Transformed by Marty Cagain (2024)

I always enjoy Marty Cagan’s books. He does not just describe features, benefits, and processes. He explains the reasoning and data behind them. More important, he dwells on the friction, sabotage, and failure modes teams face when they try to adopt his methods. That pattern continues here. The book is clear about the pain required to move from output-driven delivery to true product organizations.

Cagan lays out the core ideas in practical terms. He contrasts empowered product teams with feature factories. He defines the roles of product, design, and engineering. He explains continuous discovery, product operations, and leadership responsibility for creating the right environment. The goal is an organization that can learn, adapt, and ship valuable products at speed.

He is also blunt about talent. Success depends not only on skills and experience but also on innate talent, intelligence, capability, and capacity. He treats those factors as prerequisites, not optional enhancements. That stance is rare in management books and central to his argument.

The transformation focus is where the book stands out. He catalogs blockers in detail: legacy processes, weak leadership, misaligned incentives, and cultural resistance. He describes how teams will struggle, stall, and sometimes fail. That warning is credible because it matches the reality most practitioners face. His vision remains aspirational, but he does not hide the cost of reaching it.

The timing matters. Large enterprises are under pressure to adopt generative AI as a baseline capability. Cagan’s framework helps organizations build the product discipline required to absorb that shift, even though the book is not about AI mechanics.

I value Cagan's clarity, his honesty about difficulty, and the insistence on high standards.

5/5 stars.

The Slave by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1962)

I enjoyed this novel. Singer tells a long, direct, and engrossing story that opens a vivid window into Jewish life under persecution in Eastern Europe. The novel is set in the aftermath of the Khmelnytsky massacres in the 17th century during a centuries-long era where 3 million jews were killed before the holocaust, reminding me of this book. That setting gives the book much of its force.

The protagonist, Jacob, is a devout Jewish survivor who is captured and enslaved after communal violence destroys his world. Later redeemed by a Jewish village, he struggles to rebuild a life while carrying grief, faith, and desire. He returns for Wanda, the non-Jewish woman he loves, and she must hide her identity within a rigid religious community.

Singer uses Jacob’s journey to explore several themes: trauma after massacre, the pull of love against law, exile, communal suspicion, and the meaning of devotion amid suffering. The novel also shows how ordinary people understood fate, sin, duty, and God in a brutal age.

The prose feels simple, but the moral and emotional questions run deep. The suffering is visceral, yet the book never becomes mere spectacle. It remains humane, intimate, and psychologically sharp.

A powerful historical and spiritual novel. 4/5 stars.

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli (2017)

This is the best book I have read this year. Rovelli compresses physics, philosophy, and human reflection into a short, lucid work. Without mathematics or technical formalism, he explains how modern science has unsettled the common idea of time as a single universal flow.

The book sketches several major concepts with rare clarity: relativity’s rejection of one shared clock, thermodynamics and entropy as sources of time’s direction, quantum theory’s challenge to fixed sequences of events, and quantum gravity’s suggestion that time may not be fundamental at all. Rovelli also explores memory, perception, and consciousness as parts of how humans experience temporal order.

The achievement is not simplification but precision. Complex ideas remain concise, clear, and free of jargon. Rovelli joins scientific rigor with philosophical depth, showing how fragile and contingent our ordinary sense of past, present, and future may be.

It is a profound and elegant book. 5/5 stars.

Never Flinch by Stephen King (2024)

Like most fans of Stephen King's writing style, I was pleased to see another Holly Gibney story that contains very little or no supernatural horror. I dislike horror and I also avoid the Dark Tower universe entirely. This book delivers a fun thriller with enjoyable characters and some solid comic relief.

The protagonists come across as a little too goody-goody while the antagonists and their networks feel similarly one-sided and purely evil with no redeeming qualities. It is by no means Stephen King's best work. I felt sad to read about the author's health issues in the afterword, which perhaps explains some of the political dogma and shrill indignation sprinkled throughout the story.

3/5 stars.

The Dual-Use Instrument: AI's Golden Age of Breakthroughs and the Erosion of Human Cognition

Sam Kriss wrote that in 1931, Soviet neuropsychologist Alexander Luria trekked to the remote foothills of the Alai Mountains and discovered something profound: basic literacy didn't just teach people to read. Literacy rewired how they thought. Illiterate peasants grouped shapes by lived experience (a circle was the moon, a square a drinking bowl). A few years of Soviet schooling flipped the switch.  These same people grouped by abstract geometry and solved hypothetical syllogisms about white bears in the Far North. Literacy birthed a new mind, one capable of abstractions, counterfactuals, and the kind of imaginative leap that fuels revolutionary politics and scientific progress.

Fast-forward to 2026. We're living through the mirror image of Luria's observation, but in reverse. AI chatbots, transformer models, and large language models (LLMs) are delivering superhuman feats of synthesis, prediction, and creation. Yet they're quietly undoing the cognitive habits that literacy once instilled. The same tools that are saving doctors time and accelerating Nobel-worthy science are fostering what one researcher calls "cognitive surrender" - the outsourcing of reasoning itself.

An interesting case is this Substack post, about a general practitioner (GP) medical doctor and digital health leader. The author dove headfirst into ambient AI scribing for 18 months. The promise was intoxicating: walk into a 10-minute consultation, maintain eye contact, speak naturally, and emerge with a complete, structured note. Burnout dropped. Documentation time plummeted by ~26%. It felt like getting the consultation back.

Then the second-order effects hit. Consultations stretched because he stopped curating in real time—why steer when the machine records everything? Follow-up notes were accurate but ailien: comprehensive transcripts lacked his clinical voice, synthesis, or "illness scripts" (those experiential mental models GPs build through thousands of encounters). The act of writing the note had been doing invisible cognitive work, prioritizing, reflecting, & reasoning. Offloading those thought processes broke the feedback loop. The doctor stopped using the tool not because it failed, but because it succeeded too well, causing subtle, deleterious side-effects.

