"The Boy who Harnessed the Wind"

And how!

"The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" is the heartwarming autobiographical account of how William Kamkwamba used his incredible mechanical aptitude to help his Malawian village. After a severe drought and famine, William is forced to drop out of school because his family can't afford the year's school entrance fees. Anxious not to fall behind his friends, he studies independently in the local library, and one day discovers a physics textbook called "Using Energy." By studying the book's illustrations, he learns how wind turbines can generate electricity, and dreams of building a machine to bring light and running water to his village and provide food security for his family.

"Zootopia"

Partners in crime investigation

"Zootopia" is an anthropomorphic animal movie, but it goes beyond imbuing animals with human characteristics: the eponymous city itself reflects human society and many of its complexities.

For her entire life, heroine Judy Hopps has heard that "in Zootopia, anyone can be anything," and now she's determined to make the world a better place by becoming Zootopia's first rabbit police officer. When she joins the force, she soon learns that not everyone's on board with anyone being anything, and that she must overcome her own prejudices to forge a friendship with Nick the fox and crack a case that could change the city's future.

Minor spoilers below.

"Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future"

The 1930s future: so quaint!

Somehow, imagining a brighter future seems quintessentially American. "Yesterday's Tomorrows" explains the country's obsession with futurism not in terms of technology, but as an evolution of society itself. From the preface:

To imagine that the future will resurrect cherished values of the past has no doubt been comforting to modern Americans. If only the material world changes, leaving social arrangements intact, the prospect of technological innovation becomes less intimidating. Yet this may well be in illusion. Technology has historically been a catalyst of change, not a conserver of traditions or a refuge for established ways of life and thought. The visions of the future gathered here are of little interest as prophecies. As artifacts of culture and belief, however, these past visions of the future—testaments to the pervasiveness of this illusion of technological utopianism—are guideposts to a better understanding of our own future.

Reading "Yesterday's Tomorrows" is a bit like walking through a history museum: the curator's text guides interpretation, but it's up to the visitors to make up their own minds about the past.

"The Fifth Season"

Anagram: Eons shift aft, eh?

"The Fifth Season" is another of the books I discovered¹ while reading the NYT series of mini-articles discussing prescient works of science fiction. The story is set in "The Stillness," an ironically-named world whose exceptional seismic activity regularly causes extinction-level events, known as fifth seasons: supervolcanoes, fissures across continents, sky-blotting clouds of ash, and so on. Jemisin explores the society that arose to cope with these fifth seasons and weaves the beginning of the worst fifth season yet into a very human story of striving and loss.

Minor spoilers below.

Amateur electrician (half-)hour

A few days ago, my late-night reading session was disturbed by a very large, very loud Musca domestica flitting around the ceiling fan, determined to push its face all the way through the frosted glass of my new LED bulb to feast on its tasty electronic innards.

Bzzzzzzzzzz

Determined to take matters into my own hands, I grabbed a nearby handkerchief and began flailing wildly at the intruder. A few things happened at once:

1. The fly escaped between the spinning blades of my ceiling fan (really);
2. The handkerchief wrapped itself around the weighted end of the light's pull-chain;
3. The light went out with a crack (and I put up a blackout curtain at night, so it was very dark);
4. Something whizzed by my arm and crashed into the ground.

"The Little Book of Common Sense Investing"

By John Bogle, patron saint
of do-it-yourself investors

I have a lot of respect for Vanguard founder John Bogle. Unlike every other financial services company at the time, Vanguard was set up to operate at cost, rather than to extract profits from account holders to funnel to its executives and shareholders. Vanguard's customers are its owners; it's a mutually-owned mutual fund company. If Bogle hadn't given up ownership of Vanguard, he'd probably appear in every Forbes List of Very Rich People ever published, and the rest of us would be that much worse off in retirement.

"The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" details Bogle's philosophy when it comes to investing in the stock market. It boils down to a few simple ideas: in aggregate, investors are the market, so in aggregate we can't beat the market. Costs matter; the returns you get are exactly what you don't pay for. Diversify as much as possible. And you can't buy past performance¹, so don't try to time the market!

"Legend of the Galactic Heroes" Vol. 1

Politics...in...spaaaaaace!

"Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Dawn" (LOGH) is the first volume of the English translation of (in my opinion) the greatest TV show ever made. The author Yoshiki Tanaka is known for his historical writing style, which comes through clearly in the novelization. Though it's set centuries in the future, "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" explores issues that are incredibly relevant today, such as the problems with various forms of government, the tension between regressive religious doctrines and the modern economy, terrorism, when war is justified, and much more.

"Gratitude"

The cover art looks
like a stylized sunset.

Last February, beloved neurologist and author Oliver Sacks wrote a New York Times op-ed ("My own life") about his thoughts upon being diagnosed with metastatic melanoma and learning that he could expect to live for only a few more months. "Gratitude" is a collection of this and three other essays on aging, the search for meaning, and dying with grace.

