ebaths | Reading Catch-up for Q2 (Reply)

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier

”Welcome to the cage that goes everywhere with you.”

This was a blueshiftofdeath pick that we listened to together on audiobook. The narrator (Oliver Wyman) was fantastic and embodied the character of Jaron Lanier’s cautionary tech prophet. The most memorable part of the book was Wyman reading the maxim of the book: “Delete your account.”

The arguments:

You are losing your free will.
Quitting social media is the most finely targeted way to resist the insanity of our times.
Social media is making you into an asshole.
Social media is undermining truth.
Social media is making what you say meaningless.
Social media is destroying your capacity for empathy.
Social media is making you unhappy.
Social media doesn’t want you to have economic dignity.
Social media is making politics impossible.
Social media hates your soul.

This is a short, snappy book so I absolutely recommend it if the concept interests you at all. I liked the focus on personal dignity and how social media strips that from you by removing your free will and bending your experience in a way totally outside of your control. I also thought Lanier was a great mouthpiece for these arguments because he’s been in tech for decades and has friends at places like Google and Facebook, so the arguments ring true because there’s no sense of him being above or outside the problem.

The Evening of the Holiday by Shirley Hazzard

I heard about this book while reading Writers & Lovers by Lily King (the book is mentioned in passing by one of the characters). Lily King wrote a lovely reflection on Holiday which I recommend—she can explain why it’s good much better than I can (haha).

The book is about an older Italian man, Tancredi, who has just been left by his wife, who meets via familial connection a young English woman, Sophie, who is visiting on holiday. The book jumps between their two perspectives throughout as Hazzard explores their love affair.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s short, and dense with poetic language and unusual turns. I liked Sophie and Tancredi very much.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

I stumbled on this book while Wikipedia-surfing—now I don’t remember what for. This book is the direct precursor to Orwell’s 1984. We was written by Yevgeny Zamyatin, who was Russian and lived in Russia at the time, between 1920 and 1921. It was published in English in 1924 and was not published in Russia until the late eighties. Orwell read We in French and almost immediately began work on 1984.

We is a science-fiction novel set in a future dystopia where humans are referred to by numbers. Every hour of the day is scheduled, and the houses are made of glass, which curtains that are only to be pulled during sex, which is controlled by a ration ticket system. The main character, D-503, is an engineer on a new spaceship. D-503 is representative of his fellow numbers—he loves math and order, trusts the Benefactor above all else, and fears any kind of aberration. We follows D-503 as he meets I-330, a woman who flaunts the rules of their society, and the changes that happen within him as he falls deeper into her world.

Overall, I enjoyed We, though I did feel that it was a little long. I enjoyed watching D-503 become gradually more “human” over the course of the book, indulging in emotions, starting to dream again, feeling violent urges, etc.

The Actual True Story of Ahmed & Zarga by Mohamedou Ould Slahi

This book is the first one I read explicitly for my Sovereign State Novel Challenge. Mohamedou Ould Slahi is from Mauritania—you may know him as the author of Guantánamo Diary, the memoir of the time that he was held in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. It was recently turned into a film called The Mauritian (which I have not watched).

Ahmed & Zarga is the story of Ahmed, a Mauritian camel herder who must go on a journey to recover Zarga, a young camel in his herd who has gone missing. The part of this book I found most interesting was the description of desert life in early 20th century Mauritania and how it differs so strongly from my own experiences.

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo

Finally I read this! It’s been on my list for ages, and I even bought and subsequently donated a copy of my own over the years. This is a classic Christie-style mystery from famous Japanese mystery writer Seishi Yokomizo. It’s the first in his series featuring private detective Kousuke Kindaichi. Kindaichi is a scruffy youth with a passion for logic and reasoning.

I really enjoyed this and read it over a period of maybe three days. I thought the mystery was well done and well clued (if you read, definitely try and figure it out before Kindaichi does)! I thought the story itself was haunting from an emotional perspective as well—so everything a mystery fan would want. It’s also very “meta” in that it references other mystery writers throughout, which I thought was fun and pointed me towards some authors I’m curious to check out now. I’m actually not very well read in this genre, but am going to pick up another Yokomizo volume sometime soon!

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

This is my first Ann Patchett book. It’s not the kind of thing I’m normally drawn towards, but by the second half I was really enjoying it. I’m curious to read another one of her books which I feel like I may like more.

Tom Lake is set during the pandemic on a Michigan cherry farm. Our protagonist, Lara, is quarantined there with her husband and three daughters. While spending all day picking cherries, they pester their mom to tell the story of her youth when she worked as an actress in a summer theater named Tom Lake and dated a man who would later become a famous actor. It swaps perspectives between the present and the past.

Overall, I liked it. The play Our Town is hugely important to the plot; I tend to enjoy books that are heavily influenced by other media, and this is no exception. I had never watched or read Our Town before this but I watched the 1940 film version while reading this. I did find some parts of the book to be a little precious, like when the girls tell their mom that she can’t call people “crazy” because it’s a slur (this could happen, but I didn’t get the impression that all three girls were the kind of person to say this—not all early Gen Z/late millennials are the type to word-police so strongly lol). There were five or six moments like this where I was like “ok…” but I also understand that this book is from the perspective of an older woman so it may ring more true to someone in that age group.

It’s a little optimistic at the end (maybe overly so?) but I thought it was realistic and balanced even if sentimental. Our Town is also sentimental but realistic…I read this as being a purposeful mirror between the stories.