We're not returning to pre-literate sensory immediacy. We're entering something stranger: a world of infinite generated content where direct experience is mediated by AI, and where abstract, counterfactual thinking is disappearing.

The Golden Age: What AI Has Already Delivered

AI breakthroughs are breathtaking.

Transformer models and LLMs have supercharged science in ways that were science fiction five years ago. AlphaFold and its 2024 Nobel Prize-winning successors, including AlphaFold 3 solved the 50-year protein-folding problem, predicting structures for over 200 million proteins with near-experimental accuracy. It now models how proteins interact with DNA, RNA, small molecules, and ions, unlocking rational drug design at unprecedented speed. AI-powered pipelines are delivering drug candidates 75% faster than traditional methods. Autonomous AI agents like Kosmos are compressing six months of PhD-level research into a single 12-hour run.

In materials science, AI has screened millions of candidates to discover new battery chemistries, carbon-capture materials, and quantum-computing components. Weather models run with hyper-accurate long-range forecasts. Self-improving labs iterate experiments in real time, slashing waste and cost. The 2024 to Q1 2026 period alone saw AI contribute to breakthroughs in fusion plasma control, exoplanet classification, and even new mathematical insights.

Economically, the gains are compounding. Generative AI is projected to add 1.5% to U.S. GDP by 2035, rising to 3.7% by 2075 through productivity alone. Industries with high AI exposure saw 10% productivity jumps, 3.9% job growth, and 4.8% wage increases in 2024-2025. Documentation tools like the one Gooch used are slashing administrative drag across veterinary medicine, human medicine, law, and engineering. Code generation, creative ideation, and data synthesis are freeing humans for higher-order work.

Many of these concrete accomplishments are not hype cycles. They are measurable, peer-reviewed revolutions in capability.

The Regressions: Literacy, Rationality, and the Extended Mind

Just as writing once pulled minds into abstraction, AI is pulling them back toward “fake it til you make it” fluency without friction, answers without effort, and sensory immediacy without synthesis.

Literacy rates and deep reading have been sliding since 2014 and the back slide is accelerating with AI. Elite university students increasingly can't finish a novel or parse a complex sentence without AI. One Kansas study found English majors struggling with Dickens' Bleak House—treating a metaphorical Megalosaurus as a literal dinosaur in Victorian London. These students respond like Luria's illiterate peasants: tethered to immediate, concrete reality.

Cognitive science gives insight into the relationship between literacy and cognition. "Extended mind" theory shows that writing isn't just recording thoughts; writing completes these thoughts. Gooch's experience mirrors these findings: AI notes broke the loop that built clinical expertise. Broader studies show AI users exhibit "cognitive offloading," that in turn causes declines in working memory, analytic reasoning, and critical thinking. People accept faulty AI outputs 73% of the time in controlled experiments lending evidence to the deleterious effects of "cognitive surrender.” Attention, skepticism, and the scientific method itself erode when LLMs do the synthesizing.

Steven Pinker's Rationality (2021) warned that we aren't born rational; we build rationality through deliberate practice in logic, probability, Bayesian reasoning, and causal inference. AI short-circuits and prevents skill growth from practice. Why wrestle with a syllogism when the model answers instantly? Why cultivate skepticism when the output is fluent and confident? The Enlightenment ideals, including empiricism, skepticism, & evidence-based progress rely on the very cognitive muscles we're letting atrophy with AI.

Backsliding in Human Potential

This phenomenon is not only about doctors or students. It's about the quiet diminishment of what makes a life meaningful.

In the arts, AI generates poems, paintings, and music at superhuman volume. Why labor through the frustration of original creation when the machine delivers polish? Personal artistic potential, the struggle that forges voice and vision fades in our “Age of AI.”

Economically, wealth creation has always come from human ingenuity: spotting unseen opportunities, iterating through failure, building novel systems. When AI handles the ideation and execution, the incentive to cultivate deep expertise or entrepreneurial grit weakens.

Philosophically, the great explorations of ethics, metaphysics, epistemology demand solitary wrestling with ambiguity. AI offers instant summaries and counterarguments. The joy of building your own worldview erodes. We risk a generation fluent in AI outputs but starved of the internal scaffolding that once produced  Socrates, Newton, Kant, Einstein, da Vinci.

Politics itself may regress from reasoned debate over imagined futures to tribal sensory immediacy. Streamers repeat formulas rather than abstract justice.

A Realistic, Guardedly Optimistic Future

None of these cognitive declines and their effects on society are inevitable.

We stand at an inflection point with enlightenment, wisdom, and agency. The post-literate age does not inevitably mean cognitive collapse. The “Age of AI” can mean augmented humanity if we treat AI as a seductively dangerous instrument, not a prosthesis.

Imagine "AI literacy" curricula that teaches not just prompts, but deliberate cognitive preservation: handwritten notes alongside AI drafts, Socratic challenges to model outputs, mandatory "unplugged" reasoning drills. Doctors like Gooch can (and some do!) use AI for transcription while reclaiming note authorship as a sacred clinical craft. Scientists could let agents run rote experiments while humans focus on the counterfactual leaps AI can't yet replicate.

The same transformers accelerating AlphaFold could help restore rationality.  Personalized tutors that drill children in skepticism, Bayesian thinking, tools that flag our own cognitive biases in real time. Economic gains could fund equal universal infrastructure: clean air, clean water, sanitation, energy, roads, railways, & telecommunication, that could free more people wealth creation, and personal “pursuit of happiness,” including creative and philosophical pursuits.

