Shortlisted recommended books of the moment

This is a quick little list of the handful of books that are impacting my thinking the most at the moment. This is a living document and I am sure I will update it fairly often (as I am wont to do)!

I have to include this book. I don't think I have ever been so accosted, shaken, or challenged by a book in my life. It is obviously not for the faint of heart or for those prone to anxiety or depression (I struggled at times and I generally think I'm very even-keeled). The book is something like a war game, where it is the predicted result of several fictional series of events. She does an excellent job of showing what a nuclear attack and the following nuclear war would look like second by second, minute by minute, and then the following tens of thousands of years. I often found myself open-mouthed, in awe and couldn't put it down.

In this book Sapolsky makes the argument for why we, as humans, do not have free will, an argument I find incredibly persuasive and surprisingly liberating. The argument gives me more cause for empathy towards folks who else more disadvantaged than me, and provides ample reason for humuility for the countless ways that I am so lucky for my jeans, conditioning, time and place of birth, etc. I also love the way Sapolsky writes, with humor and lots of research. At first it was daunty to receive such a lengthy tome from the library, but upon diving in, I felt lucky to pick it up every time.

Neil Postman, writing this in the 80s as a critique to television, is still so freaking relevant today, some 40 years later. It was so good I read it twice in a row! Though I haven't read any Marshall McLuhan, Postman seems to give his arguments/thoughts on McLuhan's "the medium is the message." That phrase has absolutely altered the way I view media of all kinds, opening up a small crack, through which I can make out a meta message in the innerworks of so many technologies I come into contact with. Plus, he spends nearly half the book arguing for why reading is such a good vehicle for ideas and how the US is built upon a very literate electorate. Ideas I truly adore at this moment in the intellectual life.

This book feels a little different than the other two. More grounded in the present. More tangible perhaps. Hari bases his book around the observation, and later question, that he feels he has less attention than before (at least "spotlight" attention rather than "lantern" attention). He takes the reader through lots of ways this theory may be proven out, including through diet, sleep, and technology. As I ride the subway day after day, hearing constant dings and endless several-second sound/music clips as folks scroll tiktok, I can't help but feel this is true. Maybe it's an excuse to feel superior in a pompous, naive way. Or maybe just some affirmation that I was right never to start drinking coffee, who knows. But in any case, it was another book to help me think critically about technology's role in modern life and how I might want to advocate for its changes as someone who works in tech.