Robert Macfarlane has to be one of my favorite nature writers as of late. His latest, Underland, takes us on a journey to the ground beneath our feet.Robert Macfarlane has to be one of my favorite nature writers as of late. His latest, Underland, takes us on a journey to the ground beneath our feet. The book focuses on a number of discrete stories and adventures, all of which are unified simply due to the fact that they take place in the ground beneath our feet.
A few other reviews have mentioned that they felt the book didn't ultimately have a point. I kind of agree with that -- you could almost treat each section as its own short story. That said, I love every moment of it. Each section was beautifully written and I loved reading Macfarlane reflect on his experiences and ponder what each place (or the idea of each place) he visited means in the greater scheme of things to humanity....more
This is a fascinating look into the lives of 6 people who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. We get a sense of what their daily life was lThis is a fascinating look into the lives of 6 people who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. We get a sense of what their daily life was like, where they were on that fateful morning and what happened after the bomb exploded.
It's a quick read and definitely interesting, if not heartbreaking....more
The premise sounded interesting as far as dystopian sci-fi goes: robots have taken over the world and relegated humans to a preserve.
But man, oh man.The premise sounded interesting as far as dystopian sci-fi goes: robots have taken over the world and relegated humans to a preserve.
But man, oh man. I could not wait for this book to be over and seriously considered not finishing it. The story turns into a WHODUNIT, with a sheriff and his old robot partner teaming up. The characters weren't interesting to me. The story wasn't interesting to me. It was just a drag to get through. ...more
I started reading this after the recent Robinhood / GME fiasco and some Redditors mentioning why they loved everything about it because of how manipulI started reading this after the recent Robinhood / GME fiasco and some Redditors mentioning why they loved everything about it because of how manipulated our markets are.
I found this to be a fascinating look into the history of electronic trading. In the mid-'90's, a talented young programmer had the idea to write a program that could place trades and manage an order book -- the first time anything like this had ever been tried. The goal was to eliminate brokers (who acted as nothing but expensive middlemen) and democratize access to trading and investing.
Little did he know, his ideas (and code) would go on to power some of the biggest exchanges in the world, form the backbone of our stock markets, and herald the age of high-frequency trading algorithms -- that ultimately prey upon average investors, manipulate markets by driving prices up or down at their beck and call and potentially make the entire system much more brittle and prone to failure.
Anyway, this weaved in a number of things I find interesting and I really enjoyed this book....more
An interesting story about the father of modern horror. He has had such a huge impact on pop culture, influencing generations of storytellers who've gAn interesting story about the father of modern horror. He has had such a huge impact on pop culture, influencing generations of storytellers who've gone on to create movies, books, and games. Despite not being all that great of a writer (in my opinion), his weird and terrifying stories were ahead of their time. He was one of those writers that became famous only after they had passed.
He had such a troubled soul and he was insanely racist and xenophobic -- a point that this biography raises and notes that a lot of this is minimized or white-washed when people talk about Lovecraft today....more
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