In the end, the future will not be purely post-literate or pre-AI literacy. It will be hybrid: a new extended mind where AI handles the volume and humans reclaim the voice, the synthesis, the purpose. The kids raised by AI dolls won't inevitably lose abstraction; they will almost certainly evolve a meta-literacy we cannot yet imagine.

We know that society shapes thought. Now you and I get to shape this society. The instrument is in our hands. We must use it carefully to cut away drudgery while sharpening the blade of the human mind. The breakthroughs and progress are themselves accelerating.  

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and other Stories by Leo Tolstoy (1886)

I never read any Russian authors while growing up because of the Cold War, so Russian literature was completely new territory for me when I retired. We had read a translation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in school, but that was framed more as Cold War history than literature. After finishing Anna Karenina (which disappointed me; see my review here: https://mitchwyle.blogspot.com/2024/11/anna-karenina-by-leo-tolstoy-1875-1878.html) I complained about it over dinner with friends. One of them suggested I try Tolstoy’s short stories instead, so I picked up this collection.

The stories are technically excellent. The plots are tight and strong, the characters are painted in rich three-dimensional detail, and there are moments of sharp humor that I genuinely enjoyed. This volume includes the famous novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich along with several other shorter pieces that showcase Tolstoy’s skill at concise storytelling.

What wore me down, however, was the relentless moralizing. Every story hammers the same theme: oppressed Russian peasants suffer under the weight of blind, self-serving oligarchs and bureaucrats, while the powerful remain oblivious to the obvious immorality and unsustainability of the system. The Christian theological preaching and sense of outrage felt heavy-handed and repetitive. Unlike Anna Karenina, these stories do not linger on the neurotic inner lives of the elites, but the sermon-like tone still grated on me.

I am glad I read the collection for the craftsmanship and the characters, but it has put me off Tolstoy entirely. I will not be moving on to War and Peace or his other major works. I may explore Pushkin next, though I worry I lack enough historical context to appreciate him fully.

3/5 stars.

First Command by Michael Simon (2025)

I picked up the first volume because the series has been getting press as a fun, accessible space opera. Unfortunately readers' complaints about the weak science turned out to be much worse than readers said. Spaceships list and roll like sailing vessels, belch smoke and flames in hard vacuum, and crash into asteroids that are packed so closely they might as well be in a traffic jam. The sheer volume of basic physics violations made it impossible to stay immersed.
The story itself is also relatively weak. The antagonists are cartoonishly one-dimensional — evil simply because they are evil — while the protagonists are much better drawn: heroic, self-doubting, and colorful. The core space-opera premise could have been enjoyable if the science had not been so distractingly awful, but the writing never rises above serviceable.
2/5 stars. Disrecommend

Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe (1929)

This book was my first Thomas Wolfe novel, which feels embarrassing to admit because he was my mother’s favorite author. I still have her copy of You Can’t Go Home Again sitting on my shelf, untouched. In high school American Literature we read only excerpts, but we did learn the colorful details: Wolfe was a giant of a man (6'6", 2m), used a refrigerator as a writing desk, filled yellow legal pads with a Cross pen, writing just 3–4 words per line, every third line, and shipped entire orange crates of manuscript pages to his editor, who would eventually telegram him to stop so they could carve a book out of the mountain of prose.

Look Homeward, Angel is a classic “roman à clef” — essentially Wolfe’s own life turned into fiction. The protagonist Eugene Gant is a thinly veiled version of Wolfe himself, and the large, chaotic family, the small Southern town (based on his native Asheville, North Carolina), and many of the events are drawn directly from his upbringing, though heavily exaggerated and melo-dramatized.

The novel is driven by Eugene’s intense longing for meaning, his obsession with time, memory, and mortality, and a soaring, almost mystical romanticism. Wolfe’s prose is dense, lyrical, and richly descriptive — it frequently reminded me of Proust in its lush detail and of Thomas Hardy in its emotional weight. The writing is immersive and often beautiful, even if the book itself is very long and occasionally meandering. This book is a powerful, passionate, and deeply personal coming-of-age novel. It is worth reading for the sheer force of the language alone.

4/5 stars.

Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2026)

This fourth volume in Tchaikovsky’s wildly inventive Children of Time space opera series continues the story with a universe overflowing with grotesque, wildly imaginative biology. This time we encounter planetary-scale living systems, distributed intelligences, and growth rates 50 million times faster than physics would allow. The rapidly growing and morphing biology strongly reminds me of Neal Asher and his vivid, vivisection-like obsession rapid transformation.

Getting past the hard-to-swallow science, the story and character arcs remain strong. Tchaikovsky writes compelling characters you end up genuinely caring about, even when the overall tone stays bleak and pessimistic. I do not enjoy dystopian stories as a rule, but the quality of the writing and the depth of the personalities kept me invested in what happened to them.

That said, the heavy pessimism and the particular brand of biological horror on display this time made this my least favourite entry in the series so far. It is still well-crafted and thought-provoking, but it did not click with my taste.Skip this one unless you are a committed fan of the series and do not mind dark, visceral, and deeply strange far-future biology.

3/5 stars.

A brief history of intelligence by Max Bennett (2023)

This was another recommendation from Senthil that had been sitting in my queue since December 2025. I expected the book to focus heavily on AI, using neuro-physiological and neuro-anatomical insights to guide the development of more human-like, self-improving systems. Instead, it delivers a broad evolutionary history of intelligence itself.

Bennett traces how life on Earth gradually evolved the ability to survive and thrive, beginning with social "politics" among early organisms and the manipulation of their environment. What we call cognition, sentience, qualia, and even our (possibly illusory) consciousness emerge as accidental side-effects of traits that simply proved useful for survival and reproduction. Intelligence, in this view, is less a grand design and more a useful byproduct of fitness.

