Revolt of the Public

The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium by Martin Gurri, 425 pages

In The Revolt of the Public, analyst Martin Gurri considers the possibilities and dangers that the information age presents to established institutions and ways of life.  The technological changes of the last few decades, he observes, have greatly facilitated the emergence of informal networks, energized by a passionate involvement with specific issues, out of a generally disinterested mass populace.  These have collided with technocratic institutions which have inherited their organization from the industrial age, their size and complexity justified by modernist utopian promises which are no longer rationally believed but are still emotionally expected.  It is precisely in this gap - between what we know to be the limits of expertise and what we believe we are owed - that the aroused public finds its angry home.  The negativity of postmodern protest, then - the inability of activist networks to advance positive solutions to the systemic problems they identify - is not just the result of their own lack of hierarchy, but an inescapable feature of the crisis of late modernity.  The danger, Gurri believes, is that the accelerating erosion of institutional authority is transforming the gap into a chasm, making the prospect of a wholesale rejection of democratic pluralism correspondingly more attractive to dissidents on both the left and the right.

Beyond Gurri's method and presentation, there is little here that would surprise anyone who has read, for example, MacIntyre, Postman, or Lasch.  That Gurri, deliberately or not, seems unaware of this is, on the whole, more a blessing than a defect, allowing him to approach the current crisis along his own path and therefore providing all that much more support when his conclusions overlap with those of deeper thinkers. It also gives him space to suggest his own solutions, as nebulous as those might be.  It helps, too, that his presentation is excellent, and will doubtless appeal to many reluctant to try older, more substantive works.

Beautiful You

Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk   240 pages

Penny Harrigan is getting nowhere fast in the law firm she works at where she is low woman on the totem pole.    Then she happens to meet billionaire C. Linus Maxwell who whisks her away to exotic locales, fancy dinners, buys her expensive clothes and experiments on her with the robotic sex toys he has invented.   Penny is way over her head and having more orgasms than she knows what to do with and she isn't the only one!   Wacky, funny story - where does Chuck Palahniuk come up with this stuff?   Not for the young, adult oriented for sure.   But yes, if you are looking for something out of the ordinary this one is for you! 

 - Shirley J.

Ghosts of Gold Mountain

Ghosts of Gold Mountain: the epic story of the Chinese who built the transcontinental railroad   by Gordon H. Chang,  312 pages

This is indeed an epic story of the Chinese who were primarily responsible for building the western and most challenging section of the U.S. transcontinental railroad which was completed about 150 years ago. Gordon Chang's story begins by describing the politics and life of the Guangdong province in southern China from which most of the railroad workers, young and male, were recruited and it ends with a description of Chinese women working in San Francisco brothels and Chinese people being driven from the western cities that they populated. Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR), financed by an act of congress, initially did not want to hire Chinese laborers but other workers deserted and the Chinese proved their skills, work ethic and willingness so they became the primary builders of the challenging western section of the railroad. 

The planned route required traversing steeper grades and than any other railroad previously built; it would involve more dynamite to blast tunnels through parts of the mountain, and great human risk to builders who packed and lit explosives and hammered chisels to cut beds into its cliffs. CPRR did not even keep a record of the names of its Chinese workers nor did they ever publicly acknowledge the death of a single railroad worker. But by drawing on reports of Chinese benevolent associations, newspapers, historical associations, reports of freight cars carrying remains from mass accidents, Chang fills in some silence from the railroad records and estimates that 1,200 of them died in the project. The railroad Chinese worked harder and faster than other crews but were paid less so, without a union, they organized a strike which approached parity in  wages along with recognition and  time to celebrate Chinese holidays. 

Railroad Chinese were not only killed by the engineering feat for which they worked, they were also killed by "the great purge" to rid the country of them: In October of 1871 a mob of 500 attacked the Chinese quarter in Los Angeles, burned buildings and lynched 18 Chinese in the streets: the largest lynching in American history. Twenty five people were indicted for murder but none were convicted. Five years later, the white citizens of Truckee, a town made possible by the railroad, formed a Caucasian League, burned the cabins of Chinese woodcutters and then shot them as they fled. Truckee citizens used violence, arson and intimidation to drive other Chinese citizens out until the town's 1900 census indicates that there were only two Chinese people left in town. Such were the bitter ironies of the Chinese workers who built the transcontinental railroad. Their men were recruited to build the wealth of those who planned it and then their women were enslaved to satisfy the lusts of men.

