Reading Wednesday

[sabotabby]

Just finished: Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This held up on re-read—it's still my favourite of her work (admittedly I haven't read her latest) and is just this perfect exploration how it feels to be 15 and simultaneously enraged with and in love with the world.

Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction, edited by Sonia Sulaiman. Somehow I missed this coming out last year despite—I thought, anyway—being on some kind of list from the editor. Anyway. It's quite excellent. Stories range from the hauntingly beautiful "The Third or Fourth Casualty" by Ziyad Saadi, about a group of children swimming and drowning, to the gorgeously defiant "Gaza Luna" by Samah Serour Fadil, to the absolute ugly-cry of "The Generation Chip" by Nadia Afifi. It's hard to pick a favourite—there are a lot of bangers in this collection. Anyway, you should read it.

Currently reading: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams. I would probably never read this if Mark Zuckerberg hadn't tried to have it banned, so good job with the Streisand Effect. It's pretty entertaining, though. The author pitches a job that doesn't exist to Facebook because she's naïvely convinced that the company is going to change the world in a good way (ha. ha. ha.) and then gets progressively more disillusioned when it turns out she works for the worst people. Also she almost got eaten by a shark when she was 13, which is a metaphor. But also she almost did get eaten by a shark when she was 13.

Comments

[greylock]

Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction,

Best.
Title.
Ever.
I don't even associate thyme with Palestine. Olives, yes.


Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams.

Well, I wasn't interested. But now I am. If she is the person I think, she's really erudite in interviews.

But also she almost did get eaten by a shark when she was 13

You go into the sea, you takes your chances.

[sabotabby]

Za'atar (thyme, sumac, and some other stuff) is pretty integral to Palestinian cuisine.

[greylock]

I have that, and sumac. But not ... I want to say dried cranberries.
My Middle Eastern cooking game is moderate.

[kore]

Careless People was fun for a while, but eventually I got tired of her constant protestations that "I had noooo idea what would happen" when she was right in the thick of it. I also don't think it's great that so many people portray Zuck, Dorsey, etc etc as just clueless nerds; yeah they're clueless and not actually that educated/smart but they have actual plans and philosophies. The whole idea that Facebook and Twitter aren't publishers, plus first amendment absolutism, was baked into their approaches and is responsible for a lot of the giant shitstorm we're in today (the killing of real news, "engagement" through provoking rage, selling giant collections of data to Russia bot farms, etc ETC etc I really could go on lol). She just portrayed everyone with cleaner hands than I think they have. Including herself.

[sabotabby]

I'm early in the book so I honestly can't tell if she's being sarcastic about her own naïvity.

[kore]

My impression was that as the book went on, she wasn't, but I'll be interested to hear what you think!

[lydamorehouse]

I loved Signal to Noise, too!

[sabotabby]

I don't know what it says about me that I relate most to SM-G's most widely disliked character BUT.