Still reading
At one point for my late teens/early 20s, I’d have probably told you that Douglas Coupland was my favourite author - oh for the days of certainty! This didn’t change out of any particular personal growth (mine) or creative decline (his), more just he stopped publishing as much. But picking up this post-covid collection of microfiction, I’m instantly reminded of what I loved about his work. It’s a generational voice that works when stretched above and below that generation, consistent across these 60 bite-sized stories that quantum leap from character to character, but still different enough that each character feels suitably real. Laugh out loud funny in one moment, ruminative on the state of the world the next, and very hard to put down.
I’ve read a few books on the general theme of Bitcoin/cryptocurrency (Michael Lewis’ hagiography of SBF, Zeke Faux’s excellent investigative journalism on Tether), but Howson’s Let Them Eat Crypto takes a different tack somewhat. Rather than another book about the technicalities and the obvious scamminess of it all, this instead looks at the broader social impact: the poor communities in South America and Africa suffering from modern day colonialism; charities and NGOs being scammed into solutions that supposedly work towards their aims but instead absolutely make them worse; the supporting of far-right/longtermist/incel groups. Let Them Eat Crypto is unapologetic in its view that there is not a single good use of the blockchain, and offers a full-throated defence of that that is refreshing to read. What struck me most, though, was how easily translateable this is to the current AI hype - custom-built hardware that will burn out in a year and will end up on landfill, the same names making the same landgrabs for everyone’s mindshare and personal data, the same hype rush overtaking the people asking what this is all actually good for. The books will write themselves in a couple of years time (or, at least, metaphorically).
As is tradition, Mum has given me the Doctor Who annual for Christmas, and as such it is the first book of the year. Not much, as ever, to talk about here. The usual guff, and a short story from Pete McTighe (how many times can Ruby say something “tinged with sarcasm”?).