Books Reviewed 2015

Here is  housekeeping post, collecting all the books reviewed here in 2015.

Looking back at this list, I see that this year saw Terry Pratchette’s last book (a wrenching experience), and new novels by old favorites Stross, Perry, Macguire, Holt, Gaiman, among others. I also read older but still good histories by Goodwin and Graeber. I read several books about banking, Papal and otherwise, and overlapping works about Italy, fictional and (supposedly) real.

Over the year, I reviewed a sampling of important books about contemporary digital life, including cryptocurrency, the “sharing economy”, social media, and “mind change”.   These works covered a spectrum from enthusiasm to dark worry, giving us much to think about. There are many more I did not have time or energy for. (I will say more on this topic in another post)

Throughout 2015 I continued my ongoing investigation of the question, “what is coworking?”, including reviews of two recent (self published) books about coworking by practitioners. (More on coworking in another post.)

Shall I name some “Best Books” out of my list? Why not?

Fiction:

There were so many to pick from. I mean, with Neil Gaiman in the list, how can I choose? But let me mention two that are especially memorable

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente
Very imaginative and well written, and, for once, not so horribly dark. This book lodged in my memory more than others that are probably equally good.

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
Published a few years ago, but I didn’t read it until this year. A wonderful, intricate story. The flight of the parrot is still in my memory.

Nonfiction:

There were many important works about digital life, and I shall try to comment on them in another post. But three books that really hit me are:

Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
From several years ago, but I didn’t read it until this year. Highly influential on the ‘occupy’ and other left-ish thinking. This is an astonishingly good book, and long form anthropology, to boot. Wow!

Reimagination Station: Creating a Game-Changing In-Home Coworking Space by Lori Kane
An exlectic little self-published book about “home coworking”, which I didn’t know was a thing. Kane walked the walk, and made me think in new ways about community and coworking.

Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy by Sam Maggs
Unexpected amounts of fun reading this short book. It does an old, graying nerd no end of good to see that at least some of the kids are OK. Really, really, OK.

List of books reviewed in 2015

Fiction

A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias
After Alice by Gregory Maguire
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
Bats of the Republic by Zachary Thomas Dodson
Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen
Chasing the Phoenix by Michael Swanwick
Candy Apple Red by Nancy Bush
Chicks and Balances edited by Esther Friesner and John Helfers
Corsair by James L. Cambias
Count to a Trillion by John C. Wright
Diaspora by Greg Egan
Distress by Greg Egan
Electric Blue by Nancy Bush
Forty Thieves by Thomas Perry
Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong
Get In Trouble by Kelly Link
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
Koko the Mighty by Kieran Shea
Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald
Mort(e) by Robert Repino
Numero Zero by Umberto Eco
Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente
Rebirths of Tao by Wesley Chu
Redeployment by Phil Klay
Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Shark Skin Suite by Tim Dorsey
String of Beads by Thomas Perry
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume Nine ed. by Jonathan Strahan
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff
The First Bad Man by Miranda July
The Fortress in Orion by Mike Resnick
The Future Falls by Tanya Huff
The Good, the Bad, and The Smug by Tom Holt
The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray
The Relic Master by Christopher Buckley
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Wild Ways by Tanya Huff
Time Salvager by Wesley Chu
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman
Ultraviolet by Nancy Bush
We Are Pirates by Daniel Handler
Witches Be Crazy by Logan J. Hunder
Zer0es by Chuck Wendig

Non Fiction

Arrival of the Fittest by Andreas Wagner
Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy by Sam Maggs
God’s Bankers by Gerald Posner
LaFayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell
Let’s Be Less Stupid by Patricia Marx
Live Right and Find Happiness by Dave Barry
Merchants in the Temple by Gianluigi Nuzzi
Mind Change by Susan Greenfield
Mindsharing by Lior Zoref
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
No More Sink Full of Mugs by Tony Bacigalupo
Not Impossible by Mick Ebeling
Pax Technica by Phillip N. Howard
Peers, Inc by Robin Chase
Reimagination Station: Creating a Game-Changing In-Home Coworking Space by Lori Kane
Speculative Everything by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Age of Cryptocurrency by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey
The Art of Forgery by Noah Charney
The Next Species by Michael Tennesen
The Reputation Economy by Michael Fertik and David C. Thompson
The Social Labs Revolution by Zaid Hassan
The Ugly Renaissance by Alexander Lee
Twentyfirst Century Robot by Brian David Johnson
Women of Will:  Following the Feminine in Shakespeare’s Plays by Tina Packer

 

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Books Reviewed Third Quarter

Books Reviewed Third Quarter

A bit of housekeeping:  here is a list of all the book reviews that appeared in this blog in Q3 2015.  Mostly new or recent releases, with a few old but good thrown in.