I enjoyed the book a lot. Bennett does a good job addressing counterfactual evidence and the main controversies surrounding his claims. The references to AI and software are present but clearly secondary. When he does touch on artificial intelligence, he frames it as simulations of biological processes on our planet, which may not always be the optimal path for building the systems we actually want.The book is a thoughtful and well-reasoned exploration of how intelligence arose in nature.

5/5 stars.

Ensh*ttfication by Cory Doctorow (2025)

I've been skimming Cory Doctorow's daily links and rants on Pluralistic for years, so I walked into this book already fluent in most of his ideas. What surprised me was how much richer and more coherent everything became once he had an entire book to breathe. Ensh*ttfication is the definitive deep-dive into the "Ensh*ttocen" - the Great Ensh*ttening era we're all living through, laying out his core theses with far more historical context, evidence, and narrative force than any blog post could manage.

The book is long, dense, and occasionally meanders into broader territory: labour rights, liberty, social justice, and the politics of technology. I actually loved those side-quests. They served as powerful reminders of how extraordinarily lucky I am to have the freedoms and tools I do. Doctorow's sales pitch for Mastodon and the Fediverse was particularly interesting, even if reality has already moved on: walled gardens have largely won, gateways have been shut down, and most of the people I actually talk to will never install Mastodon. (The one bright exception I'm excited to try is matterbridge — https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge. The universal chat client (theoretically) lets one client bridge WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Teams, and more. If I ever find the time, I'll clone, build, and try it.

At its heart, this book delivers a razor-sharp diagnosis of exactly how enshittification works: a three-stage pathology that turns once-great platforms into "giant piles of shit." First, services are genuinely good for users to draw them in. Then they abuse those users to please business customers (think ad-choked feeds and algorithmic manipulation). Finally, they squeeze the business customers themselves to extract every last drop of value for executives and shareholders. Doctorow backs this up with devastating case studies—Facebook, Amazon, Google, Uber, TikTok, and more, showing how weakened antitrust rules, regulatory capture, lock-in tactics, and "twiddling" algorithms created today's techno-feudal system of rent extraction. He doesn't stop at diagnosis; he also maps out concrete cures: aggressive interoperability mandates, breaking up monopolies, stronger data rights, and rebuilding the open internet we once took for granted.

I don't always agree with Cory's values or speculations, and I occasionally have counter-evidence that undercuts some of his stronger claims. Yet I never resent the ride. His extreme points of view and the mountains of data he cites are consistently thought-provoking and valuable. The book is daunting in scope, but it's also comprehensive, well-crafted, and deeply informative. I'm genuinely glad I ploughed through every page.

The book is highly recommended if you want to understand the forces quietly degrading the internet (and society) around us.

5/5 stars.

X Minus One Old Time Radio Episodes (1955)

Similar to the Perry Rhodan space opera archives over which I stumbled and am now enjoying in serialized book format, the old Astounding stories from the 1950s were dramatized into Radio plays.  These Radio Plays were digitized and made available by fans on the public Internet. Some of the stories are timeless and others I had read are very entertaining as audio theater.  4.5 Stars.

The Winter Queen (Азазель1 Azazel) by Boris Akunin (Борис Акунин)

This book was recommended by Swiss relatives who loved the mystery and spy thriller, as well as the historical accuracy of the events.  The AI's all agree that the English translation is slightly better than the German translation so I read the English one.  I agree that the somewhat contrived and "James Bond"-style super-spy vs super-villain thriller events are entertaining.  The Mystery and historiography are also very good.  However, I found the spy vs spy stuff and some of the cartoonish one-dimensional characters a little off-putting.  I may read more books in the Akunin series, but I did not really get deeply immersed in this one. The book would likely work better as a graphic novel or serialized comic book series.  3/5 Stars.

The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow (2022)

This book is a quick read and a precursor to Cory's book on Ensh*ttification he wrote later. This book has some details of the interesting political, legal, and economic underpinnings that incentivize the current state and trends in data sovereignty and computing.  Many of the topics in the book will be familiar to, and redundant for readers of Corey's daily blog entries.  For me personally it was good to get a comprehensive summary in one short volume.  I think there is a little too much hand-wringing, ranting, and Sturm und Drang than specific, prescriptive remedies for actions we should take. But the book is quite informative and short. 3/5 Stars.

Update zu Perry-Rhodan-Büchern

Ich habe mich weiter durch die Perry-Rhodan-Bücher gearbeitet, nachdem ich die Reihe im Dezember 2025 entdeckt habe.

https://mitchwyle.blogspot.com/2025/12/perry-rhodan-zwei-milliarden-hefte-und.html

Die Serie bewahrt die Science-Fiction-Tropen und Handlungs-Mechaniken des Goldenen Zeitalters, die ich schätze, und bleibt trotz der in die ferne Zukunft projizierten Technologien der 1950er Jahre zeitlos.

Die Bedrohung der vollständigen Auslöschung allen Lebens auf der Erde schwebt weiterhin über unseren unerschrockenen Helden, während sie ihren Weg fortsetzen! Sie entdecken und entdecken erneut uralte Besucher unseres Sonnensystems aus der Zeit vor zehntausend Jahren und entschlüsseln deren Geheimnisse. Die Charakterentwicklung ist statisch und gegenüber den Geschichten zweitrangig, doch die Handlungen sind dennoch kraftvoll und unterhaltsam.

