Home Safe - Mitchell Consky

 This is my favorite book I've read in 2023.  It is  memoir by a young man whose father is diagnosed during the pandemic with aggressive liver cancer.  Their family comes together to care for him at the end of life at home, many of them healthcare professionals impacted by being essential workers.  Throughout, they demonstrate so much love and caring for each other.

It made me reflect that we all still have a single shared experience that we can relate to: the losses suffered in a million different ways during two years of panic, fear, confusion and isolation during Covid.  It made me think we need a national day of recognition to honor the individuals and experiences we lost due to the pandemic.  It made me think that this is something we can share with each other instead of the vitriol and divisiveness that is separating us.

Quotes:

"[Caregivers] ...caring for yourself when you want to save someone else is easier said than done."

"[on not being able to hug during the pandemic] Hugs are like the universal language for saying 'You're going to be okay'...The word 'embrace' has a Latin origin brace deriving from the word braccia which in the combination braccia coro circumdare means  'puts one's arms around'.

"Life is a series of compromises.  He told her its not about picking sides as much as it's about choosing to participate in the inevitable struggles life throws at you.  Giving up when life gets hard, that's what you want to avoid."

[On parents] "The love that they gave me stayed with me long after they died.  The love I give you will stay with you too.  Because that love is immortal.  That love will bring us together no matters what's happening in the world. No matter the circumstances that keep us apart."

Published: 2022  Read: September 2023  Genre: Biography

Dust Child - Nguyen Phan Que Mai

This is a story of an Amerasian and a Vietnam veteran that reveals the tragedy of that war from the Vietnamese point of view.  The vet is seeking a way to overcome his nightmares from his time as a helicopter pilot in the war and the half-African American, half-Vietnamese, called Amerasian, man is seeking a way out of the discrimination he suffers in his homeland.  It is a compelling story and heartbreaking to read of the aftermath of war.  It is a more contemporary piece than many books on Vietnam, skillfully blending the country's history with current realities.  It discusses the plight of Amerasians, the attempts to assist them (DNA testing, for example) and the difficulties both they and their American father's face in healing.  Recommended reading.

Published: 2023  Read: September 2023  Genre: Historical fiction

Victory City - Salman Rushdie

I picked this book up at the library because of the author.  I haven't read any of his work before and I wanted to see what it was like.  The book is based on real events in the 13-15th century in southern India.  It tells the tale of the rise and fall of dynasties told through the life of Pampa Kampada.  When we first meet her she is a young girl who has lost her mother and is possessed by a goddess.  The goddess's gift is to have her live without aging for 250 years, during which she writes the story of the Bisnaga empire.

I struggle with books where I can't hear in my head the names of the characters because I don't know how to pronounce them, I lose track of their gender and their relationships.  An annoying shortcoming on my part.

I followed the tale nonetheless and I feel I got a taste of the history of a part of the world I know little about.  I initially tried to draw parallels to today's events but that was misguided.  The book received praise however I wouldn't recommend it as I never felt connected to the characters or their stories.  I did note a couple quotes below.

Quotes:

"Maybe this is what human history was: the brief illusion of happy victories set in a long continuum of bitter, disillusioning, defeats."

"... I will learn that the deepest meaning of love is renunciation, giving up one's own dream to fulfill the dream of the beloved." 

Published: 2023  Read: September 2023  Genre: Historical Fiction 

 

 

God, Human, Animal, Machine - Meghan O'Gieblyn

 This was a deeply philosophical read, a book created from a series of essays and new material. The author was raised a fundamentalist Christian and in college began questioning the teachings and now considers herself a humanist. However, her background allows her to draw parallels to humankind's creation of an omnipotent being and our speculation about the evolution of machines into sentient beings.  

I found in interesting how her spiritual beliefs evolved and as she left her fundamentalist roots brought a unique perspective to humanism. The book exposed me to many philosophers old and new and provided a context for their writings. I also learned about several technology contributors. The author wove both into a view of where we are going from where we have been.

Quotes:

"I can trace my interest in technology to Ray Kurzweil's 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines"

"...belief in an immanent transformation (resurrection) persisted, improbably, century after century... Dante in the Divine Comedy makes up an entirely new word [translated as] transhuman. It was the first time the word was used in the human language." 

"In addition to our physical bodies their exists -- somewhere in the ether -- a second self that is purely informational and immaterial...that lingers in the shadowy dossier of third party aggregators. It is they, not we that are the most valuable and real,"

[Poem by Swinburne] 

From too much love of living,

    From hope and fear set free,

We thank with brief thanksgiving

    Whatever gods may be.

That no life lives for ever;

That dead men rise up never;

That even the weariest river

    Winds somewhere safe to sea.

"Technology companies learned long ago that their products ar for more appealing -- and more profitable -- when humans manage to bond with them."

"reality is "that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" - Philip K Dick sci-fi writer.

"...how much of our science and philosophy has been colored by the justifications of shitty men?"

"people become trapped within the mirror of their digital reflection, a process that Google researcher Vyacheslav Polonski calls 'algorithmic determinism'."

"Elon Musk - a man who once referred to humanity as the biological bootloaders for AI.  'Bootloader' is a computational term that refers to the minimal line of code that is used to start up a computer.  It is a tiny, insignificant program whose sole purpose is to initiate larger, more complex program."

Published: 2021 Read: September 2023 Genre: Philosophy