en-US Fri, 25 Apr 2025 05:04:45 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg ReadStatus9350353661 Fri, 25 Apr 2025 05:04:45 -0700 /review/show/7517431824 Ali is currently reading Unfinished Business by Shankari Chandran
]]> ReadStatus9346428783 Thu, 24 Apr 2025 04:11:21 -0700 /review/show/7514686412 Ali is currently reading Nuclear War: The bestselling non-fiction thriller, shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024 by Annie Jacobsen
]]> Review7514635943 Thu, 24 Apr 2025 03:38:43 -0700 /review/show/7514635943 Ali gave 4 stars to Coming Out as Dalit: A Memoir (Kindle Edition) by Yashica Dutt
bookshelves: non-fiction, biography
It seems surprisingly difficult to find English language writing on Dalit issues, and what there is that I have found often focuses on rural, more traditional, communities. Dutt's memoir, which is as much analysis and commentary as personal anecdote (this is a good thing), opens up a description of a modern world, in which urban Dalit youth work hard to 'pass' as upper caste. This is motivated by the need to avoid verbal and physical abuse as well as endemic employment and education discrimination. Dutt shows how this discrimination often works by proxy - the creeping importance of networking, 'merit' processes which heavily weight skills Dalits are unlikely to have, and the scrutiny of someone's place of birth, religion, surname and skin colour as possible signifiers. In addition to overt anti-Dalit sentiment, she documents the persecution that is justified against "quota" Dalits who are accused of not having earned places in education systems - meaning students are particularly vunerable to violence and humiliation in their studies. Worringly, Dutt paints the growth, rather than subsistence, of this trend in recent years, and the subtle shift into justifying caste as a religious freedom, with opposition to caste discrimination increasingly positioned as "anti-Hindu" sentiment. I had not realised how significant Silicon Valley had become as a site of contestation over caste network job hiring, as well as a place where these arguments defending the practice are being refined. Updated in the last year, this volume includes new content on the USA and how the system is connected to some of India's elite institutions. ]]> Review7499662985 Wed, 23 Apr 2025 03:48:19 -0700 /review/show/7499662985 Ali gave 5 stars to The Angel of History (Kindle Edition) by Rabih Alameddine
bookshelves: fiction
Since about 2017, I have read one or two Alemeddine books a year, with the order largely chosen at random. His is the name most likely to pop into my head when someone asks the inevitable "favourite living author" question, and his books are always so interesting and clever, while still being interesting, and always full of things to say. I have been holding off on this one - my last unread novel - until I had an announcement of another, simply because I want to have one unread Alemeddine to look forward to. He has a book coming out this year, in September, so it felt safe to finally embark upon the Angel of History.
The themes felt a little like a reprise from Koolaids, which mingled war and plague together in a sharp commentary on what we decide matters. Angel of History is set decades later, but also features a protogonist trying to unpick his trauma from the plague and from being Arab during the dehumanising, endless war on "terror". Tonally, the books are quite different, however, and perhaps surprisingly the dominant tone from Angel of History to me was sheer fury, grieving fury, but still raw, deep anger. Jacob/Yaʿqūb has checked into hospital, seeking some kind of treatment for his tendency to talk to Satan, but we quickly realise he is also there because he simply has nowhere else he feels bearable to be. And it isn't Satan on his mind, but his deceased partner and friends, the wreckage of a lifestyle and a community that simply died around him years ago. In the meantime, in his apartment, Satan convenes a motley crew of saints and Death at his apartmto discuss the poet's conundrum, and pick apart the trauma of childhood in which love and respect never coexisted with access to resources. Alameddine also peppers the novel with bitterly funny stories, the work of our poet, whose misery or simply abandonment of trying, has driven him from verse. The novel, which is never bleak, chronicles the ways in which pain can become overwhelming, and accumulated grief, persecution and prejudice can overwhelm. Even solace is painful - our saints give of themselves in ways that are harsh in their sustenance, our poet seeks comfort in the oblivion of bdsm. Somehow the book manages to bear testimony to what cannot, maybe should not, be survived without failing to celebrate support, love and community. Also, there is absolutely perfectly drawn mischievous black cat, clearly a soul twin of my own, called Behemoth. ]]> Review7508884275 Tue, 22 Apr 2025 03:49:23 -0700 /review/show/7508884275 Ali gave 4 stars to The Dutch Transatlantic Slave Trade: New Methods, Perspectives, and Sources (Slavery and Emancipation) by Ramona Negrón
bookshelves: non-fiction

An interesting compendium of essays that attempt to recentre the human experience and motivations of the slave trade over the more logistical focus. Like many academic works, chapters spend a bit long telling you what they will, are and have told you for my taste as a more general reader, but worked to understand more about the dimensions of Dutch involvement. ]]> Review7488578082 Mon, 21 Apr 2025 04:48:17 -0700 /review/show/7488578082 Ali gave 5 stars to The Theory of Everything (Kindle Edition) by Yumna Kassab
"We wish to touch the spinning circle, to do so without losing an arm, our nose or a toe. How to stand in the middle of the energy and find our way forward, eyes closed, noting the turbulence all around, yes, surrounded on every side. It was meant to be poetry and beauty and music, nay, never surrender for the lesser life. Once I asked after the meaning, now I wonder how to walk the path."