Die optimistische Space Opera lebt fort. Ich lese weiterhin der Reihe nach die ursprünglichen Sammlungen von 1961. Der lineare Fortschritt durch 64 Jahre wöchentlicher Veröffentlichungen übersteigt mein Lesetempo im Deutschen bei Weitem, aber die frühen Bände sind angenehme, leichte Lektüre. Wenn Sie ebenfalls Ihr eigenes Leseabenteuer beginnen, kann ich für die Qualität der nächsten fünf Bücher bürgen, und ich verspreche, in diesem Blog weiter zu berichten, während ich tiefer in die Saga eintauche.

4/5 Sterne.

How to Survive in the Woods by Kat Rosenfeld (2026)

The atmospheric tension Kat Rosenfeld maintains is excellent.  The story takes unexpected turns as the depth and breadth of the main character's past unfolds. The story contributes fun, new story dimensions to the usual 'prepper' culture. The story has another murderous landscape where every character plots to kill someone with treacherous plans-within-plans.Despite the story's reliance on established tropes, I found the mystery and momentum infectious.  The harsh New England woods are a visceral metaphor for the protagonist's survival against her own history. The environment demands a resilience that mirrors her social endurance.

4/5 Stars

The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley (2010)

Matt Ridley constructed a compelling narrative that stands as one of the two most significant works I have encountered this year. I really enjoyed the rigorous data and the unapologetic polemics that define the whole book; I appreciate the way the author wove together paleontological observations and data-driven conclusions regarding the evolution of human commerce. This specific approach reminds me of the methodology used by Vaclav Smil: both authors dissect the intricacies of innovation and ethics through the lens of material history. I found the modernization of the classical concepts found in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty to be particularly deft. This intellectual lineage connects Ridley to other contemporary optimists such as Steven Pinker and Gregg Easterbrook, yet Ridley distinguishes his work through a unique synthesis of evolutionary biology and market theory.

This ideological framework thrives because of the author's nuanced libertarianism: he champions a sophisticated balance between individual spontaneity and the specific government regulations that he deems essential for a functioning society. I observed a high degree of precision in his distinction between bureaucratic stagnation and the organic growth of "ideas having sex"; this metaphor illustrates the combinatorial nature of human progress with remarkable clarity. The text avoids the trap of attributing societal failures to mere malice; instead, I believe Ridley correctly identifies these setbacks as products of institutional friction or the "pessimism bias" that haunts modern discourse. I craved more of this analytical rigor as I navigated his arguments concerning the historical rise of living standards.

I love the way Ridley deconstructs the Malthusian traps of the past: he demonstrates how human ingenuity consistently overcomes resource constraints because of our unique capacity for specialized exchange. I found his "pro-market but anti-corporatist" stance to be a vital distinction; this position prevents the book from descending into a simple partisan screed. I am particularly fond of the rhythmic flow he established between broad historical surveys and specific technological anecdotes. Because of this structural harmony, the dense economic theories remain grounded in tangible human experience. I long for more popular science writing that maintains this level of intellectual intensity while remaining accessible to the curious layperson.

I consider this book an essential addition to the canon of optimistic literature. The author provided a refreshing antidote to the reflexive doom-mongering that permeates the current cultural zeitgeist; I recommend this masterpiece to anyone seeking a data-backed justification for hope. This conclusion feels earned rather than forced. I believe the strength of the evidence presented makes the optimistic outlook not just a preference, but a logical necessity.  Thanks to Senthil for recommending it!

5/5 Stars.

Shadows on the Hudson by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1957)

 שאָטנס בײַם האָדסאָן
This four-volume collection of translations from the original serialized story is long and covers many themes, dramas, and philosophical ideas. The writing is fantastic and powerful. The survivors' recounting their first-person perspectives of the Holocaust and the subsequent Stalinist rampages made me cry. The disappointment due to the excessive length of the work is unfortunate, as the slices of life for these refugees are well-presented. However, the collection provides too much of a good thing.

The narrative follows a circle of Jewish refugees in New York City during the late 1940s as they grapple with their lost faith and the trauma of the past. The central figure, Boris Makaver, struggles to maintain his religious traditions while his daughter and friends navigate messy affairs, political disillusionment, and the haunting memories of post-Holocaust pogroms. These characters represent a fractured society trying to rebuild itself in the shadow of unimaginable loss while confronting the modern world's moral complexities.

I do not recommend this specific collection. The individual observations are moving, but the overall length makes the experience difficult to endure.

3/5 Stars.

Einstein: His Life & Universe by Walter Isaacson (2007)

I enjoy the biographies written by Isaacson, and this volume is also quite good. In particular, I appreciate Isaacson's making general relativity approachable to the layman without the use of tensor algebra. While the work is strong, I think the content could have been slightly better. For example, Goedel's discovering a rotating universe solution to the equations would have been a fun anecdote to include. I also think the text provides too much attention to Einstein's having various affairs and social faux-pas. However, both of these criticisms are minor nits. I personally helped a researcher for The Einstein Papers project at the ETH, so the researcher's mention in the book was personal. The portrayal due to the focus on Einstein's politics, activism, and celebrity is well-done, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book.

This biography tracks Einstein's journey from his youth, through his early days as a patent clerk in Bern to his status as a world-renowned scientist. Isaacson explores the 1905 miracle year, during which the young Einstein published four groundbreaking papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and mass-energy equivalence. The narrative follows Einstein's navigation through the challenges of proving General Relativity during a solar eclipse and his eventual relocation to Princeton. The book emphasizes Einstein's search for a unified field theory and his lifelong commitment to pacifism and civil rights.

5/5 Stars.

Descent by Bruno Miller (2025)

I discovered this book on a shelf at home, likely left behind by one of my children, but it proved to be a significant disappointment. The story is a quintessential "prepper fantasy" characterized by cardboard figures, frequent close-combat, and an unrealistic abundance of ammunition. Because of the lack of depth and the repetitive action, I found the experience quite grueling. Avoid this one.

