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(Copied from Goodreads) There was an interesting setup - a superintelligent android, the man who rediscovered reading, a woman who refused to take the mind-control drugs - but there wasn't the payoff in the end that I was hoping for. The long stretches of diary entries by Paul felt like filler in places, not really fitting in to the rest of the story in any way that led somewhere. I think you are supposed to admire the way he reinvents the emotions of love and compassion for himself, but too much of it comes of as kind of obtuse. Probably for its time the way love and sex were depicted in the book were provocative although it's hard to see them that way now. For a dystopian novel there was a lot less of the atmosphere of doom around our characters than most because of the general breakdown in systems that felt to me like it didn't gibe with the idea of a superintelligent being. Perhaps it was the suicidal tendencies that Spofford harbored that ended up being expressed in the world he was supposed to take care of.

(Added 2025-12-06) I listened to the audiobook of this and discovered that I remembered exactly nothing from having read it ten years ago, characters, scenes, the way it ended. I think it was a little hard to believe the account of how Paul taught himself to read when he was young, but it was offset by making him pretty unremarkable in mostother respects. I recognize the section where he is living with the xenophobic Christian community as a critique of evangelical churches in America, which is more poignant at the present moment. it was still hard to get into the mind of Spofford the robot who turns out to have been personally responsible for many of the worst things of the world the dwindling humans were suffering. I liked the character of Mary Lou better in this re-read and the way she gets to make choices for herself in the middle part of the book. When Paul shows back up, however, it felt like she had to put up with a lot of his baggage without being able to express anything she wanted for herself and her child.

This is mostly a straightforward account of what it is like to be the subject of an attempted murder in public, to recover from life-threatening wounds, to adjust to physical and psychological damage over long months afterwards, and to learn what the most important values were in life. It includes one section of imaginary conversation between the author and his assailant which shed light on the frame of mind of the former and seems to have served a therapeutic function. To me, the tone was not one of conceit or celebration of his own superiority, but that of a man truly shaken to the core, which I found sympathetic. He finds himself forced to think back to the fatwa issued against his life over thirty years ago which took away his ability to go out in public with ease without fear of bloody violence. He was pleased to find that many people were on his side hoping for him to pull through and return to his art someday. He tells us that he had to write about this painful episode because for a while those were the only words he had to give, that the stories would not come for him until this all came out.

This book follows a pair of Irish criminals over a few decades, but specifically at an important point in their old age while they are waiting for the daughter of one of them to appear in Algeciras having gone off to Morocco. All their lives, Maurice and Charlie have engaged in criminal activities to support themselves, sometimes amassing enormous quantities of cash through the international drug trade. But the money never lasted as long as they hoped even after laundering it because of their addictions and other vices. The book spends some time from the point of view of the missing daughter, Dilly, who's been warned off of her father Maurice by her mother in her dying days. Now that Dilly is grown she understands why she should have nothing to do with them, to be free of their control and their malignant influence, and yet they still represent all she has left.

There are flashbacks going back decades that delve into the seamy side of the men's lives. There is one absolutely harrowing scene where they are observed arguing in a tavern late one night which felt electric with tension. Then there are the depictions of them isolated, wandering or on the run, on the edge of despair. The dialogue is often raw and vulgar, tending toward the violence, but it can also be profoundly evocative. The way Maurice talks about Dilly falls into a line of patter over and over again, like the refrain to a tune. The writing is not infrequently beautiful. There's a bit of a supernatural element regarding an purported ancient curse associated with the spot of land that Maurice and his wife chose to put up a housing development. It makes you think about whether their paths in life are determined by elements greater than themselves.

From the men's point of view, you can see strong emotion here, which may be love for the one they seek, in part, but also guilt and shame. These men are portrayed as bad men who have each done hateful things and yet they are in their own way compelling. That is why they wait night after night on a sliver of hope. The two men are friends, but the connection is fraught with betrayal and suspicion. Each wears scars from their association. There is no assurance that they expect some kind of forgiveness from Dilly, if she does arrive on the boat from Tangier. And yet it hangs out there. Maybe some part of them just wants a quiet reconciliation as though the worst things never happened.

An Irish story talking about two men who are waiting for a third invites comparison to Waiting for Godot. The boat of the title is ever uncertain, there are continual rumors about its status, so it's easy to see parallels. I didn't pick up a clear reason why they thought they had to carry on this vigil, but I feel like I could understand their bleak lives and why the author had to write about them.

This is a first collection from an emerging poet which ranges over many topics, particularly the neurodivergent experience and gender and relationship issues. Most are told from a first-person point of view but not all are confessional in nature. A few come across as experiments with form and feature such techniques as erasures, and I noticed that a few ventured into wordplay which I always appreciate. In my opinion it seemed better than several other poetry collections I have read, whether first-time outings or those by more established poets. I will be interested in seeing where this author's writing will go in the future.

