that "craeft" is the ability to make useful things within the constraints of an environment. And that, by freeing us from worrying about weather or locality of raw materials, modern industry is causing us to lose craeft skills developed over millenia. Maybe you need to be a nerd to appreciate an archeological study of local roof thatching materials over time --- but Langland's knowledge, irony-free enthusiasm, descriptions and imagery are just amazing. We need more of this in the world!

The 1977 Roots miniseries was a big deal at the time, but I was 8 and barely remember it. I picked up the book a few weeks ago, somewhat by chance, and really was impressed. To follow seven generations, from The Gambia to Cornell University, is frankly pretty moving. It's not always a fun read, that's for sure --- but it does leave you in awe of the resilience of families in terrible circumstances, finding ways to live with dignity despite an unfathomable lack of control. Especially these days, Roots ought to be required reading in every American high school.

OK, this one doesn't really pass the "good book" bar. But I am a sucker for 60s-70s science fiction, and I couldn't pass this one up at the wonderful Bart's Books in Ojai. After nuclear war has sterilized the Earth, the crews of rival American and Soviet space stations collaborate in an attempt to preserve the species. I expect and generally excuse the gender and ethnic stereotypes that come with this territory, but EarthWreck was a bit much even for me --- keep it in your pants, "Italian" guy! Some solid creative ideas too, but probably a pass at the end of the day. Ah well.

I won't spoil too much, because the story (starting in medias res, thanks Billy) is just too good and you should enjoy the twists end-to-end. It's 1954 and two you brothers are off to California to start a new life, with just a few interruptions along the way. Each chapter is told from a different character's perspective, sometimes multiple looks at the same events but more often just pushing things forward. I loved them all: Emmett, Billy, Sally, Wooly, Duchess and even Ulysses and Prof. Abernathy. Don't miss this one.

This one was recommended to me by the awesome Adam Bosworth, and it lived up to his hype. The main character Eli Bell grows up in a rough part of town, with parents in the lower echelons of the local drug scene, and a (very responsible) babysitter famous as the greatest prison escape artist in modern Australia. His journey is fantastic (and a bit fantastical, but without being too woowoo) and I was sad to reach the end. 

The amazing, true story of an English warship wrecked on an island off the coast of Patagonia. With basically no ability to survive on local resources, the desperate crew broke into warring factions, eventually striking out in different directions on tiny, hand-built boats. Grann does a great job of telling the story based on extensive (and very contradictory) accounts written by the survivors. Most interesting to me was the contrast between the desperation of the sailors and the everyday nonchalance of the Kawesqar people they encountered --- in exactly the same environment. Our ability to adapt (or not) as a species is pretty incredible.

This is the second novel I've read lately that considers climate crisis as a tipping point that resets the eocnomic order, to the benefit of "average" folks, and (more interestingly) how that new society deals with the groups judged to have caused the crisis in the first place. I'm drawn to these stories because I believe increasing/accelerating wealth inequality just can't keep going forever, and nobody other than near-term science fiction writers seem to be taking it seriously. Certainly not our political and media establishments. Ah well, even if you ignore all that, the story was fantastic, the kind where you just want to keep reading one more page.