A Craftsman's Legacy

A Craftsman's Legacy by Eric Gorges, 245 pages

In much of the developed world where work centers around computer screens, this is a refreshing examination of artisans who use their hands to make things. The book's chapters are theme-titled but several of them focus on a particular artisan and their craft: a potter, furniture maker, stone carver, glassblower, calligrapher, etc. The author's own biography is creatively interwoven throughout: he worked in the tech industry, developed mental health issues which were relieved as he became a motorcycle maker. Having experienced skilled mechanics and carpenters myself I've often thought that it takes as much smarts to be a good artisan as academic, business leader or politician and this book fed that conviction. I highly recommend it if you need a break, like I did, from disembodied concepts, ideas and screens. It is likely to increase your appreciation for artisans and to inspire you to rub your hands before heading toward a work of your own.

How to Invent Everything

How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler by Ryan North     437 pages

From Goodreads:


What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past . . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat?

Don't worry: in How to Invent Everything, bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North has figured out the answers to those four questions - and more - just for you. This guide contains all the science, engineering, mathematics, art, music, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Your new world will be one in which humanity matured quickly and efficiently, instead of doing what we did (i.e., spending 200,000 years stumbling around without language, thinking disease was caused by weird smells, and living completely oblivious to the fact that tying a rock to a string would unlock navigating the entire world).

Review:

This book is hilarious and useful! North has accomplished an amazing feat of compiling "how-tos" on basically everything for making a civilization, all in the guise of helping out a stranded time-traveler. It's great, a bit of a read, but it's worth it for the snippets of humor and the constant dragging of humanity for how long we took to invent things.

THE MORTAL WORD

THE MORTAL WORD by Genevieve Cogman

433  pages

https://slpl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1423249116#

Reviewed by Rae C.

The fifth book in the Invisible Library series, and the best one so far!

There are multiple worlds, and in each there are different levels of technology (order, ruled by Dragons) and magic (chaos, ruled by The Fae).  Each earth has different versions of the same stories, reflecting the different development and history of that particular world. 

The Library exists at the center of all the worlds, and is outside of time.  By collecting the different versions of stories, the Library keeps the worlds bound together.  Also Librarians are able to speak The Language, and therefore in each world have a power different from either Fae or Dragon.  The Language is a pure command, the essence of all earth languages on all the different versions of earth. For example, if a Librarian commands water to boil in The Language, the water will boil.

There is an ongoing conflict between Dragon and Fae, and neither species can tolerate too much of the other. So Fae suffer in the order of Dragon worlds. And Dragons lose strength in chaotic Fae worlds filled with magic and Story.  (The Fae themselves are dominated by Story.  In fact, sometimes they are bound by the rules of the Story and/or their characters.  Both this book and The Masked City display this feature of Fae power.)

In this book there is a peace conference underway between Dragon and Fae, and the Librarians are officiating.  The main protagonist, Irene Winters, is currently Librarian in Residence in a world that is steampunk, and at roughly the 1920's in its timeline. One of her companions is a real life Sherlock Holmes, named Peregrine Vale.  (In some worlds Sherlock Holmes is not just a story.)  Her other companion is a Dragon Prince, Kai Strongrock.

All three of them are summoned to the top secret peace conference after a Dragon is murdered.  The conference and peace in all the worlds is in jeopardy.  Like the other four books, this is a great adventure, with "unguessable" twists and turns.  Cogman always has something up her sleeve!

I especially enjoyed the interim with Vale's POV.  This is the first time there has been a POV other than Irene's.  My understanding is this series grew partly out of the author's love of Sherlock Holmes (as well as Dungeons and Dragons), so to have Vale highlighted was a treat! In fact, Irene's name was chosen from Irene Adler in Conan Doyle's "Silk Stocking." Cogman did a good job of recreating a solid Sherlock Holmes in an unfamiliar world ruled by Fae and Dragons, and powered by ether.

