Olivia Laing

2016

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A study of loneliness through the medium of several different artists, and the author's discovery and reaction to them. Some of these artists are well-known, in name if not in the detail of their lives: Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper, Billie Holliday, and even to a lesser extent Valeri Solanas (who shot Warhol). Others were unknown to me: David Wojnarowicz and (especially) Henry Darger.

I'm not convinced that the studies of these artists – fascinating though they are – casts much light either on the author's travails or on loneliness more broadly. The first part of the book is stronger in this respect, with a quite penetrating analysis of the difference between loneliness and solitude, and the virtues (for some) of being alone. It's something every introvert can identify with. I was left with the feeling of a chapter missing, the need to draw all the strings of art and reflection together.

4/5. Finished 24 February 2018.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Paul Jankowski

2013

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A history of the longest battle of the First World War – or is it? The events of the actual battle get remarkably little space or discussion. Instead the book deals with the social history of the soldiers on both sides (although primarily the French), and on the various traps of attrition, prestige, and inertia that the generals and their political masters fell into. This is fascinating stuff, but there's an unspoken assumption that the reader is primarily interested in these broader issues, and furthermore already knows all the important features of the battle itself in enough detail to not need even a chronology. Having read the book I still don't know how the battle ended. It's probably better therefore to think about this book as an exploration of the wider landscape, both official and personal, of the experience of a huge and extended battle, rather than having all that much to do with the battle as an event.

3/5. Finished 24 February 2018.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Yuval Noah Harari

2015

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A determined effort to step back from the small-scale considerations – climate change, obesity, that sort of thing – and focus on the force that transcend these problems and are driving the changes in society and technology that we see all around us.

Harari sees three primal desires driving the twenty-first century: to defeat death, to engineer the human mind and emotions, and to achieve practical omnipotence in addressing real-world problems. And he explores all three of these desires with the perceptiveness of a historian while demonstrating an impressive scientific depth of understanding.

This is a book full of passages to make one think. Is religion just a technology for imbuing events with meaning? – and if so, are humanism and science just religions, advocating a different set of values? Is science really about the acquisition of power, rather than about the acquisition of knowledge or understanding? As a scientist myself I don't think I'm looking for power, but I have to say I'm less confident about that belief applied to science as a whole after reading Harari's analysis.

Harari rides his ideas to their logical conclusions, in the emerge of trans-humanism and Data-ism as alternative driving ideologies for the twenty-first century. The former looks to upgrade humans, and therefore to introduce real empirical inequalities between upgraded and "natural" humans; the latter regards everything through the lens of data processing, and so argues that humans need to step aside in favour of the unconscious but intelligent algorithms we've created. He then spins round and argues that both these trends are destructive of liberalism and the core of current humanist thinking, and so are essentially political as well as philosophical and technical questions. It's an impressive feat and, if we believe it, poses massive challenges – not least in finding a common language within which to discuss them and determine a way forward.

5/5. Finished 24 February 2018.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

David Enrich

2017

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Another exploration of the financial crisis, this time the manipulation of Libor by a group of bankers: one can't really call them a cartel or gang, I think, as that implies a conspiracy and direction that was absent. And that's what makes the story so interesting to me: that a group of individuals essentially self-organised by looking to their own interests into a collective defrauding of most of the Western world.

And they were so unaware! – not simply in the sense of defending themselves, but in their inability to see beyond the horizons of the "game" of finance, to the fact that they weren't living in a closed universe where their actions lacked wider implications. The protagonist is clearly clinically Aspergic, but one has to wonder to what extent all the players had somehow managed to shut off their peripheral vision.

I think the story also has implications for regulation that have been raised before: how do you deter people who don't believe their actions are criminal? It's not that they don't think they'll be caught: it's that they don't see they've anything to be caught for, and that strokes at the heart of a lot of regulation. The fact that society falls on them post facto might be somewhat satisfying, but it doesn't prevent recurrence, not least because none of the more senior players face meaningful sanction. There are still a lot of crises to come until ww come to terms with this.

4/5. Finished 11 November 2017.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

J.D. Vance

2016

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What happens when a rural culture spills-out into a more urban environment? What happens when the ties between parts of families are broken by distance, and the habits that might have sustained them in their new surroundings turn out to be toxic in isolation? That's the world that Vance explores, and indeed from which he escaped. This is by turns social commentary and a deeply personal memoir, made stronger by the authors' insights into his own behaviour and evolution, his interactions with his girlfriend (and later wife) from outside the boundaries of his own hillbilly background.

I don't think the book is quite the searing explanation of recent American politics that it has been presented to be: that feels to me like an over-reading, and an unnecessary one given that it does explain well many features of American working class struggle. Many aspects feel uniquely American: despite a clear lineage in Scots-Irish immigration, I can't see many of the factors at work in the UK or Europe, and we should be glad for that, but I'm sure there's a similar story waiting to be told in these countries too.

4/5. Finished 11 November 2017.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)