1/5 Stars.

Perry Rhodan Sammelbände (1961)

Ich setze meine Reise durch die Abenteuer von Perry Rhodan fort, wie ich es bereits auf meinem Blog dokumentiert habe. Diese Geschichten bleiben unterhaltsame, leichte Science-Fiction aus dem „Goldenen Zeitalter", die ich als sehr beruhigend empfinde. Nachdem ich nun die ersten sieben Sammelbände der Originalveröffentlichungen abgeschlossen habe, finde ich die Erzählungen durchweg erfreulich, ungeachtet der parapsychologischen Elemente, für die ich wenig Neigung besitze.

4/5 Sterne.

A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling (2020)

After hearing my two oldest kids gush about how funny this book was, I'm delighted it finally surfaced from my reading stack. It is wildly entertaining and, surprisingly, nothing like what I expected. Based on early reviews and my kids' descriptions, I anticipated a story about extreme Ayn Rand-style Objectivists attempting to build a utopian dream town in Texas. Instead, the book offers a fascinating look at rural New Hampshire politics, the local bear population, and the surprising role of toxoplasmosis.

The writing is fantastic, bringing a cast of quirky characters to life without the shrill, judgmental indignation for which I had prepared. I found myself laughing throughout, yet also deeply touched by the individual anecdotes. It's a rare find that can be both hilarious and genuinely moving.

5/5 Stars.

trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen von Viktor Frankl (1946)

Ich habe dieses Buch gelesen, nachdem ich es auf Senthils Liste der „Besten Bücher 2025" gesehen hatte, und es hat meine Erwartungen weit übertroffen. Ursprünglich war ich skeptisch, da ich ein bloßes „Reiz-Reaktions-Modell" befürchtete – ein Konzept, das ich oft als unpraktisch empfinde. Doch Frankls Werk ist grundlegend anders.

Weit über die frühen psychologischen Rahmenwerke von Freud oder Jung hinausgehend, nutzt Frankl seine erschütternden Beobachtungen der conditio humana in den Konzentrationslagern, um die Logotherapie zu entwickeln. Seine Einsichten darüber, wie wir in jedem Moment und unter allen Bedingungen Sinn finden können, sind brillant und einzigartig. Es ist ein komplexes, tiefgreifendes Modell, das eine überraschende wissenschaftliche Strenge aufweist, die man auch in modernen Werken wie The Mattering Instinct wiederfindet.

Der ursprüngliche Text von 1946 ist prägnant und von beeindruckender Wirkung. Während die späteren Ergänzungen aus den 1950er Jahren und der Ausgabe von 1986 wertvollen Kontext bieten, wirken sie im Vergleich zur rohen Kraft des Kern Manuskripts gelegentlich etwas dogmatisch und veraltet.

5/5 Sterne.

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1958)

Set against the backdrop of the Risorgimento, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's 1958 masterpiece offers a rich immersion into the fading aristocracy of Sicily. The strength of the novel lies in its protagonist—a fascinating, introspective prince navigating the twilight of his life alongside the decline of his social class.

While the plot itself is relatively slow-moving, it serves as a deliberate canvas to illuminate the changing attitudes, values, and societal mores of the era. The internal world of the Prince is far more compelling than the external events, making this a profound character study on the inevitability of change.

3/5.

The Universe Box by Michael Swanick (2026)

This collection marks my first encounter with Michael Swanwick, and I went in with low expectations since I'm generally not a fan of horror or traditional fantasy. Surprisingly, his storytelling pulled me in anyway. Swanwick writes with real skill—sharp prose, vivid characters, and genuinely creative ideas that kept me turning pages despite my usual genre prejudices.

The book mixes science fiction, fantasy, and horror elements, often in unexpected ways (magic colliding with science, myths meeting tech, and so on). Several stories stand out for their imagination and emotional punch, making this a refreshing change-of-pace read from my typical preferences.

That said, the science in the science fiction pieces is frequently shaky or outright terrible—hand-wavy at best, which pulled me out of the immersion at times. The horror-tinged stories didn't quite land for me either, as that's not my wheelhouse.

Overall, though, the quality of the writing, the strength of the characters, and the inventive premises outweighed my gripes. If you're open to eclectic speculative shorts that don't always play by strict genre rules, this is worth picking up—especially as an entry point to Swanwick's work. Solid, if not mind-blowing.

3/5 stars.

Kiln People by David Brin (2003)

In this story, the world has mastered the technology of "ditching," which involves the souls' being copied into disposable clay bodies called golems or "dittos." These duplicates live for a single day to perform chores, attend meetings, or conduct investigations before their memories are uploaded back to the original human. The story follows a private investigator who utilizes multiple specialized golems to solve a mystery involving the disappearance of the technology's creator and a conspiracy that threatens the nature of human existence.  

  My expectations for this book were high, but the narrative proved disappointing. The plot is much too complicated, and the underlying physics and economics are unconvincing. The distillation of consciousness into a standing wave of the soul feels excessively fantastical. Brin's utilizing a high density of new ideas in every sentence makes this writing style difficult to enjoy. Additionally, the frustration due to the frequent use of deus ex machina plot devices undermines the story, as Brin usually excels at foreshadowing his concepts before their application.

2/5 Stars  

G-d's Junk Drawer by Peter Clines (2025)

I loved this story!   All of the science is terrible; but the writing is effective, and I was eager to discover the next plot development. The characters and the setting are wonderful, and I managed to rationalize the terrible physics by re-reading Eric Weinstein's "Geometric Unity" concept. I initially avoided this book as the plot outline seemed dumb, but the writing proved me wrong.