The alternate Paris the story is set in retains all of the history of our worlds' Paris, and includes a very exciting scene in the Grand Guignol.  And the added spectacle of the Blood Countess, Elizabeth Bathory, running the show.

Kind of sorry I finished it so fast because now it is another long year of waiting for book six!!!

The Wild Robot Escapes

The Wild Robot Escapes by Peter Brown     288 pages

After being captured by the Recons and returned to civilization for reprogramming, Roz is sent to Hilltop Farm where she befriends her owner's family and animals, but pines for her son, Brightbill.

A great follow-up to The Wild Robot! This book ties up all the loose ends and completes the story of Roz and her quest to find home. I loved this book just a tiny bit less that the first book. But I still enjoyed it immensely. Having gone to a author event with Peter Brown, I know that he recommends considering both books as one story. I would definitely recommend reading them back-to-back, or, if you're going on a long car trip, listen to the audiobooks back to back. I will say, they use different narrators for the books, and I preferred the reader for the first book. I am someone who despises inconsistency, and I don't know what the reasons were behind having a different voice actor read the second book, but it was one of the only things I didn't enjoy. That being said, both are well read and done well. I would highly recommend this book - it's adventurous, it's full of great characters, and it tells a beautiful story about family and what does it mean to feel (especially if you're a robot).

Lies You Never Told Me

Lies You Never Told Me by Jennifer Donaldson 336 pages

This young adult novel has an interesting cover; What I think should be the front is really the back, and what I would construe a back cover copy, is on the front.  The copy on back is interesting, but turns confusing after reading the book.

There are two main protagonists: Gabe and Elyse, along with two antagonists, Catherine and Sasha. Their stories are told in alternating chapters, which helps keep the tales separate and easy to follow.

The book’s first chapter is terrifying; I’ve never been so glad to be a child of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Gabe is over at his girlfriend, Sasha’s, house. Her parents are out of town and the teens are having a warm evening swim. When the parents call, Sasha lies that Gabe has come over. But thanks to technology, they are able to see what is happening, thanks to a surveillance camera.

While Gave and Sasha are in Portland, Oregon, halfway across the country in Austin, Texas, Elyse is trying out for her high school play. She doesn’t expect to land the lead, but when she does, she realizes she has a lot to lose…and gain.

When Gabe is leaving Sasha’s on the above-mentioned evening, he is struck by a car while he is skateboarding down the street. Lucky for him, a good samaritan stops and calls 911. When he discovers who saved his life, he tried to break-up with Sasha, but Sasha has other plans, including technology to scare him and breaking into his home while he is sleeping.

Elyse is also treading on dangerous grounds, but she just wants to be seen. Her drug-addict mother is barely in the picture. Elyse has been supporting herself for years, doing whatever it took to keep Social Services at bay. But now she has captured a man’s attention.

The story is tense, and the how easy it is to use today’s technology to manipulate people is terrifying. As the novel hurtled toward its climax, it got confusing. I wish I could chat with ya’ll about the ending, but no spoilers here. As I reached the last quarter of the book, I was planning to give it 4 stars, However the confusing ending, forces me to give Lies You Never Told Me receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motors

The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motors, Tamara Dean, 261 pages


An impressively detailed look at the possible applications of human power (the most renewable resource) in day-to-day life. While Pedal Power in Work, Leisure, and Transportation focused exclusively on pedal power (naturally), Dean expands her focus to other uses of muscle power where pedaling might be overkill, such as treadled sewing machines and hand-cranked grinding mills. Best of all, the book includes multiple step-by-step plans for constructing and adapting your own devices to human power.

The Human-Powered Home also spends a good deal of time discussing the realistic power output humans can produce, as well as comparing brands of ready-to-purchase tools and giving easy-to-digest tips and tricks for embarking on your own human-powered journey. This book is really the complete package, a must-read for anyone aiming for a more sustainable lifestyle.

