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Bryan’s Year In Books

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Bryan Alexander

Goodreads Author

Born

in NYC, The United States

Website

https://bryanalexander.org/

Genre

Nonfiction, Science Fiction, Horror

Member Since

December 2007

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I'm a futurist specializing in the future of education, with an eye on the impact of technology.

That means I research, think hard, research some more, and crowdsource feedback.
Then I transform it into writing articles, books, and chapters and giving presentations. I also create related digital content, like a monthly trends report, run a weekly open videoconference, and cat-herd a future-oriented book club.

I live and work in the Washington, DC area with my wife.
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Combine Editions
Bryan Alexander’s books

Average rating: 3.62 · 177 ratings · 24 reviews · 5 distinct works • Similar authors

	Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education 3.60 avg rating — 73 ratings — published 2020 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media 3.63 avg rating — 68 ratings — published 2011 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis 3.54 avg rating — 28 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis 3.82 avg rating — 11 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Gearing Up for Learning Beyond K-12 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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27 posts
Bryan Alexander's Blog: The New Digital Storytelling

Bryan speaking on digital storytelling in Burlington

I'll be speaking on a panel about digital storytelling next month. It's Saturday, 9/24, at the Burlington Book Festival. Stop by!

THE DAWN OF DIGITAL STORYTELLING: A PANEL DISCUSSION

Storytelling-the ability to describe a world beyond the present moment-may be the defining feature and crowning achievement of our species. Nearly everyone is a storyteller, but those who tell stories with great

Bryan is Currently Reading

Bryan Alexander is currently reading

Fenrir

by Eric Flint

bookshelves: currently-reading, hard-science-fiction, sf

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Apr 25, 2026 05:57PM

Bryan Alexander rated a book really liked it

The Remaking of Sigmund Freud / The Men Inside

by Barry N. Malzberg

bookshelves: currently-reading, sf, alternate-history, 19th-century, psychology-and-therapy

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Bryan Alexander said: " What a very odd book. Remaking of Sigmund Freud is a mix of genres and tropes: alternate history, biographical fiction, time travel, fan fiction. I can't think of books like it, except, perhaps, Phil Dick's We Can Build You (1972), which also concern What a very odd book. Remaking of Sigmund Freud is a mix of genres and tropes: alternate history, biographical fiction, time travel, fan fiction. I can't think of books like it, except, perhaps, Phil Dick's We Can Build You (1972), which also concerns a simulation of a historical figure used for therapy, or Nikos Kazantzakis' Last Temptation of Christ (1955), about redoing one's life with historical import.

Malzberg's novel is about different situations in the future where people deploy a flesh and blood duplicate of the titular psychoanalyst in order to solve problems. We also visit Freud in the 1890s, adding in a similar mix of biography and futurism Emily Dickinson and Mark Twain, but Freud is the centerpiece.

I'd like to say more about the plot, but need to mention that the novel is told in two timelines. Chapters appear out of order, although reading in that fashion yields a sound story while reading in numerical order offers something different. I'll summarize them below.

Malzberg has a lot of formal fun here. Conversations are repetitive, but I think that's at least partially due to trying to imitate therapy, with its emphasis on returning to the same theme. The core of the novel might be a very good pun or two. Aliens seek Freud because he's... an alienist. And someone named after a famous reaper fatally shoots Freud.

There's also a historical theme, which might be the most important. The novel begins with a quote about the importance of avoiding politics, which sets the tone. Adolf Hitler appears twice, at the beginning and end, visiting Freud for therapy and acting as framing device. Freud cannot treat him. The final pages show Hitler leaving, apparently to kick off his career. Is the novel castigating Freud (and therapy) for being so dangerously self-limited?

There are some issues. The dialogue is repetitious, and could have been edited down. Dickinson is underused (just abandoned in the future) and Twain even more so, really and extraneous.

That said, this might be a good novel to try for your friends who read literary fiction and are curious about sf.