In this book, a group of researchers discovers a "junk drawer" of the universe—a localized region of space where failed physical laws and discarded biological experiments from higher dimensions. As the protagonists navigate this dangerous, surreal environment, they encounter entities that exist across multiple time dimensions, forcing the team to solve puzzles that defy four-dimensional logic. The story focuses on the struggle to survive and get home.

I am very happy I picked this one up. Now I must find more books by Peter Clines.

5/5 Stars.

Stranded (Starship of the Ancients book 1) by A.K. DuBoff (2025)

I selected this book due to its positive reviews and promising "awe-and-wonder" tropes. However, I found the experience disappointing. The plot is contrived, and the author's utilizing unmotivated antagonists makes the conflict feel hollow. While the protagonists are well-written and the broad outline of the story shows promise, the "puke awful" science and poor craftsmanship prevent a recommendation.

In this narrative, a group of humans discovers a derelict starship of immense power, a relic from a lost civilization known as the Ancients. They find themselves stranded in a distant part of the galaxy, forced to master the ship's inscrutable technology while avoiding hostile forces that want the vessel for themselves. The story relies on the mystery of this advanced craft and the survival of the crew as they navigate unknown territory.

I shall not continue reading this series. The flaws in the physics and the weak motivations of the villains undermine the "Golden Age" feel.

2/5 Stars.

Ground State (Expeditionary Force) book 19 by Craig Alanson (2026)

The madcap adventures continue in this nineteenth book of the series as the dynamic duo of Joe and his powerful Elder AI companion face their most dangerous threat yet. I appreciate the monkeys' relying on "sketchy" ideas to survive against an enemy that possesses superior technology. While the story follows a familiar pattern of humor and banter, the writing remains enjoyable.

In this volume, the Merry Band of Pirates must contend with the aftermath of a failed mission to destroy an enemy Gateway. Instead of a victory, the crew discovers that two Outsider starships are now loose in the galaxy, each far more powerful than the Valkyrie. This narrative follows the team as they use unconventional tactics to avoid a hopeless direct fight while navigating the shifting power dynamics created by the Outsiders' arrival.

The same plot devices, jokes, and characters are present in this installment. Despite the formulaic nature of this latest volume, the writing humor and fun make the read enjoyable.

4/5 Stars.

While Israel Slept by Yaakov Katz & Amir Bohbot (2025)

This book provides a fascinating analysis with only minor political biases appearing in the omissions and interpretations of the facts. I had not realized the delicate nature of Israeli politics resulting from widespread antisemitism or the Arab lobby's convincing the international community to tolerate such hostility. The narrative omits the specific motivations behind the war crimes committed by Hamas, but it successfully exposes why Israel failed to prevent the massive arms build-up, the rocket fire, and the construction of extensive terror tunnels.

The book focuses on the systemic failures to detect, communicate, and respond to the invasion by thousands of terrorists and looters. The authors analyze the breakdown of the "smart" border fence, the reliance on high-tech surveillance that was easily neutralized, and the delay in military mobilization. Instead of focusing solely on the atrocities, the text highlights individual episodes of resistance and provides thumbnail biographies of the leaders and politicians involved in the crisis.

The facts regarding these failures are laid bare, and the political analysis is well-presented. I learned a lot from this volume, as the overall recommendations are insightful despite some vague conclusions.

5/5 Stars.

The Mattering Instinct by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (2026)

I learned a lot from this book, which presents an interesting theory worth sharing. I especially liked the biographical sketches of the philosophers and scientists in the context of their ideas. However, a glaring weakness involves the author's utilizing shrill, political language and whiny outrage regarding historical injustices. This tone also appears in her selection and description of the archetypal biographies within the "mattering map cartography."

In this volume, Goldstein explores the "mattering instinct," the biological and psychological drive for humans to feel their lives have objective significance. The book introduces a "mattering map," a conceptual framework for how individuals and societies assign value and status to different human endeavors. Through sketches of historical figures, she illustrates how this drive for significance has shaped scientific progress, philosophical inquiry, and social hierarchies throughout history.

It was painful to navigate the harsh rhetoric and gushing exaggerations, though I appreciated the sound philosophical analysis and the history of the core ideas. My expectations were high since the book was so over-hyped, so I am a little disappointed.

3/5 Stars.

Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton (2006)

This book provides a thrilling and satisfying addition to the story. The characters are compelling, and their nobility during these struggles remains gripping. I found the falling action and the characters' facing their challenges to be rewarding.

In this narrative, the Commonwealth must finally expose the "Starflyer," a malevolent alien entity that has spent centuries infiltrating human society. As the war against the MorningLightMountain swarms reaches a tipping point, the protagonists must navigate high-stakes political intrigue and massive space battles to save humanity. The plot resolves the mystery of the Dyson Alpha barrier and the immediate threat posed by the Prime aliens.

I enjoyed this volume enormously. The resolution of the complex plot lines and the growth of the characters make the book a standout.

5/5 Stars.

A night without stars by Peter F Hamilton (2016)

I enjoy the science fiction trope of individuals' possessing futuristic technology while attempting to assist a primitive society. Hamilton offers careful, well-presented political angles on this phenomenon. However, the society in this story is a depressing dystopia. The futuristic humans' attempting to rescue this civilization from the existential threat of "the fallers" provides a bleak narrative, as the protagonists seem incapable of navigating the local politics.

In this story, the planet Bienvenido is isolated from the rest of the Commonwealth and faces an infestation by "the fallers"—hostile shape-shifters that consume and replace human beings. A small group of high-tech astronauts from the Void must intervene, but they find themselves trapped between the alien threat and a suspicious, totalitarian human government. The struggle highlights the difficulty of applying advanced knowledge to a society defined by fear and oppression.