Pedal Power in Work, Leisure, and Transportation

Pedal Power in Work, Leisure, and Transportation, ed. James C. McCullagh, 133 pages


Although it sounds very dry, Pedal Power is a fascinating insight into the past and future of human-powered technology. Published amid 1970s fears of peak oil & the corresponding energy crises, the book explores pedal powered solutions to problems more often solved with electrical or gas powered motors. Simply by harnessing the untapped power of the bicycle, many household tasks and tools can be powered by human effort. This is especially useful in low-income countries, where energy infrastructure is less robust and the bicycle already sees widespread use for transportation, but there are applications in higher-income countries as well, if one wants to achieve a more sustainable society. In fact, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, before the propagation of the inexpensive electric motor, a huge variety of pedal- and treadle-powered tools saw use even in the United States.

McCullagh and his collaborators (the book is a series of essays, technical drawings, and how-to guides) provide ideas for devices to wash clothes, cut wood, pump water, transport goods, plow fields, thresh grain, and more, as well as a complete construction guide to a pedal-powered primemover, a stationary-bicycle-like apparatus that can be hooked up to a variety of different tools in a home workshop. This is definitely a niche interest book; it won’t appeal to a reader who isn’t already intrigued by the possible applications of sustainable and efficient human power. However, to such a reader, especially one who is mechanically minded, Pedal Power in Work, Leisure, and Transportation is a treasure trove of ideas and schematics.

The Knowledge

The Knowledge by Lewis Dartnell, 340 pages

In The Knowledge, Lewis Dartnell attempts to write a basic, bare-bones instruction manual for how to rebuild civilization from the ground up, in the event of a world-ending catastrophe, starting with agriculture and working up to radios, advanced chemistry, and navigation.

Unlike many post-apocalyptic how-to guides, this book is not intended to be a survival manual per se – it lacks critical detail, serving more as a surface-level introduction to various concepts essential (or at the least useful) for the development of human civilization, jump-starting “the Reboot” and leapfrogging over centuries of slow progress. Dartnell spends less than one chapter on survival techniques for immediately after a collapse, but the book doesn’t suffer for it.

Where The Knowledge really shines is its exploration of simple chemistry using the most basic of technologies, then using that simple chemistry as a gateway to access more complicated and elaborate chemical and industrial processes. For example, wood ash can be easily processed into potassium carbonate, which be added to boiling fats to produce soap, to vinegar to help fix dye into cloth, or to fields to help fertilize them. With some more slightly more complicated chemistry, it even helps produce the materials for simple photography.

The main issue with The Knowledge is that it is too short by half. Dartnell obviously cannot give a summary of every piece of knowledge necessary for modern civilization, but he barely touches on some absolutely critical technologies (there is only a single mention of plumbing for sanitation, which omission completely boggles the mind), and completely ignores many simple intermediary technologies that would be easily achievable by a “rebooting” society (such as simple solar devices like the solar water heater, or many pedal-powered tools invented in the late 19^th and early 20^th century). Perhaps a sequel is in order.

Crash Override

Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate by Zoe Quinn (Hardback, 5 stars, 256 pages)

This important book is part memoir, and part instruction manual for the digital age. Zoe Quinn tells a story of harassment by an ex that went way off the deep end, ultimately sparking an insane reaction from internet scumbags in a controversy known as “Gamergate”. Many people who spoke up, whether for Quinn or for reason itself, became targets of a vicious online hate campaign with real-life effects. But you likely know all this by now, as a denizen of the internet.

What I like most about this book is that Quinn uses her experience to educate, and not to entertain. She makes clear the terrible consequences of harassment, but does not dwell on the details. Quinn provides steps to take if you are the target of such a campaign, as well as actionable solutions to move forward as a culture. She started a nonprofit, Crash Override, dedicated to helping victims of online harassment. She describes how we need to work to change the norms in government, law enforcement, and technology to ensure what happened to her does not happen to other people. This is not my usual reading material, but was very worthwhile. It has something to help everybody - including, I suspect, the many people willing to rate this one star without even looking at it.

Quinn also has a great Twitter account, well worth following. That’s where I heard about the book.

Privacy

Privacy: A Very Short Introduction by Raymond Wacks, Paperback book: 155 pages

As the title suggests, this book is an overview on the subject of privacy and not an in-depth look.

Wacks covers multiples facets of privacy. Privacy can be surprisingly hard to define some people may not consider privacy to be very valuable.

Technology, especially the internet, has a large role to play in privacy. There are many ways in which our privacy can be violated through technology. It may not be a question of how much privacy we have but of how our information is being used.