"The Education of Little Tree"

Truly a story, at any rate

"The Education of Little Tree" is a coming-of-age story set during the Great Depression. After his parents' death, the young Forrest "Little Tree" Carter moves in with his Cherokee grandparents in the mountains of Tennessee and learns the importance of self-reliance and understanding others. But the book is not what it seems – though allegedly autobiographical, it is actually a work of fiction written by the infamous Asa Earl Carter.

Minor spoilers below.

Future historians, rock & roll, narratives

The record that just might go gold galactically

The New York Times magazine recently published a fun article about which iconic rock artists might still be remembered 300 years hence, but also about how it's not facts but narratives that shape history. Here's an excerpt for flavor:

I have no data on this, but I would assert that if we were to ask the entire population of the United States to name every composer of marching music they could think of, 98 percent of the populace would name either one person ([John Philip] Sousa) or no one at all. There’s just no separation between the awareness of this person and the awareness of this music, and it’s hard to believe that will ever change.

Now, the reason this happened — or at least the explanation we’ve decided to accept — is that Sousa was simply the best at this art. He composed 136 marches over a span of six decades and is regularly described as the most famous musician of his era. The story of his life and career has been shoehorned into the U.S. education curriculum at a fundamental level. (I first learned of Sousa in fourth grade, a year before we memorized the state capitals.) And this, it seems, is how mainstream musical memory works. As the timeline moves forward, tangential artists in any field fade from the collective radar, until only one person remains; the significance of that individual is then exaggerated, until the genre and the person become interchangeable.

I'd say it doesn't stop with musical memory, though: this is how almost all memory works.

"The Great Depression: A Diary"

Diaries are always so serious

Benjamin Roth's diary is a month-by-month account of one of the U.S.'s most socially and financially turbulent eras. The contagion began in the equity markets, as investors discovered assets they'd thought a bargain were worthless. As the economy cratered, unemployment spread; mortgages went into default; millions lost their homes¹. Banks failed – and in many cases, illegal activity and insider kickbacks gave them the final push over the edge. Radicalism was on the rise. Some thought they were witnessing the death of capitalism.

This book's subject is the Great Depression, of course, but doesn't it sound eerily similar to 2007-2009? That's ultimately why I picked up "The Great Depression: A Diary": to see what lessons the past holds for the present.

For the first time in my personal business life I am witnessing a major financial crisis. I am anxious to learn the lessons of this depression. To the man past middle life it spells tragedy and disaster but to those of us in the middle thirties it may be a great school of experience out of which some worthwhile lesson might be salvaged.

—Benjamin Roth, June 5, 1931

"Use of Weapons"

Fun with typesetting: "Banks" is
the author's last name, not the title.

"Use of Weapons" made it onto my reading list thanks to a series of mini-articles published by the New York Times debating what science fiction movie or novel seems most prescient today¹. Brad DeLong's essay caught my attention:

Gene Roddenberry, the creator of "Star Trek," picked up that ball and ran with it to make a moral point about the limits of understanding and action, about how we should not mess with things that we don't understand. We, as Americans, have a bad history of following the Pottery Barn rule: We break things, and neglect to fix them or own them.

In "Use of Weapons," Iain M. Banks seeks to make a different point. He loads the dice. His civilization, the Culture, and its special action executive arm, Special Circumstances, has the knowledge and foresight that America’s best and brightest did not. They use their weapons for the utilitarian good.

Nonetheless, they use their weapons and they use them up. And their weapons are people.

Minor spoilers below.

"The Liar in Your Life"

Ironically, the subtitle is lying

"The Liar In Your Life" is about why people lie. It defines "lie" in a way that is unarguably true, though perhaps uncomfortable for many. Contrary to popular belief, lies are usually not told for personal gain. Most lies are either what we'd call lies of omission or "white lies," and these serve a specific social purpose. Often, people want to be deceived and the person telling the lie is simply playing along:

Unless we decide we want to know that our new haircut is a mess, that our child is a terrible Little Leaguer, that our colleague is not happy to run into us at the gym—and, indeed, unless we are prepared to tell other people this sort of thing—deception is here to stay.

"The Gardens of Light"

Prophet, painter, conscience-waker

"The Gardens of Light" introduces Mani, a third-century Babylonian prophet who founded the now-extinct Manichean religion and who preached nonviolence and tolerance across the Middle East. Very little about him has survived the passage of time, so Amin Maalouf dramatized his life and times in this work of historical fiction:

This book is dedicated to Mani. It [tries] to recount his life, or what can still be made out after so many centuries of lies and oblivion.

Minor spoilers below.

My retirement talk

I gave a talk at work last week on what academic research has to say about the best ways to save for retirement. Because we live in amazing times, I was able to record the presentation and save it on YouTube. Feel free to share it with anyone who might benefit:

The video description is below.

