I've been working in the field of AI for 40 years, first in graduate school and then as a professor. For the most part, I have had my head in the sand, focusing on the minutiae that occasionally lead to publications, the coins of the academic realm. When deep learning started exhibiting human-level pattern recognition abilities, the number of AI books for the general public began to swell. Unfortunately, the science-fiction scenarios were a bit much. Since understanding, recognizing, and admitting problems are vital steps toward a solution, I find these books to be the most important warnings of the impending tech-dominated future.
Although it is now a well-known fact that many actors are fighting for our online attention, and will do just about anything to get and keep it, Wu puts it all in historical perspective by going back to the 1800’s and the beginning of print advertising.
He then traces our relationships with ads across a century and four screens: movies, television, home computers, and finally the cell phone. For the same reason that I enjoy reading history books to try to make some sense of the world’s current political chaos, this masterpiece by Wu should ensure you that nothing about human greed has changed in any major way: the tools of exploitation just get more powerful and more addictive.
Attention merchant: an industrial-scale harvester of human attention. A firm whose business model is the mass capture of attention for resale to advertisers. In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of advertising enticements, branding efforts, sponsored social media, commercials and other efforts to harvest our attention. Over the last century, few times or spaces have remained uncultivated by the 'attention merchants', contributing to the distracted, unfocused tenor of our times. Tim Wu argues that this is not simply the byproduct of recent inventions but the end result of more than a century's growth and expansion…
I’ve been fascinated by the news media and technology for as long as I can remember. I successfully campaigned for a VCR as a five-year-old, and watched multiple news programs with my grandfather growing up. Alongside these interests, I managed to read as many books as I possibly could. I’ve managed to somehow parlay that into a job as a researcher, where I study the news media sector and technological transformation. I read everything on this list while I was writing my latest book, and hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
Philip Napoli is a leading media policy expert and was one of the first people to identify some of the problems that emerge when news gets distributed online through social media algorithms.
I love this book because it provides a great narrative of how we got to this point, but also some fantastic suggestions for how policymakers can respond. It’s quite readable for an academic book, and worth checking out.
Facebook, a platform created by undergraduates in a Harvard dorm room, has transformed the ways millions of people consume news, understand the world, and participate in the political process. Despite taking on many of journalism's traditional roles, Facebook and other platforms, such as Twitter and Google, have presented themselves as tech companies-and therefore not subject to the same regulations and ethical codes as conventional media organizations. Challenging such superficial distinctions, Philip M. Napoli offers a timely and persuasive case for understanding and governing social media as news media, with a fundamental obligation to serve the public interest.
Joanne McNeil has written about internet culture for over fifteen years. Her book considers the development of the internet from a user's perspective since the launch of the World Wide Web. Her interest in digital technology spans from the culture that enabled the founding of major companies in Silicon Valley to their reception in broader culture.
A memoir that covers Losse’s experience working at Facebook from 2005 when she was the company’s 51st hire. Losse weaves her own experience—at first as a low-level employee in customer support and later as Mark Zuckerberg’s ghostwriter—with sharp analysis of Silicon Valley’s changing role in politics and culture. A powerful reckoning with her own complicity working for a company that exhibited dangerous “totalitarian” ambition from its very beginning.
Kate Losse was a grad school refugee when she joined Facebook as employee #51 in 2005. Hired to answer user questions such as "What is a poke?" and "Why can't I access my ex-girlfriend's profile?" her early days at the company were characterized by a sense of camaraderie, promise, and ambition: Here was a group of scrappy young upstarts on a mission to rock Silicon Valley and change the world.
Over time, this sense of mission became so intense that working for Facebook felt like more than just a job; it implied a wholehearted dedication to "the cause." Employees were…
Fashion has been the love of my life since I was a little kid pouring over magazines and watching shows on fashion TV in the middle of the night. But I’ve always known fashion is not about clothing, its about feeling and it’s about people. That’s why I love to read the stories about people who work in fashion, who have been impacted by fashion and those who love it just as much as I do.
In Dress Code, fashion director Veronique Hyland makes the connection between clothing and our culture.
She argues that fashion is an integral part of all of our lives and explains the ways that it means so much more than the outfit hanging in our closets. The essays are great at helping the reader contextualize clothing in a world where social media and politics, inform the way we shop and style ourselves.
A New Yorker Magazine Best Book of 2022 * An Esquire Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 * A Town & Country Must-Read Book of 2022 * A Fashionista Summer Read
"Smart, funny, and impressively thorough."-The Cut
In the spirit of works by Jia Tolentino and Anne Helen Peterson, a smart and incisive essay collection centered on the fashion industry-its history, its importance, why we wear what we wear, and why it matters-from Elle Magazine's fashion features director.
