Looking back at the books I read - 2024
The remains of the day (Kazuo Ishiguro)
A book about a professional butler in the UK around the 1920s to the 1940s. The butler looks back at his life and reminisce key moments. Did he serve the right person? Was his career worthwhile? Did he have a fulfilling relationship with his family? And romance?
This is a very satisfying book. It is beautifully written with easy to read. And yet, it is also one of those books that leave a distinct "feeling" inside you when you finish reading it.
No time to Spare (Ursula K. Le Guin)
This book is a collection of blog articles from Ursula K Le Guin in her later years of her life. It covers a wide range of topics from cats to politics. Some posts are about Ursula's slice-of-life, very gentle and calming. Other posts talk about her concerns on future ecology, economics and politics. She is worried for the world that is, in her opinion, crumbling apart. She is worried for the younger generation that has to take care of the world when she leaves.
This book has a nice ebb and flow. At some points its charming, at other bits it is thought provoking.
Never let me go (Kazuo Ishiguro)
I can't talk too much about this book, or else it will be spoilers! Its a book about a group of kids growing up and knowing their true purpose in life.
This is a Nobel Prize winner book and for good reason. Much like The remains of the day, this book also implants a "feeling" when you finish reading the book. Highly recommended.
Doppelganger (Naomi Klein)
This is a political book about "digital Doppelgangers" in the modern age. A critical analysis of the rise of the far right in the last decade. Mind you, this is written from a leftist perspective and it is not an unbiased book. The suggestions propose democratic "big government" ideas. But, the suggestions are justified with strong arguments and critical analysis.
Society today is highly segregated with social media creating echo chambers. People with the same political views group up tightly, never to see the world from another perspective. Instead, these group publicly shame the opponents, encouraging hate and extreme abuse. People take "freedom" too far, refusing to cooperate for the greater good of society (take COVID restrictions, for example).
Technofeudalism (Yanis Varoufakis)
This is a book introducing a theory on post-capitalism. In this book, the author advocates the idea of Techno-feudalism, where software companies with SaaS offerings are becoming feudal lords and the users of the service are paying "cloud rent" to keep their businesses alive. Top businesses are no longer manufacturing and selling items for a profit. Rather, it is a race on market share and how much "cloud rent" the company can extract from the market.
As an engineer, I couldn't help but apply this idea to other services in the industry as well. Cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) are critical infrastructure for A LOT of companies nowadays. These providers also lock down customers with their services and charge compute costs ("cloud rent").
Emerging AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic also uses subscription models. As LLM becomes more powerful, more and more businesses will rely on AI for their critical operations, and thus get locked in for "AI rent".
The Anxious Generation (Jonathan Haidt)
Do you feel that the mental health crisis is real and more people are depressed these days? This book uncovers the reason behind this issue and introduce potential fixes for the problem.
The book is jam-packed with statistics of why depression is on the rise for the young generation. After the invention of the smartphone and social media apps, kids are glued to their screens bombarded with information and social comparison from a young age. At the same time, the introduction of pedantic child protection laws is prohibiting kids from going out in the real world.
It also introduces ideas on how we can improve on kids mental health with tangible advice on screen time and freedom for kids.
Four Thousand Weeks (Oliver Burkeman)
The last book for 2024 is a book on time management. Not the average "productivity guru" book about time management techniques that works for 2 weeks. This book transcends techniques and looks at the bigger picture of the amount of time we have in life and how to use it wisely.
Life is never organized. Time never flows the way you like it to. Instead of fretting the future, embrace the randomness of time and live in the present.
It made me think when the book was talking about how focusing on random small tasks are often an excuse for running away from the daunting large tasks. I felt that I need to let go of many things that I want, and instead focus on a small subset of tasks that are extremely important. The 5/25 rule really stuck with me.
