Stuff I've Been Reading October 2021

Books Read October 2021

 

An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frankel and Cecilia Kang. (library hardcover and overdrive audiobook). 400 pgs. 400 running pgs. 1 October.

Everything that you suspected was wrong with Facebook is true. Frankel and Kang have the data to show it. In the words of tech critic Kara Swisher: "Silicon Valley is full of a bunch of big brains chasing small ideas." And "I think Mark Zuckerberg is very bad at running Facebook." "He lives in a bubble and rarely hears dissenting voices."

 

Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz. (paper). 107 pgs. 507 running pgs. 2 October.

Intense. Not the happiest poems. But if you have an interest in contemporary poetry and American Indian issues it is very good.

Landslide: The final days of the Trump presidency by Michael Wolff. (kindle and overdrive audiobook). 336 pgs. 843 running pgs. 4 October. 

Gossipy and juicy. Perhaps not good journalism. But Wolff does paint a very vivid picture of what was happening in the last few months of the Trump White House.

Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So. (library hardcover and overdrive audiobook). 272 pgs. 1115 running pgs. 7 October.

Stories that mix humor and pathos to focus on the life of Cambodian Americans and the many issues there. Also many of the stories are queer literature. Veasna So died too young.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. (paper and audible audiobook). 429 pgs. 1544 running pgs. 13 October. 

Yes, I've read it before (more than thirty years ago). Yes, it is just as good the second time. In the words of my friend Ted Murphy "Garcia Marquez earned every inch of that Nobel prize."

Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. (kindle and overdrive audiobook). 512 pgs. 2056 running pgs. 20 October.

Covers much of the same ground as Wolff's book, but also has information about the first few months of the Biden White House. Very detailed with much information I was unaware of -- especially about the January 6 insurrection -- but also dry. There is not much of an effort to give a higher broader pass and to put the details into a grand narrative.

 

Books Purchased October 2021

The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea. (audible audiobook). 5 October

Christopher Unborn by Carlos Fuentes. (kindle). 21 October.