Blood in the Machine
Brian Merchant
“The Luddites understood technology all too well; they didn’t hate it, but rather the way it was used against them.”
The Vaster Wilds
Lauren Groff
A girl—who was once called Zed, and once called Lamentations, and now perhaps has no name—flees the famine and violence of a starving Dutch colony in the Americas and enters the wilderness.
You Deserve a Tech Union
Ethan Marcotte
In this, the latest book from Ethan Marcotte (he of responsive web design fame), unions aren’t anachronisms but rather a set of structures for workers to practice mutual aid, solidarity, and democracy with each other and across their workplaces.
Caliban and the Witch
Silvia Federici
Silvia Federici, one of the creators of the wages for housework movement, digs in to the transition to capitalism and locates a critical and under-investigated element: the witch hunts.
The Experience Machine
Andy Clark
Here, Andy Clark builds off of his previous theory of mind to posit that the mind predicts what it will perceive and corrects its predictions if (or when) its experience fails to comport to expectations.
The Mountain in the Sea
Ray Nayler
Dr. Ha Nguyen has been summoned to the remote archipelago of Con Dao, where there are rumors of an octopus that walks upright on land and may have taken to murdering local poachers.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Olga Tokarczuk
When her neighbor Bigfoot turns up dead, Janina Duszejko immediately has a theory as to what happened—if only people will listen to her.
Working Identity
Herminia Ibarra
Ibarra argues that successful career transitions emerge from a process of exploration and experimentation, a messy and non-linear experience in which new identities are tried on and adjusted while the old ones are alternately clung to and rejected.
A Different Trek
David K. Seitz
The only Star Trek not set on a ship, Deep Space Nine is in many ways a radical departure from both its antecedents and its successors.
The Water Knife
Paolo Bacigalupi
In what reads like a plausible present (rather than the near future), the enforcer for the Southern Nevada Water Authority cuts a bloody fight over the little water that remains in the Colorado river.
Babel
R. F. Kuang
In the nineteenth century, the British empire has achieved exceptional power through its dominance of silver-working: an art that locates and exploits the magic in the gaps of meaning between languages.
When to Talk and When to Fight
Rebecca Subar
This short and impactful book outlines a concise and clear strategic framework for choosing whether to negotiate, to build power, or to vanquish your opponents.
Mutual Aid
Peter Kropotkin
Kropotkin’s thesis is that it is mutual aid, cooperation, and solidarity—rather than competition—that permit evolution and survival among the species, both humans and more-than-humans.
Space Crone
Ursula K. Le Guin
I was unfamiliar with the titular essay in this collection, but as soon as I heard it, I realized with a start that my one great longing in life is to become a space crone.
Saving Time
Jenny Odell
“This book is my panoramic assault on nihilism.”
My Trade Is Mystery
Carl Phillips
An invitation to get lost, and to make oneself at ease in that place of mystery.
Starfish
Peter Watts
A group of people “preadapted” to danger and stress have been recruited to run a power station at the bottom of the Pacific.
Resisting AI
Dan McQuillan
“AI presents a technological shift in the framework of society that will amplify austerity while enabling authoritarian politics.”
Elite Capture
Olúfémi O. Táíwò
A cogent argument about how the elite has coopted identity politics in order to deliver a facade of change while leaving the underlying structures of racial capitalism in place.
The Burnout Society
Byung-Chul Han
The modern day worker, argues Byung-Chul Han, is an “entrepreneur of themselves.”