Fiction

Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen
Chasing the Phoenix by Michael Swanwick
Chicks and Balances edited by Esther Friesner and John Helfers
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 
Koko the Mighty by Kieran Shea
Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore  
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume Nine ed. by Jonathan Strahan
The Good, the Bad, and The Smug by Tom Holt
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley 
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
Time Salvager by Wesley Chu 
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis 

Non fiction

Reimagination Station: Creating a Game-Changing In-Home Coworking Space by Lori Kane
Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
Let’s Be Less Stupid by Patricia Marx
Mind Change by Susan Greenfield 
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
Peers, Inc by Robin Chase
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin 
The Art of Forgery by Noah Charney
The Next Species by Michael Tennesen 

 

What is Coworking: The Lifestyle

Yet another angle on the question, “What is Coworking?”: for some, it is more than a movement, it is a lifestyle.

Lori Kane gives us a personal account of her living the coworking idea in her self-published book “Reimagination Station: Creating a Game-Changing In-Home Coworking Space”, and associated blog, facebook, and other posts.

Far, far from the world of cheap office space or high pressure start up incubators, Kane created a free coworking space in her own home.

Way less venture capital hoo-haw, way more baking cookies.

For Kane, coworking is an extension of living as part of a local community. “Private space reimagined as community space.” (p.72) The walk ins are primarily neighbors (and soon to be friends), and the space becomes deeply connected to on the ground community activities of many sorts.

With a background in academia (studying “self organizing groups”) and at MIcrosoft, Kane was struck by a widely experienced observation of coworking spaces. In 2012 she visited a coworking space located in a very diverse SF, and “it hit me immediately: almost everyone in the space was young and white” (and mostly male). This was “not at all what the walk through the diverse neighborhood primed me to expect.” (p.9) She resolved to do better in her own Seattle neighborhood.

The book is organized as a long series of short personal essays (“hints”), which are as much about how to foster community as they are about “work”. (Example: “If you do just one thing: Say “Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here!””) In fact, from the book itself, it is completely unclear what, if any “work” was ever done in this space.

One of my first questions about any coworking space always is, “what is the business model?” (Honestly, I’m not criticizing, I’m really curious.) In this case, there isn’t much of one that I can see, any more than there is a “sustainability plan” for having neighbors over, or talking over the back fence, or living in a neighborhood. This is not a business, it is participatory theater. AKA, “life”.

Kane herself is aware of this, and embraces it.  “I’ve been feeling lately that “free community coworking space” isn’t adequate language for what we are here. Work isn’t at the heart of who we are. Not really. … It dawned on me that what we are is a friendship incubator. This is what matters most to me. Why the hell have we not been leading with that?!”

This version of coworking is not for everyone, and that’s OK. Kane and friends are plugged in to the neighborhood and to the Seattle Collaborative Space Alliance (SCSA) and will happily steer people toward other spaces that are a better fit.

From a broader perspective, this space is a throw back to village life. As I have commented elsewhere that maker spaces can be viewed as an echo of earlier multi-generational workshop traditions (think Renaissance artist’s workshop).

Kane notes a similar historical echo in her space, commenting that “Women all over the planet host work out of their homes every day. Turning a home into a community work space isn’t new.” (P. 95) I agree. I think this style of in-home work space recreates the “village”, where we all have work to do near home, and it is nicer and better to do it together.

In both of these cases, we are creating a digitally augmented version of a very successful social organization from past ages.  Fortunately, in the twentyfirst,  we are way more inclusive (a recently coined term!) and we are happy to leave out the indentured service part of the program.

This is all about “community”.  In 2013, after speaking about some experience from booting up our local Fab Lab, an audience member interested is starting such a space asked “very briefly can you tell me the three most important things needed to set up a local fab lab/makerspace/hackerspace?” My unhesitating answer was, “community, community, community”.

Kane and all her friends are walking this “community, community, community” walk in a fearless way I’ve never personally even approached. Whether this is “coworking” or fits for your particular needs today, it is the right idea. You go, guys!

What is their sustainability plan? Keep making more friends. How long can you keep doing this? As long as people are people..

It’s definitely worth reading Kane’s book and blog, though be prepared for a high level of autobiography and self-analysis. (She’s now a self-identified “poet”, and words are her tools. Expect words.)

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1. Lori Kane, Reimagination Stations: Creating a Game-Changing In-Home Coworking Space, Lori Kane, 2015.