Read #19 of 2026
Nothing Tastes as Good by Luke Dumas
A very compelling and timely tale of an experimental weight loss drug's effect on a man tormented by eating and body issues. Check it out!
Read #18 of 2026
Wretch by Eric LaRocca
Read #17 of 2026
Where I End by Sophie White
Thoroughly enjoyed this savage, bleak, Shirley Jackson Award winning novel.
Read #16 of 2026
The Hospital at the End of the World by Justin C. Key
An interesting sci-fi medical thriller set in the near future where all but one hospital in the country is controlled by AI.
can we make this the new #1 most blocked account pls
Read #15 of 2026
Zero Saints by Gabino Iglesias
Read #14 of 2026
The Night That Finds Us All by John Hornor Jacobs
Movie poster for Project Hail Mary.
Caught the first showing of Project Hail Mary yesterday. It's excellent. See it on the big screen while you can!
Read #13 of 2026
Spread Me by Sarah Gailey
Beautiful hike out to Lake Clementine Dam this morning.
Read #12
Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher
Movies: Three Colors: Red, White, Blue; Ready or Not. Enjoyed them all!
Nearly 100 movies watched so far this year, mostly while on cardio equipment. Returned to renowned classics the last few days.
Read #11 of 2026
Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward
Read #10 of 2026
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.
Read #9
Tom's Crossing by Mark Z. Danielewski
An astounding, breathtaking novel brimming with beautiful prose, posing a story so enthralling, with characters and observations so full of life, that the heft of its 1,228 pages becomes a much welcome weight. A masterpiece to savor and ponder on.
Read #9
Tom's Crossing by Mark Z. Danielewski
An astounding, breathtaking novel brimming with beautiful prose, posing a story so enthralling, with characters and observations so full of life, that the heft of its 1,228 pages becomes a much welcome weight. A masterpiece to savor and ponder on.
Just finished the first ten pages and am immediately mesmerized.
Read #8 of 2026
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
An engrossing, challenging, and essential Victorian novel, perhaps Dickens' finest.
Of course. And that’s why Dems need to lean in and work towards dismantling ICE.
First no funding.
Impeach Noem.
Demand hearings on ICE’s operation in MN.
Demand that Miller resign.
Don’t let up.
Dawn by Octavia Butler
Read #7 of 2026
Dawn by Octavia Butler
This is My Body by Lindsay King-Miller (paperback)
Read #6 of '26
This is My Body by Lindsay King-Miller
Enjoyed this well constructed novel of possession horror and religious trauma. Recommended.
Fiend by Alma Katsu
Read #5 of 2026
Fiend by Alma Katsu
Read #4 of 2026
Roots Run Deep by J. Krawczyk /
The ‘Dillo by Max Booth III
Dear Library Commissioners, I am a very frequent Oakland Library user (I borrowed 76 titles last year) and have loved libraries all my life. I am also an author with two books in the Oakland Library's catalog. I'm writing because I'm so fed up with Artificial Intelligence again inserting itself into the reading and listening experience of library users, and again attempting to replace the work of librarians, this time via the Libby/Overdrive app. I've recently learned that Libby/Overdrive will be allowing titles to be listed in its catalog that were "created" using large language models and artificial intelligence tools. These kinds of works are anathema to the mission of a public library. First of all, their quality is atrocious. AI "voice" narration, for example, operates in an inhuman, uncanny valley-like simulacrum of the human voice. These works don't soothe or connect human beings; they are alienating, jarring, and awful. The same is true of "books" and other written materials generated using AI tools. Do not let them into our library's catalog. (Also, don't be fooled by this "self-identification" nonsense. Who would self-identify their work as not created by a human, when there are no consequences for failing to do so? There are disincentives, in fact, to self-identifying, because lots of people, myself included, avoid works made using LLMs.)
Ethical considerations are also a major concern. LLMs were created using stolen work -- including mine. AI voice narration imitations were all created using work that was stolen from human narrators. Furthermore, AI use is an environmental disaster. To cite Forbes magazine: "recent research has shown that training the GPT-3 language model in Microsoft’s U.S. data centers can directly evaporate 700,000 liters of clean freshwater." Finally, Overdrive announced that it will be pioneering -- word chosen very consciously -- an AI-powered feature aimed at replacing the work of human librarians. I am very curious what actual human librarians in the Oakland Library system would have to say about a Large Language Model that human beings are programming to mimic their very essential work. Commissioners, I am tired. I am tired of fighting to keep a planet-killing plagiarism machine -- one that rots the brain upon usage -- out of my email, my Discord channels, my private documents, my life. AI tools just robbed me of the hour of my life I spent writing and editing this letter to you: an hour I could have spent working on my current novel, or reading one of the many library books sitting on my desk right now. I counted on my library to be the one place where I could feed my lifelong love of books (audio and print), without having to fight to keep AI out of that experience too. And the very likely possibility that I might be tricked into reading a book that a human being created using AI tools stolen from my own books is not just throwing salt into the wound. It's opening up a barely-healed wound first, in order to toss in some salt. With lemon juice on top. Our library is a customer of Libby/Overdrive. Please use that power to demand that Overdrive drop its awful AI policy. And, if it doesn't, please find a new app that can replace it, and let Overdrive know why. Thank you for all the work you do in stewarding our beloved library.
I wrote this letter to my library board, asking them to drop Libby or find another app.
Read #3 of 2026
The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
Discord wants to know how you feel about AI.
Go tell them: discord.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Paperback book: The Mean Ones by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne. Deer antlers protruding through a woman’s eyes, face severed don the middle.
The Mean Ones by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
A quick, tightly paced, fun horror thriller.
Towards self-preservation, to pull back from witnessing the real-time, blow-by-blow destruction of democracy and civil liberties, I’m aiming to watch a movie a day this year.
A few favorite new watches so far: Together, Train Dreams, The Naked Gun, Saturday Night.
#LastFourWatched
For 248 years the streets of America didn’t feature a roving masked federal kidnapping squad that might send you a Central American death camp or just murder you themselves, but getting rid of it now is some impossible lefty fantasy that professional Democrats lamentably must struggle against.
The “prosecute the former regime at every level” candidate has my vote in 2028.
