AI Snake Oil, Narayanan and Kapoor

 

AI Snake Oil:  What artificial intelligence can do, what it can't, and how to tell the difference by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor

Started: December 26, 2024
Completed: December 30, 2024
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

There is a bit to this book which helps people understand the nature of outrageous claims.  The takeaway from me was the means by which AI companies claim the accuracy of their product (top 3, 5, 10, etc.)  In addition, treating AI with a broad brush is a disservice to those who are attempting to understand what it is reasonable for AI to accomplish.  So, at the least useful.  Not terribly gripping, so it is good that it is short.

Be Ready When the Luck Happens, Ina Garten

 

Be Ready When the Luck Happens:  A Memoir by Ina Garten

Started: 12/24/2024
Completed: 12/26/2024
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: My wife, I used to watch her cooking shows, The Barefoot Contessa

Review:

To a certain extent, this is lifestyles of the rich and famous.  Once you have built your second home or purchased an apartment in Paris so that you can rehab it, you have jumped into the rich.  Selling a bunch of cooking books and/or having your own cooking show probably puts you into the famous.  It wasn't always this way, but Ina's dad seemed to give her some background in real estate.  Her husband, Jefferey, was part of Lehman Brothers and then Yale.  So, young couple makes good, yes.  They had a pretty good start (taking time to wander France in their youth and both both attended very good colleges).  They had the money to invest in businesses and invested wisely most of the time.  Good for them!  A bit hard to relate, though.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune

 

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune is the next book in the Cerulean Chronicles

Started: 12/17/2024
Completed: 12/24/2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is mostly a fun book encouraging acceptance and finding joy in the individual.  I like it!  It was interesting that all the children came from male-female families, but all the adults are in same sex relationships.  Tiny nit in a huge, wonderful story.

A Darker Shade of Magic, V. E. Schwab

 

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab

Started: December 11, 2024
Completed: December 14, 2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This was a good book.  The world building was brief, but clear.  The interactions were good and there was some character development.  This book made me hungry for more.  A return to these worlds would be welcome.

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife, Anna Johnston

 

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston

Started: December 8, 2024
Completed: December 11, 2024
Recommendation: Mild recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I enjoyed most of this book.  I was led to believe that this was a comedy, but it is not.  This is a tear jerker and it certainly jerked tears from me.  I don't like sorrow and I would much prefer something purely uplifting.  This book is not that.  It is, however, well written and the characters are truly something else.  So, normally, I would recommend this book, but I cannot in good conscious fully recommend a tear jerker.

Gilead, Marilynn Robinson

 

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Started: December 6, 2024
Completed: December 8, 2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody that I can think of, but maybe I saw it on the Pulitzer Prize list and with Gilead becoming charged in my mind from The Handmaid's Tale, perhaps that drew me in.

Review:

This is a truly odd book.  An "old man's" letter to his young son is not a format I would have thought to write.  Certainly not a pastor.  Nope, not me.  All the same, this book came across as authentic to me and I enjoyed it.  It seemed a tad like As I Lay Dying (Faulkner) except it was much, much easier to understand and there was less of the ghoulishness of that book.

White Rage, Carol Anderson

 

White Rage:  The unspoken truth of our racial divide by Carol Anderson

Started: November 26, 2024
Completed: December 7, 2024
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: A reading list of books addressing white racial prejudice

Review:

The material in this book is well collected.  I have read it across many other sources, but this book collects together all of that material and methodically walks through it with a welcome set of end notes for virtually each passage.  As such, for me, where the references were sometimes books that I had already read, this did not bring particularly new information, but, rather brought many thoughts together as one compelling thought.