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I don't recommend this book. I read it for research purposes because it's written by Frank McCourt, a billionaire investing in a decentralized protocol called "Project Liberty." The book is invested in giving people "ownership" of their own data through decentralized structures and blockchain technology. The argument is built on the idea that a new internet should be built with the same ethos as the "American Project." It cites Paine's Common Sense throughout, and it has no real self-reflexive moments about what the "American Project" required (land theft and slavery). Their vision is an internet of individual rights in which you control your data and you have ownership of your data. The audience is likely libertarians who are ready for technosolutionism.

It's worth reading only if you want to see how billionaires want to fix the problem of a broken internet, even when those billionaires (and you have to give them a bit of credit for this at least) aren't necessarily trying to make more billions with that new internet (though, one should be skeptical).

This is a quick read and an interesting argument. Uber arrived in D.C. to some initial resistance, but that resistance quickly dissipated. The authors argue that the company was successfully able to shift the "common sense" of D.C. That shift was both in the sense of "plain wisdom" and everyday habits (taking an Uber and not a taxi or a train became the sensible, practical thing to do) and in the sense of a significant shift in the political terrain - Uber was able to shape what people expected from cities and government. Or, better, it was able to radical reduce those expectations, to convince everyone (politicians, citizens, everyone) that cities are bad at providing basic services and we should just "let Uber do it."

One interesting idea that emerges from the authors' analysis is that Uber succeeds in reducing complicated problems to a simple solution that doesn't actually address the problem, ostensibly solving that more minor/misleading problem, and then considering it all done and dusted. It's not surprising if you follow Silicon Valley discourse. Reduce a problem to one that a computer can solve (even if that computable solution doesn't actually solve the problem), write software, profit.

A solid analysis of the gig economy that goes beyond "mere" critique and gets at some of the bigger complexities. The strong parts of the book are where they interview drivers and find out about how drivers try to resist Uber or game the system. There's also really good stuff about how Uber's model prevents labor organizing by preventing spaces of gathering (spaces for workers to commiserate, organize, plan). A section on the D.C. Airport is especially interesting.

This book is a lot of things (poetry, prose, fiction, metafiction), and it is an honest and well-written account of parenting. I haven't experienced motherhood, but I have experienced parenthood and have been adjacent to motherhood. I feel like this book is unflinching and honest.

It also reflects on the difficulties and sometimes impossibilities of parenting and writing (one seems to always get in the way of the other). Perhaps this goes with any work, but it might feel more acute when it comes to writing?

There are tons of passages I'd love to quote, but here's one:

"It was not through housekeeping but through writing that she wished to approach all the objects of the world. Was writing in that case a form of housekeeping? A way of bringing things into order? When Adam names everything in the Garden of Eden, was he in fact doing the work of a housewife?" (67)