Let me return to the chapters, and I'll shield them because they must reveal plot points. (view spoiler)
Overall, this was an interesting novel to chew over. ...more "

Apr 18, 2026 05:13PM · see review

Bryan Alexander is currently reading

I Am Stone: The Gothic Weird Tales of R. Murray Gilchrist (British Library Tales of the Weird)

by R. Murray Gilchrist

bookshelves: currently-reading, britain, weirdness, gothic, historical-fiction, decadence

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Mar 01, 2026 10:08AM

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Bryan Alexander rated a book really liked it More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
More and More and More is an excellent book on technology and history. Its aim is to draw attention to the persistence of older infrastructure in the face of new technologies, and therefore to show how vastly difficult an energy transition for climat ...more
13 hours, 24 min ago · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of More and More and More by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — More and More and More by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Alexander entered a giveaway Vicious (Villains, #1) by V.E. Schwab 10 copies available, ends on May 08, 2026 Enter to win »
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Bryan Alexander started reading Fenrir by Eric Flint	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Apr 25, 2026 05:57PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Fenrir by Eric Flint. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Fenrir by Eric Flint <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Alexander rated a book really liked it Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul by Stephen Jenkinson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Die Wise is an odd book. It's a long and windy argument about how North Americans should approach death and dying, mixed with memoir and indigenous people's ways of knowing the world, along with a critique of modern medicine and life intertwined with ...more
Apr 25, 2026 02:17PM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Die Wise by Stephen Jenkinson. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Die Wise by Stephen Jenkinson <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Alexander and 21 other people liked D's review of Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul: "(I think this will be 4 or 5 stars for many, but it's not an easy read and those who could profit most may give up early.) After 10 years of experience in so-called palliative care, and plowing through 288pp of this book, I get to what I know already" Read more of this review »
Apr 25, 2026 02:16PM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Die Wise by Stephen Jenkinson. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Die Wise by Stephen Jenkinson <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Alexander and 1 other person liked Niniane's review of Fenrir: "I liked this novel's take on a first contact with aliens, the emphasis on hope and cooperation, as well as the discussions on what it means to be human. Things get even more interesting after the launch. However, it's pretty much hard SF. It's obvious" Read more of this review »
Apr 22, 2026 03:17PM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Fenrir by Eric Flint. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Fenrir by Eric Flint <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
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Bryan Alexander is currently reading City of Intellect: The Uses and Abuses of the University by Nicholas B. Dirks	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Notes to be fleshed out: Career - brilliant. At Columbia, "needed to take the department [of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures] under receivership" 57 Fought with Jerry Brown over pay at BVerkeley 100 " " Janet Napolitano 132 Autobiographical, but la ...more
Apr 21, 2026 06:54PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of City of Intellect by Nicholas B. Dirks. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — City of Intellect by Nicholas B. Dirks <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Alexander rated a book really liked it The Remaking of Sigmund Freud / The Men Inside by Barry N. Malzberg	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
What a very odd book. Remaking of Sigmund Freud is a mix of genres and tropes: alternate history, biographical fiction, time travel, fan fiction. I can't think of books like it, except, perhaps, Phil Dick's We Can Build You (1972), which also concern ...more
Apr 18, 2026 02:43PM · 1 like · like · see review
Bryan Alexander wants to read Pop Apocalypse: A Darkly Comic Satirical Novel of an Unlikely Hero, an Evil Twin, and Global Chaos (P.S.) by Lee Konstantinou (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Bryan’s Quotes

“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
― Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

tags: biology, evolution, grandeur, inspirational, nature, science, wonder

661 likes

“Then he explained in a whisper that the plan was composed entirely of awesome. It was made and designed by the House of Awesome, from materials found in the deep awesome mines of Awesometania and it would be recorded in the Annals of Awesome - and nowhere else, because any other book would catch fire and explode from the awesome - and by its awesomeness it would be known from now until the crack of doom.”
― nick harkaway, Tigerman

8 likes

“Kershaw had long ago realised, apparently, that dealing with Brits was tricky. You had to listen to what a Brit was saying -- which was invariably that he thought XYZ was a terrific idea and he hoped it went very well for you -- while at the same time paying heed to the greasy, nauseous suspicion you had that, although every word and phrase indicated approval, somehow the sum of the whole was that you'd have to be a mental pygmy to come up with this plan and a complete fucking idiot to pursue it.”
― Nick Harkaway, Tigerman

tags: british

3 likes

“An ugly calm lay over the streets like the anticipation of a beating.”
― Nick Harkaway, Tigerman

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“The boy reported - after the Sergeant had slept for a few hours, which was not nearly enough - that YouTube had actually gone down for ten minutes under the weight of traffic. The story was truly global, truly immense: not Obama, not Justin Bieber, not Psy and not Bin Laden had ever touched this, he said. Not Khaled Saeed and not Mohamed Bouazizi, either. If Pippa Middleton and Megan Fox had announced their intention to marry during a live theatrical production of 50 Shades of Grey starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and then taken off their clothes to reveal their bodies tattooed with the text of the eighth Harry Potter novel, they might have approached this level of frenzy. But probably not, the boy said, because not everyone liked Benedict Cumberbatch.”
― Nick Harkaway, Tigerman

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