Reading tracker: books, papers, and long-form pieces — owned, borrowed, or just under consideration. Under Consideration entries link to Goodreads, Kobo, and major-publication reviews, plus an AI-generated recommendation across the engagement spectrum: read it cover to cover, read the reviews instead, read other things on the topic, or skip entirely.
Currently Reading
Blasket Bound: Memoirs of an Island Caretaker — Lesley Bond
Links: Goodreads (4.45★, 47 ratings) · Kobo · Irish Times review · Irish Examiner feature
Bond and her partner Gordon were the first couple in the six-month caretaking residency on Ireland’s remote Great Blasket Island — no electricity, no hot water, no modern conveniences. A blend of personal reflection and island heritage. Relevant prep for the November 2026 Ireland trip.
On Deck
Books I own but haven’t read yet.
A Brief History of Equality — Thomas Piketty
Links: Goodreads (4.0★, 3,572 ratings) · Kobo · NY Times review
A short, surprisingly optimistic history of humanity’s fitful march toward greater equality — Piketty’s own introduction to the ideas of Capital. An NYT Book Review Editors’ Choice.
Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own — Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
Links: Goodreads (4.4★, 6,538 ratings) · Kobo · NY Times review
Glaude turns to Baldwin — biography, criticism, and memoir braided together — for instruction on bearing witness to America’s ongoing failure to confront its lies about race. A NYT bestseller; one of the best books of 2020 per Time, WaPo, and the Chicago Tribune.
Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger — Peter Bevelin
Links: Goodreads (4.2★, 4,966 ratings) · Kobo
Bevelin’s compact synthesis of how our thinking goes wrong — psychology, misjudgment, incentives — drawing on Darwin, Munger, and the mental-models tradition. A workbook-style read, best taken slowly.
Under Consideration
Books, papers, and long-form pieces I don’t yet know enough about to commit to reading.
Don’t Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech — Claire Stapleton
Links: Goodreads (3.8★, 330 ratings) · Kobo · NY Times review · BookPage starred review
A memoir of Stapleton’s twelve years at Google — speechwriter and “Bard of Google” turned organizer of the 2018, 20,000-person Google Walkout — and her disillusionment with Big Tech’s ideal-to-profit drift.
AI Recommendation
- Read it cover to cover if: you want a first-person, literary account of how tech-industry idealism corrodes from the inside. The NYT review calls it an insider’s reckoning with “the stories we tell about work, purpose, and ourselves” — strongest for readers who value voice and narrative arc over new information.
- Read the reviews instead if: you already know the Google Walkout story and mainly want the argument. The NYT and BookPage reviews carry the core thesis; Meredith Whittaker’s endorsement tells you where it sits ideologically. ~30 minutes vs. ~8 hours.
- Read other things on the topic if: your real interest is the structural analysis of Big Tech rather than one person’s journey. This memoir overlaps heavily with:
- Careless People — Sarah Wynn-Williams (Meta insider memoir, same genre)
- Uncanny Valley — Anna Wiener (Silicon Valley disillusionment memoir)
- The AI Con — Dr. Alex Hanna & Emily Bender (the structural critique Whittaker/Hanna bring to the endorsements)
- No Is Not Enough — Naomi Klein (corporate-brand disillusionment)
- Skip entirely if: you’re saturated on Big Tech critique — the last decade has produced many of these insider-turns-dissenter memoirs, and if you’ve read two of them, this one’s marginal information is the Walkout organizing detail.