Social Blunderer

I don’t want to damn A Strange and Brilliant Light with faint praise. I enjoying reading the book and Lee make many thought-provoking points about the potential impact of AI. Like the best Sci-fi, it uses speculative technological developments to explore the way people and society respond to change.

The world-building for the most part is well done, a sort of near-future where robots (or Auts) are slowly taking jobs away from regular folk. Lee has a good ear for dialogue and writes some cracking exchanges between the characters. Lee also captures perfectly the creeping sense of worthlessness that people out of work feel and why having a purpose is so important. The best sequences in the book depict how people working for large corporations work long hours and are asked to complete tasks at an inhuman speed. Lee does a great job of bottling the fear of not wanting to stand out, of not being seen as lazy, of being sacked from a job you hate.
That said it is let down by a clumsy structure. Three separate prologues and the three POV characters occasionally made it hard to follow the narrative. None of the protagonists really got their hooks into me. I felt it could have been streamlined a bit. Part of me wonders if it would have worked better as a TV show where the change of perspective would have been smoother.

Lee writes about relationships very well. The way the characters allow small slights to add up, how difficult they find it to turn to those they love when they feel like they have wronged is something Lee captures well.
It never really soars as a character drama though. The solutions proposed by the characters to the problems they face are nowhere near a clever as Lee seems to think they are. It is the kind of book that ambles along and is entertaining enough. I had a pleasant enough time reading it but was hoping for something a bit more impactful given the themes to book explores.

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I found Wolf’s Den to be a challenging read. There are many scenes of sexual violence, and the quite frankly horrifying experiences that some of the characters go through while not described in gory or salacious detail meant I felt the need to put the book down.
That I picked up it again is a testament to the gripping plot and the engrossing characters. Determined Amara, gentle Dido, self-assured Victoria were my favourites. Felix is truly detestable as the owner of The Wolf Den, a ruthless pimp and loan shark that controls his brothel through physical and psychological abuse. I wanted to scream at him (and worse) because of some of the cruelty he inflicts.
It is not all darkness and despair. Ultimately Harper has written a book about survival. The extraordinary instinct humanity has to find a way to survive even in the direst circumstances is a thread that runs through the story. There is plenty of humour in the book, much of it from Victoria, who is a bit like Samantha from Sex in the City, constantly making vulgar comments and egging the rest of the gang on. Amara is a smart and resourceful protagonist that is easy to root for, and most moments of levity involve her bonding with the other sex workers under Felix’s yolk.
In parts, it reminded me of Sansa POV chapters in Game of Thrones. The constants anxiety of hiding emotions, the mentally exhausting process of plotting and planning, the dread of not knowing who to trust. Like Martin’s, the research that Harper has done makes the world of Pompeii rich and palpable.
As a historical novel, Harper has written something remarkable. It is a piercing look at how sex and power are intertwined and how both genders use one as a tool to gain the other. What Amara and the other sex workers in the Wolf Den are subjected to by men is abhorrent. Harper writes superbly well, showing a deft hand at creating characters that get under your skin in both good ways and bad. I’m not sure I enjoyed it, but it has lingered with me.

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Gladwell is a marvellous writer. In The Bomber Mafia, he explores how ethics and principles affect our decisions. There is smooth almost conversational assuredness about the way he writes. It is like listening to your smartest most eloquent friend tell you about something interesting he has just discovered.

The Bomber Mafia story is not one I had heard of before. It is a wide-ranging one that covers battlefield ethics, technological innovation, politics, and culture.

One of the key takeaways for me is how people identify and solve problems based on their personalities. We are introduced to some great characters in the Bomber Mafia from the genius inventor of a bombsight to two airmen who have vastly different approaches on how to defeat the enemy.

The other takeaway is that we need to be careful about thinking that technology will save us, that we just need that one key invention to solve our problems. It doesn’t it, and in some ways it never has. What we choose to do with innovations and how we approach the inevitable moral quandaries they pose is something we all have to wrestle with.

As with all Gladwell’s work, he occasionally takes leaps logic of that are not necessarily justified by the facts or goes off in tangents that are perplexing.

On the whole as a history of the American airforces contribution to WW2 and the lasting legacy that has had on all future military engagements The Bomber Mafia is enlightening and engrossing. As a study of what humans do under immense pressure it is thought-provoking.

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From the opening page I found The Devil You Know to be thoroughly gripping.

The mix of true crime and psychological study might sound lurid or exploitative but Adshead and Horne write with sensitivity. The importance of empathy is at the heart of book. While the book does not go into gory details it is unflinching in the way it approaches the crimes that been committed. Adshead does not seek to make excuses only to understand how she can help those who are in her care.

Each chapter is dedicated to one patient. The conversations Adshead has with her patients are fascinating. I found the chapters about David and Charlotte to be especially memorable. The writing style is somewhat economical but is full if humanity and insight. While it is easy to read in the way that it is written some of the content is harrowing.

I found it to be one of those books where you think to yourself I’ll read just a few more pages before I go to bed and those pages end up being entire chapters.

Much of the book is about perceptions. Ones we hold go ourselves and those of other people. If you’re interested in understanding why people do terrible things and what we can do to help them then this is essential reading. An enlightening and entertaining read that is among the best books I have read this year.

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O’Keane writes with clarity and compassion about mental illness. The book is full of lessons we can learn from those suffering from mental illness about how our minds work.

The open section of the book especially is full of insights about how many of us perceive there to be a separation from mind and body which O’Keane persuasively argues is unhelpful.

O’Keane punctuates her points using vivid examples from art and literature as well as case studies from her own practice. Memory is a strange often unreliable thing that we all depend upon. The Rag and Bone Shop does a wonderful job of exploring how memories are made, how they are stores and how change over time as we recall them.

Reading this made me realise how memory is central to the human experience, to understanding the world and our place in it.

There were some concepts that I struggled to understand but this was more my fault than that of the author. However, given the subject matter, those looking for a light read need to go in understanding that while O’Keane has made most of the concepts accessible there are still many theories that are tough to grasp (or at least they were for me).

It is one of those books that after you finish reading it you have a better understanding of not only yourself but of other people in the world around you. Astounding and illuminating in equal measure.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

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