"The Millionaire Next Door"

Closer than you might think.

There are more millionaires in America today that at any time in the past, and it's not just because of inflation. "The Millionaire Next Door" exhaustively examines who these people are, how they live, and why most of us have completely wrongheaded ideas about the millionaire lifestyle.

Here's how it begins:

Twenty years ago we began studying how people become wealthy. Initially, we did it just as you might imagine, by surveying people in so-called upscale neighborhoods across the country. In time, we discovered something odd. Many people who live in expensive homes and drive luxury cars do not actually have much wealth. Then, we discovered something even odder: Many people who have a great deal of wealth do not even live in upscale neighborhoods.

"Fahrenheit 451"

Yes, another dystopia book

My education in classic dystopian literature continues¹ with Ray Bradbury's classic novel about a society incapable of recognizing its own degeneration. Yes, the book is about censorship, but it's also about what it means for something to be important as opposed to immediate, and remains surprisingly relevant today, over sixty years after its 1953 publication.

Minor spoilers below.

Google, the perfect team, and internet comments

The New York Times published What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team earlier this week, and it's worth a read. My favorite part:

What Project Aristotle has taught people within Google is that no one wants to put on a ‘‘work face’’ when they get to the office. No one wants to leave part of their personality and inner life at home. But to be fully present at work, to feel ‘‘psychologically safe,’’ we must know that we can be free enough, sometimes, to share the things that scare us without fear of recriminations. We must be able to talk about what is messy or sad, to have hard conversations with colleagues who are driving us crazy. We can’t be focused just on efficiency. Rather, when we start the morning by collaborating with a team of engineers and then send emails to our marketing colleagues and then jump on a conference call, we want to know that those people really hear us. We want to know that work is more than just labor.

The article reinforces some of the things I've been mulling over, but what I actually want to talk about are the most common reactions other people have had to the article, based on its comment section.

A few thoughts on "work-life balance"

The strange draw of SANS SERIF CAPS

As of this month I'm halfway through my Master's program, and I've been thinking a bit more about what comes afterward. People have already started to ask what industries and companies I'm interested in, but those aren't quite the right questions for me. Where I apply myself is important, but so is how I go about it.

I just revisited Lotte Bailyn is Redefining the Rules of Work and Family, which is a worthwhile read. Here's the hook:

Lotte Bailyn hates the phrase work–life balance. “Work–life” implies that the two exist in separate spheres. And “balance” implies that there’s a trade-off to be made.

Maybe that sounds too close to "you can have it all," which most people recognize as too idealistic, but I think there's an important point here. The goal shouldn't be to find a satisficing middle ground that gives up a little from here and a little from there. The goal should be to structure your life in a way that's sustainable, enjoyable, and fulfilling.

"Moneyball"

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

"Moneyball" isn't just about baseball. It's also about what happens when a scientific approach challenges conventional wisdom, and whether natural aptitude beats mental fortitude, and what asking the right questions can bring about. It changed how I think about baseball and to a lesser extent competitive sports as a whole, but it also challenged my understanding of what it means to play to win.

Minor spoilers below.

Secretary Robert Gates on leadership

This past week, I saw Robert Gates give a talk to promote his new book about how organizations can be reformed so that they work more effectively and efficiently for both their staff and the people they serve. He argues that all too often, the missing ingredient is courageous leadership. Though he focused on governmental institutions, many of his points are broadly applicable and good food for thought.

Hardly a day passes in the life of any American without having to battle one or another bureaucracy. It doesn't need to be this way. I believe institutions – bureaucracies large and small – can be fixed. Changed and made more cost effective and user-friendly, efficient and responsive, and shaped to meet new problems and challenges.

It's a combination of pragmatism and optimism that of late I haven't seen enough of in government.

More quotes below.

"The Giver"

The Giver's bearded face

While visiting a friend some time ago, we got on the topic of dystopian novels, and it came out that I'd somehow missed reading "The Giver" – 1994's Newbery Medal winner – while growing up. I immediately recognized the cover art so I'm sure I'd seen his bearded face at the school library, but for whatever reason I never pulled the book from the shelves.

When I finally got around to renewing my library card late last month, I glanced over my one-day reading list and saw that "The Giver" was by far the oldest item on it, so I checked out the ebook version and was quickly hooked¹.

Minor spoilers below!

Smell the roses

"If you don't write it down, it doesn't exist." —Linda Ginzel

I used to do a lot of journaling. Even as recently as a couple of years ago, I'd write almost daily – certainly at least weekly – jotting down ideas, impressions, emotions, and the like as the mood took me. I wasn't really trying to keep a biographical record or preserve ideas or anything of the sort. It's more that the act of writing helped me process my thoughts, helped declutter my mind.