There is something I find deeply resonant about Kassab's writing - one of the few writers whose books have never felt disappointing to me. Part of this attraction, I think, is Kassab's polyphonic approach, which gives voice to a chorus that surrounds with differing perspectives, rather than drowning out with one. The Theory of Everything marks an evolution of sorts, here Kassab presents us with five mini novels, each with its own set of voices, but which also together link thematically speak together. While the first, Game, has a named, related set of characters, the others become increasingly more abstract. Gender commences with stories of misogynistic violence and infanticide, and quickly whirls into experiences of womanhood, seguing slyly into the impossible process of writing. Modern picks up that theme, while examining the fractured, attention demanding world we live in - a counter to Kassab's frequent focus on slow life and community presence. Glimpses of publishing life peek through, in the commidification of identity, for instance. Silver picks us back up in named characters, a mysterious hotel with a reclusive famous guest, with echoing themes from identity, gender, dispossession, isolation and modernity. We start and finish in Uruguay, strangers looking to be less strange. And in Absurd, the narrator meets with a vampire in an unnamed country, likely Uruguay, trying to justify her own sense of misery when she holds so much relative power, hoping to be worthy of being listened to, perhaps hoping no-one is listening at all.
It is all wildly experimental, oft emotional, and never, ever boring. ]]> ReadStatus9324871915 Fri, 18 Apr 2025 16:55:54 -0700 /review/show/7499662985 Ali is currently reading The Angel of History by Rabih Alameddine
]]> Review7498153921 Fri, 18 Apr 2025 04:40:33 -0700 /review/show/7498153921 Ali gave 4 stars to Madame Brussels: The Life and Times of Melbourne's Most Notorious Woman (Kindle Edition) by Barbara Minchinton
bookshelves: australia, non-fiction, biography

Minchinton and Bentley have done a great job of bringing Brussels and her world to life, with engaging coverage of what is known, and what isn't, about the life of this Melbourne brothel owner. There was perhaps a little bit too much speculation at times, but the picture of the city that emerges from this story of a life, is vibrant and intriguing. ]]> Review7481188275 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 04:01:08 -0700 /review/show/7481188275 Ali gave 5 stars to The Greenhollow Duology: Silver in the Wood, Drowned Country (Kindle Edition) by Emily Tesh
Reading your second book by an author of a first read book you adored is always anxiety inducing. I adored Some Desperate Glory in the annoyingly pushy to get everyone to read it way, and the premise of this felt so wildly (heh) different but so more up my alley than the premise of that. The good news is that Tesh is now firmly ensconsced on my favourite author list. The bad news is that I have to wait for her next book to be published,
The two novellas collected here work well read in sequence, with a nice tonal progression/shift as it progresses. The first works as a queer love story. Tobias, a mysterious stoic hermit, must wrench himself into courage and action from an undertow of sadness and regret, while the lighter, freer Silver revels in transgressing boundaries placed to constrain/protect. Both are compellingly drawn, with the right dose of simplicity, threat and wonder in the fable like lore. The second has a lighter, more playful tone, with a focus on adventure among the group of reluctant companions. Both are fun and beautiful, but the first probably more gorgeous and the second more joyous. Needless to say, I want more! ]]> Review7473554953 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 03:57:13 -0700 /review/show/7473554953 Ali gave 4 stars to AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference (Kindle Edition) by Arvind Narayanan
bookshelves: non-fiction
This is a mostly practical approach to writing about the current state of AI, with a focus on generative and predictive technologies. While pitched at those who are AI averse, the books' authors are self-described enthusiasts about the possibilities from regulated generative AI, while roundly condemning all forms of predictive AI, and noting the many abuses that can come from gen AI in the wrong hands. The book is particularly useful for the clear account of current fields of application (eg facial recognition, content moderation, sentencing or child removal predictions, creative endeavours such as image generation, coding, chatbots), and a handy chart with their assessments of both accuracy and harm potential of current fields of application. The authors have deep knowledge of these applications, and that shows in the detail and analysis of them.
In many cases, such as predictive uses and content moderation, they rank the tech as both inaccurate and harmful. In others, like facial recognition, it is harmful despite being relatively accurate. They are kinder towards the creative and assistive uses of generatie AI - I did think they skimmed over the issues around creator rights and how the technology has been trained on the work of creatives with no recompense to date. But I also feel that their acknowledgement that Gen AI can be used by a person to speed up certain kinds of work is undeniable. This leads to a strong set of recommendations for how to regulate, shape and control AI. They chuck some interesting extras in to this, including an argument for randomised ballots in university and other highly competitive selection processes, as a way to stop an inevitable arms race in which the wealthy and privileged put more and more resources into securing their spots at the top of the tree. These are sensible, but of course rely on having a government which is interested in protecting just and happiness-supporting outcomes - or having a population which can call a government to account for such things.
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