A working library is an exploration of—and advocate for—All books by viking
-
What Technology Wants
Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly (one of the founders and a former executive editor of Wired, and a veteran of the Whole Earth Catalog) argues that technology (or, as he calls it “the technium”), has evolved into something like a co-dependent existence—an extension of humankind, with as much if not more intelligence. Kelly is an apologist for many of the same things that Jaron Lanier warns about, and I find myself disagreeing with much of what they both have to say. But where the first two parts of What Technology Wants prattle on at length, the latter half is more than worth the cover price: Kelly’s analysis of technology’s needs vis-à-vis our own is an insightful approach to making choices about technology in our own lives, now and into the future.
-
Summertime
J.M. Coetzee
Of Coetzee’s last few works of fiction (this, Diary of a Bad Year, Elizabeth Costello), I can draw only a few, tentative conclusions: that he feels compelled to explore the structure of the novel itself (for reasons I cannot yet articulate), and that he is wise enough to get out ahead of the biographers who will no doubt pounce on his grave while still warm.
-
Diary of a Bad Year
J.M. Coetzee
Coetzee’s latest novel is written as two, entwined diaries—his own and that of a younger woman who he comes to pass the time with. Subtle and capable typography allows the trick to come off.
