Patriot, Alexei Navalny

 

Patriot: A memoir by Alexei Navalny

Started: May 16, 2025
Completed: May 22, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Presidents, etc.

Review:

This is a brutally sad book.  Of course, you know before starting that Navalny died in prison and was almost certainly poisoned (a 45 year old who survived and recovered from a hunger strike as well as prior poisonings does not die easily).  You know that he was a person who dedicated his life to Russia and struggled to bring to the light the corrupt practices of the members of Putin's entourage.  You probably assumed, but didn't have hard proof that he was a loving husband and father.  You likely didn't know that he was a Christian.  Odds are good that you didn't know anything about his "prison Zen."  What an incredible man and what a horrible loss to the Russian people.  Recommended, but know that this is a very sad book.

All These Worlds, Dennis E. Taylor

 

All These Worlds by Dennis E. Taylor is the next book in the Bobiverse

Started:  March 14, 2025
Completed: May 17, 2025
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I just love this series.  The basic concept (a mind is uploaded to a computer) is interesting, but combining it with a von Neuman machine is brilliant.  Add in alien contact on many different levels and it is hard not to love this book.

The Witchwood Crown, Tad Williams

 

The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams is the first book  in the Last King of Osten Ard

Started: November 23, 2024
Completed: May 16, 2025
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: Nobody, but I did read the first set of books in this series quite some time ago.  I have met the author at a book signing and brought all my copies of his books when I did meet him.  He was kind enough to sign them all and I really enjoyed talking with him.

Review:

It is with relief and a sense of homecoming that I have rejoined Osten Ard, once more in trouble and struggling to resolve issues likely beyond simple understanding.  As this book ended, I felt I was immediately ready to dive into the next!  It took me so long to read, however, as I had to take it out of the library several times in order to finish it and there were frequently long delays between holds.  It seems likely that I will need to purchase the next one.  I enjoy the richness of the races, the detail of this other world, and the growth and development of the characters.

Abundance, Klein and Thompson

 

Abundance:  How we build a better future by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Started: May 9, 2025
Completed: May 12, 2025
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended by: Nobody, I seem to be on an Ezra Klein kick

Review:

So, the thesis of this book seems to be:  create abundance and then we will live in abundance.  That is true.  The obstacles to abundance are, well, OK.  If regulations are relaxed, then it will be easier and faster to build, well, everything.  So, why not ease the regulations?  After all, some of them don't make sense, like, well, zoning.  Oh, and, also make it easier to get research grants and make those grants on high risk projects.  After all, nobody is going to abuse that funding.  So, this is the liberal agenda without any safe guards.  Or is it?  Is this the conservative agenda?

Experience has shown that easing regulations leads to abuse.  Now, taking bigger risk on research grants and making it easier to comply with the paperwork for a research grant makes some sense.  The problem is that whenever regulations are eased, there are abuses and the those abuses (for, say, construction or even research) have been seriously egregious.  There is a case to be made that private money can get this stuff done faster.  When it happens that way, though, we end up fires that take out Chicago or San Francisco.  We end up with sinking buildings in Florida and buildings/roadways that cannot survive an earthquake in LA.  We end up with mining tailings in the water and air so thick it cannot be breathed.  But just the relax the regulations.  Maybe the onerous ones that prevent industrial sites near schools (Love Canal anyone)?  Or the ones that govern how mines are managed (Centralia Pennsylvania)?

I get that there is a real problem with NIMBYism and I can see how regulations (particularly zoning laws) facilitate that.  This book, however, simply says that those regulations which make it hard to build stuff (like environmental impact studies) should just be removed.  So, yes, the building would move forward faster and cheaper, but the world would not be better for the effort.  Why not look at how to make environmental impact studies for efficient and faster?  Maybe more people working on the impact study would help?  Maybe there is a way to consider cascading impacts that could be handled by integrated assessment teams?  Maybe NIMBY can be solved by reducing the impact of the rich on government (hold meetings when everyone can attend like 2:00 on the weekend), require petitions with signatures to halt things (instead of some wealthy guy hitting up his friend on council), and require quality of life impacts that match the quality of life impact of completing the project (so reduced value of the neighborhood housing is not used to weigh against providing housing for more people).  I don't know, but it feels to me like the authors cherry picked some regulations that they don't like and decided that no regulations are good if they impact PROGRESS.

The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami

 

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

Started: May 4, 2025
Completed: May 9, 2025
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: I really enjoyed Conditional Citizens, so I thought I should give the author another try.

Review:

In this dystopian near future, constant monitoring of activity and even dreams leads to crime prevention by putting people in retention facilities prior to committing a crime.  These facilities are capriciously run by for-profit companies.  I really found it hard to constantly immerse myself in this environment.  I did not enjoy the experience nor find it enlightening (this kind of thing is already happening in our existing prison system).  The solution to the problem (instead of not being noticed, basically, be noticed for reasons the for profit doesn't like) seems pat and too quick.  I did not enjoy it.

A Brief History of Intelligence, Max Bennett

 

A Brief History of Intelligence:  Evolution, AI, and the five breakthroughs that made our brains by Max Bennett

Started: April 28, 2025
Completed: May 4, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is what it says it is in the title.  I thought it might be a book skewed towards AI because it was written by Bennett, but it is not.  This book is far more skewed towards the evolution of intelligence and, more pointedly, toward the 5 major changes in that evolution that Bennett thinks led to modern intelligence.  Because Bennett is an AI expert and not an evolutionary biologist (or anyone who is an expert in the history of intelligence), I have decided to take his breakthroughs with a grain of salt.  In fairness, he makes a good case and he is motivated by his study of AI to do a good job in his analysis.  I could see a few obvious mistakes, but I also could feel his passion for the subject and that that made up for the issues.  There is nothing glaring and there is good reason to believe that this 5 breakthroughs are pretty reasonable tilting points (thinking of Gladwell) that led to modern intelligence.  My ignorance of the field overall makes it difficult for me to claim any sort of understanding that would allow me to judge for certain what is and what is not crucial.

Babylonia, Costanza Casati

 

Babylonia by Costanza Casati

Started: February 2, 2025
Completed: April 28, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I have read a lot about ancient Greece and ancient Rome.  My knowledge of ancient Persia and ancient Babylon is more sparse.  I am familiar with the myths and legends of the former, but know little of the myths and legends of the latter.  This book was a welcome look at some of the legends.  A female ruler in that era was virtually unknown and so it is always good to read a little bit more about how a woman might have come to power.  Surely, the author has gone into a considerable amount of fiction in order for this book to work as the actual historical record amounts to so little.  Nonetheless, I found the book enjoyable and an interesting way to imagine a woman coming to power in an environment where it seems so unlikely.  The cutthroat period was also something I knew only from an occasional glance at Bas reliefs and those were pretty awful.  Casati does a good job of offering a possible explanation for both how such things came about and how they might have affected those involved.  A good read.