It is worth noting that there are differences in the protection of privacy in Europe and US based on laws of countries (or lack thereof) and European Union laws.

There is also consideration of whether celebrities and other public figures should be given the same protection to their privacy as everyone else or whether they forfeit it to some degree.

Depending on how much you have read or considered about the subject before, this book may be worth reading or not. This book is a good introduction to privacy but if you are looking for something more in depth you should look for a different book.

Utopia Is Creepy

Utopia Is Creepy and Other Provocations by Nicholas Carr, 342 pages

The promise of the Digital Age, restated again and again, is the liberation of the individual human being from economics, politics, and even matter itself.  Yet according to Nicholas Carr the reality is "not transcendence but withdrawal", a liberation from society that leaves the individual isolated, trapped in a solipsistic hall of mirrors.  Utopia Is Creepy collects the best of Carr's RoughType blog as well as some aphoristic tweets and longer pieces.

Instead of a world in which economics have been transcended, Carr foresees a world in which every human interaction has been commodified, and every experience manufactured.  The difference between the resulting artificial culture and the old organic culture is analogous to the difference between learning to play a guitar and learning to play Guitar Hero.  Correspondingly, politics are impoverished as the soundbite gives way to the tweet, knowledge as the trivial becomes more and more indistinguishable from the profound, and humanity as personality is reduced to a data set.

Carr is no Luddite - to the contrary, he is very aware of the positive benefits of new technologies, but he is also aware of their limitations, and the limitations of the men who make them.  More importantly, he is conscious of their power to change our perceptions of ourselves and our relationships to others in unexpected ways.  The book has the flaws to be expected of any collection of blog posts - not only are some no longer topical, the reader may sometimes wish that Carr would elaborate on a point or draw out the consequences of his conclusions, only to be frustrated by the concessions to digital attention spans.  Yet the short pieces on diverse topics also provide an ideal vehicle for Carr's combination of insight and humor, which in turn makes Utopia Is Creepy pleasurable as well as provocative.

Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan: Escape into Understanding by W Terrence Gordon, 338 pages

Marshall McLuhan exploded into public consciousness with the publication of Understanding Media in 1964, although he had already built a considerable reputation with his previous works, The Mechanical Bride and The Gutenberg Galaxy.  In the '60s and '70s these pioneering studies of media resulted in him becoming a media star himself, appearing on the cover of Time and Newsweek, in Woody Allen's Annie Hall, as well as on countless talk shows and even more untelevised lectures.  He was hailed as the prophet of television and the wise man (or, perhaps, the holy fool) of the global village.  Although his reputation has declined in the years since his death in 1980, McLuhan continues to serve as a starting point, signpost, and icon for many in the fields of media studies, cultural criticism, and electronic communication.

Gordon depicts McLuhan as, above all, a man struggling to make sense of the world.  He emphasizes the provisional nature of much of McLuhan's work, portraying his subject as an explorer continually probing reality, searching out the patterns that will reveal the deeper underlying structure.  As such, McLuhan's work was grounded in objectivity - his studies of how to survive in the media environment no more constitute an endorsement of that environment than a scientist's study of climate change endorses such change.  Gordon demonstrates how McLuhan's playfulness, which serves to amuse as well as confuse critics and admirers alike, was enabled by this detachment, but was rooted in an imagination that sought understanding through metaphor and analogy.

The Flinkwater Factor

The Flinkwater Factor by Pete Hautman, 249 pages

This was a bizarre but fun book.  There are what seems to be several different stories in this book that all come together in the end.  Flinkwater is a place where several geniuses live.  They work for ACPOD, which creates robots.  Several people become comatose, apparently from watching the same computer program, a talking dog appears in town and Ginger, the main character, finds out more about the Sasquatch in town than she thought possible.  Ginger, along with the boy she wants to marry, Billy, and another friend, Myke, set out to solve the problems in Flinkwater before Homeland Security tries to take them in as terrorists.  His book is actually pretty funny and has some fun real science and also some fake science.  One of the great things about it is that at the end Hautman talks about what is real, potentially real soon, and fake.  This is a good one for kids who like realistic science fiction.