This is another one of those books describing how to find values that are meaningful to you in life. But the big difference is the experience the author had when his daughter was born with a congenital heart defect and how that played out over decades. It was a condition that even the medical experts had problems coming up with really very reliable prognosis for the treatment. So over an extended period of time the author's family went through a series of episodes of despair and hope regained and some normal stretches of time which were interrupted by declines. Although his daughter did outlive the first estimates given by the doctors she did eventually succumb to her illness, leading her father to rediscover meaning in life afterwards. He describes a dramatic story of a time when he had lost all sense of life being worth living, which culminated in an almost mystical experience that made him change his mind.

The author works as a professor of public health, but beyond that, he took his renewed mission in life to help people discover what the true important things in a worthwhile life. By getting to know this author as a person it is easier for a reader to understand the familiar advice books of this kind tend to advocate. These include advice to avoid those illusory pleasures and things that take us away from lasting contentment, to find the value in deep relationships with others, to take care of your own health even though you know it is not something that will last forever. To use money instead of letting your money control you, to really get to know yourself through meditation and mindfulness techniques - these represent the wisdom of the ages. Nothing in the way of new ground is being broken here, but it's all valid and it's good to hear.

The author got to know spiritual teachers and ask them direct questions about what happens at the time of death. He has some useful tips on how to keep up with a commitment to daily meditation. By the end, a long time after the loss of his daughter, he takes on a hopeful tone describing a new sort of happiness. I would recommend this book for anyone who has either experienced or anticipates having to cope with grief and desolation.

This book goes all the way back before jazz itself was a genre up to the 2010s, providing an overview that even most aficionados are unlikely to be familiar with. The author writes with enthusiasm about the things a newcomer would want to know - where jazz had its stat, who was influential in changing the direction it would go, the kinds of audiences that listened to early jazz both live and recorded, the waves of re-creation it went through during the mid-century decodes as new players reacted to what went before. The author is a well known music journalist whose articles and books have won him a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Journalists Association. He has performed himself on piano and writes here about the struggles a practicing musician typically finds keeping up with ever increasing new ideas in the art form. He does not dive deep into music theory beyond a description of the most prevalent song forms. Nor does he try to be an encyclopedic source, concentrating on getting the newcomer excited about what they will be able to find. Nearly all the greats of jazz are mentioned by name and a brief sketch of their important contributions is provided for the reader to explore further through listening.

I had been hoping the audiobook version would have had some audio segments to go along with the points the author was making, but no such luck. There isn't an official companion recording with all the suggested listening, but when I looked I found many of them on streaming sites in the form of playlists users have compiled. I think that reading this as a physical book or ebook along with the downloadable pdf list of recent musicians worth paying attention to would actually be more convenient that the audiobook format.

I don't recall how this self-help book got on my to-read list, unfortunately. I am not in the stage of life where I can apply the principles being taught here, which are intended for a young person trying to get established. I would say that now happiness is not tied to a paycheck now but self-actualization is important. So the advice to do your research, aim high, make a stab at doing something on your own, refining what you deliver until you find traction are all familiar but not super relevant.

I was a little unnerved at the beginning when he spoke about some people whose fans make me nervous: people like Robert Kiyosaki, Marianne Williamson, Scott Adams, Robert Greene, Scott Adams, and Peter Thiel. But to his credit the author specifically disavows any claim that the road to success is easily attainable or within anyone's grasp. He even warns against the "hustle culture" which is more likely to lead to burnout than to a unicorn startup. Mainly he argues against beginning with a defeatist mindset which is a quick path to giving up prematurely.

He is mainly talking about his own experience at leaving the wage slave life in favor of becoming a self-made entrepreneur and aspiring vision leader. While this can be a good place to start, I don't feel he adequately acknowledges those life situations that can put the brakes on forward progress in this manner: no access to capital, being a caregiver, health issues, substance addiction, victims of violence. Sure, there are ways to start a blog or mailing list without putting money down, in between other responsibilities and challenges, but it seems to me to be a fragile house of cards that can fold up after the individual experiences a couple bad days. And just like everybody else in the advice business, he doesn't propose a way to manufacture good luck, which can be the most important thing, more than a rational, Stoic mindset, good as that may be.

The book is written in a good writing style that I think probably appeals to people receptive to its message. It is part of a crowded field of non-fiction advice literature with lots of famous names and might not be a standout among them.

This was a much talked-about short story I read a few months after it came out, which amazed me because of how it committed to the alien body horror topic and left me with questions about the moral aspects of what happened. In a survival situation, basically a lifeboat scenario, how much loss of autonomy would you put up? And if you don't have any actual choice in the matter, how does it change how you picture yourself afterwards? Would you start to think of your body as something that can be hacked from the outside like some mechanism, or is that too hard to separate so easily from the idea of self? The story should be fenced around with trigger and content warnings for readers who might be set off by scenes of sexuality and possible violence.