Book Reviews Page 8

The Babes in the Wood by Ruth Rendell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

(SPOILERS) An unfortunate misstep for the usually reliable Ruth Rendell. The book is filled with uninteresting subplots (especially one about a wealthy alcoholic and his narcissistic model wife) that constantly undermine the flow of the story. Like so many European crime novels, the story includes the usual religious boogiemen without even a hint of nuance. The solution largely comes via a plot device not the investigation we have been following(though to be fair to Rendell, pieces of the investigation help illuminate to the solution but they were not really the vehicle to its discovery.) And after that event, when the plot finally starts to move with a little passion, we are treated to a trip to Sweden complete with travel suggestions that kills all of the momentum. Finally, the explanation of the crime comes not through plot but by an unnecessarily long-winded and sometimes silly explanation from Wexford to his partner. When his partner kept asking Wexford to get to the point I shared his frustration. Rendell is a great writer and I will happily continue to read her books but my advice is to take a miss on this one.

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The Circle by Dave Eggers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let's call it a speculative fiction, non-fiction book.

Dave Eggers' near future, tech-world, novel The Circle takes dead aim at Google, (um, I mean “The Circle”), and scores numerous body blows. Imagine if a sequel to 1984 called 2020 were written by an angry BF Skinner (yes, I know he is dead so let’s say a computer simulated BF Skinner writing program) and this is probably what you would get. Like Skinner’s Walden 2, much of the narrative is given over to a series of characters presenting their plans for making a Utopian future. But Eggers, unlike Skinner, is not buying it. This structure, however, sacrifices both the plot and the character development for ideas. But the ideas are almost worth it. It is hard to read a book where you are constantly frustrated by the protagonist. (Sometimes I hate the fact that as a reader I have a natural empathy for the protagonist in spite of their actions.) But Eggers has a lot of profound speculation about the future of privacy if we don’t alter our current path. Certainly he takes a lot of his ideas too far (but so did 1984) and he is hampered by placing it almost completely within the echo chamber of The Circle’s corporate campus and almost all of the interaction with the outside comes via The Circle’s social media products whose followers have already sipped the Kool-Aid. One hopes we would not give up so easily. Still the ideas will make you think and, in spite of the topic, the writing is brisk and easy to digest. Plus Eggers nails the ending with an exciting and foreboding final 80 sprint. I personally like Google. But The Circle did make me think that maybe I am not as keen on the idea of Google Glasses.

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Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are by Sebastian Seung
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A short (276 pages plus lots of notes), relatively easy read for the general user about the emerging science of brain mapping. While it covers most of the bases it suffers from the newness of the discipline. There is a limit to what there is to write about. There seems to be a fair amount of padding and digression. So for now maybe articles on the subject is probably enough and in five to ten years the will probably be a must-read book on the subject.

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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is on the deep end of the spectrum of the fantastical for Murakami. It took a little while to comfortably slide into these worlds because they seemed to lack anchors to reality his other books do. But after about 100 pages I was deeply involved. And unlike so many books today that alternate between two story lines, I enjoyed both equally. Crazy, fun, thoughtful, allegorical and philosophical it is a great read.

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Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Nick Bilton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An entertaining and fast-paced story of corporate infighting in the youth centered tech world. Bilton gets all of Twitter's major players to open up about their history from the inception of the ubiquitous social platform to their acrimonious departures for board mandated "adult supervision". But this was not what I was looking to read. I hoped for more of the ins and outs of tech side of the business. This is just another backstabbing corporate story set in the unique world of the tech start-up. I would have rated it lower but I couldn't justify giving three stars to a book I enjoyed so much.

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