Despite the grim tone, I love the universe, the writing, the plot, and the vivid details. The strength of the world-building compensates for the frustrating political dynamics.

4/5 Stars.

Pandora's Star by Peter F Hamilton (2004)

I am surprised I did not read these novels twenty years ago, as they languished in my backlog for a significant time. This story checks the requirements of the space opera tropes I enjoy most. The narrative features awe-inspiring technology, a mysterious behind-the-scenes power, and inscrutable space aliens with weird motivations. Furthermore, the inclusion of AIs with unknown powers, space battles, and close combat creates a rich experience.

I appreciate the characters, the writing, the plot, and the settings. I am willing to suspend disbelief of the FTL, "rejuviation," and wormhole technologies despite their "bad" science. 5/5 Stars.

Wreck Jumpers 3 by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole (2025)

I enjoyed the first two books in this series, as the colorful characters and close combat are hallmarks of this pair of authors. However, the deep integration of this setting into the politics of the Galaxy's Edge series is disappointing. I hoped these stories would remain independent of that complicated political environment.

The antagonists in this third volume are powerful opponents, and the authors establish a framework for a larger series as shadowy entities engage in a broader conflict. The plot is strong, though the behind-the-scenes power politics are less effective. The core action remains fun despite the increasingly tangled broader story line. 4/5 Stars.

Tank Farm Dynamo by David Brin (1983)

David Brin recently blogged about how SpaceX Starship tankers could replace Space Shuttle external tanks in low earth orbit to provide structure and materials for a large space station. This 1983 story explores the same concept. As a founding member of the L5 Society, I remember an in-person meet-up at MIT where we discussed the celestial mechanics of inserting shuttle tanks into a stable orbit. Those discussions focused on using the tanks as dwellings and utilizing the residual hydrogen and oxygen for water and breathable air.

I enjoyed revisiting the delta-v and celestial mechanics required to calculate the thrust needed by the magnetic dynamo in this story. The technical details are well-conceived, but the characters and politics are also great. This work remains an excellent example of hard science fiction that anticipates future engineering challenges. 5/5 Stars.

The Voyage of the Space beagle by A E van Vogt (1939)

After reading two disappointing books, I retreated to golden age science fiction. I selected this volume from a stack of books I inherited during a house move. I did not like A. E. van Vogt during my personal "golden age" (ideal age to read sci-fi)  in the 60s, and I did not like this book either.

While the narrative contains fun tropes and interesting politics, the science is terrible and the setting is ridiculous. I appreciate the homage to Darwin and the original Voyage of the Beagle, but the author's execution is poor. Because the writing lacks technical substance, this book remains a disappointment. 2/5 Stars.

Code of the Woosters by P G Wodehouse (1938)

Three people I respect said this book is very funny and I would enjoy it.  I have a different sense of humor and put this book down after getting to page 176.  I found less than 1% of the gags to be funny. 1/5 Stars.

Misspent Youth by Peter F Hamilton (2008)

I did not like this book. The narrative lacks science, awe, wonder, and mystery. Instead of the space opera or high-stakes conflict found in Hamilton's other works, this story focuses on a drama involving hormonal teenagers and fashion models. I did not care about these characters or the trivial plot. Because the book prioritizes silly drama over meaningful world-building, it fails to engage. 1/5 Stars.

The Second World Wars by Victor Davis Hanson (2017)

I enjoy Hanson's writing, and although The Second World Wars languished in my backlog, it exceeded my expectations. I anticipated a dry history of names and dates; instead, I found an analysis of the abstract aspects of warfare and history. Hanson faces criticism for his generalizations—particularly regarding the impact of hoplite warriors—and I question some of his specific analyses in this volume as well.

The book is organized into thematic sections rather than a chronological timeline, covering Air (aircraft and air power), Sea (the navy and maritime strategy), Land (ground forces), People (leadership and personnel), and Tools (production and economics). These divisions allow for a deep comparison of how different powers approached the same logistical and strategic problems. Because this structure highlights the broader mechanics of global conflict, the narrative remains consistently engaging.

Despite those potential flaws, the book is well-researched, well-edited, and approachable. The sections on production capabilities and economics provide the most interesting insights, as these factors are often neglected in political histories. This book is a strong recommendation for anyone interested in global conflict and "total war." 5/5 Stars.

Leonardo DaVinci by Walter Isaacson (2017)

I approached this biography with reticence because biographies can be tedious and I generally lack an appreciation for the arts, including sculpture, architecture, painting, and performing arts other than theater. However, Isaacson's writing overcomes these barriers. I became fascinated by the biographical sketches and the reality of Da Vinci's intellect.

One of the most enlightening aspects of this narrative is the contrast between the artist's limitations and his genius. Despite a lack of aptitude in Latin, arithmetic, and algebra, Da Vinci possessed an amazing grasp of analog geometry. Isaacson successfully dispels pop-culture myths and exaggerations by focusing on these human details. Because the author highlights the man's personality and techniques rather than just his iconic status, the book remains engaging throughout.  4/5 Stars.

The Brothers Ashkenazi by I. J. Singer(1936)

The Brothers Ashkenazi contains profound character arcs, Yiddish aphorisms, and a grueling depth. These characters embody the flawed, larger-than-life archetypes of the Yiddish Shtetl. The narrative serves as a tour de force regarding the antisemitism that fueled pogroms, genocide, and the persecution of Jews.

This book is difficult to finish because the tragic events leave the reader horrified. Toward the end of the volume, the analysis of antisemitism across the political spectrum and various cultures proves enlightening. While the Holocaust resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews, the preceding century included nearly a million additional murders in pogroms. We must be reminded of this reality, however painful the process. 4/5 Stars.