Why does fashion hold so much power over us? Most of us care about how we dress and how we present ourselves. Style…
Ramsey Campbell deserves to be as well known to any horror reader – any
reader of any genre really – as Stephen King and yet for some reason he isn’t.
If you are coming to this without having read any of his impressive back
catalogue, don’t worry because there are many, many treats in store for you. The
Lonely Lands is most assuredly one of them and is a great place to start.
This story has echoes of Richard Matheson (in Where Dreams May Come)
in its premise. The main character is dealing with the loss of his dearly loved
wife and must endure the horrors of the other world. There the similarity ends
as The Lonely Lands takes very different twists and turns, transporting
the reader along with it in true Campbell style.
Expect the unexpected in among
the scares and darkness, along with poignancy and themes that…
The latest bestseller from the ultimate craftsman of the dark fantastic, Ramsey Campbell. Joe Hunter has begun to adjust to the loss of his wife when he hears her calling from beyond, "Where am I?" His urge to help leads him into her afterlife, which is made up of their memories. Even the best of those is no refuge from the restless dead, and Joe can only lure them away from her. Soon they begin to invade his everyday life, and every journey he makes to find her leaves him less able to return. When her refuges turn nightmarish he…
I knew in my early teens that I wasn’t straight, but back then, the thought of coming out was too scary. I waited until I was twenty-three to do so, and it was still scary even being ten years older! So I can relate to stories of women of all ages discovering their less-than-straight sexuality. It’s rarely easy, no matter how many years you’ve lived already. It still requires good support from the people who love you, and one thing in common in all of the books I’ve recommended is that family, or often found family, plays a crucial role in the newly-out woman feeling comfortable being themselves.
This one had me laughing out loud just as much as swooning over the lovely story of Caroline and her transformation once her husband dumps her in the home where ‘difficult’ women are put when they cause too much trouble for those husbands. There are elements of steampunk, social commentary, twisted humor, and a cast of secondary characters that are as varied as they are interesting. The setting, while bleak to begin with, grows on you as you read, and once all the twists and turns finally click into place, it’s a romp of a ride to the end.
A gentle Victorian tale of women’s passions and power, with a sprinkle of romance, a trifle of steampunk, and heaps and heaps of quiet revolution.
Caroline Ajax is an inconvenient woman. Unwell. Hot-tempered. Harboring a tragic secret she can’t share with another living soul. Dropped at an institution in the Surrey Hills by her husband, Thomas, her only objective is to survive, to endure, to make it back to what little there is of her life as soon as she possibly can. But it doesn’t take her long to discover there is something unusual about this house and its eclectic…
For more than five years, we’ve been asking ourselves a question: How? How did Mister Rogers help millions of kids feel accepted, special, and safe? Was there a method to what he did? Was there a blueprint he left behind—one that we might continue to learn from today? The answer, of course, is yes. In fact, we’re only scratching the surface of what we can learn from Fred Rogers and the incredible educators, researchers, and authors who are following in his footsteps. We hope you’ll find echoes of the Neighborhood—and the feelings that Fred inspired—in each of the books we’ve listed here.
Growing Up in Public addresses something that keeps digital-age parents awake at night: the fact that everything kids say and do will live online forever.
What does authenticity look like when the whole world is watching? How do kids develop character in an always-connected age? And how might we help our kids use digital tools to become the best of whoever they are?
We had the privilege of previewing the answers in Devorah Heitner’s fantastic book, forthcoming on September 12.
The definitive book on helping kids navigate growing up in a world where nearly every moment of their lives can be shared and compared
With social media and constant connection, the boundaries of privacy are stretched thin. Growing Up in Public shows parents how to help tweens and teens navigate boundaries, identity, privacy, and reputation in their digital world. We can track our kids’ every move with apps, see their grades within minutes of being posted, and fixate on their digital footprint, anxious that a misstep could cause them to be “canceled” or even jeopardize their admission to college. And…
This is a very affecting novel that brings together the irony and
frivolity of social media with the overwhelming joy and sadness of caring for a
seriously ill child.
The first half captures perfectly the throwaway and
absurdist content of Twitter humor; the second half I found to be an unexpectedly
moving portrait of a young woman coping with family tragedy. I can’t think of a
novel that better depicts the experience of being ‘too online’.
'Patricia Lockwood is the voice of a generation' Namita Gokhale
'A masterpiece' Guardian
'I really admire and love this book' Sally Rooney
'An intellectual and emotional rollercoaster' Daily Mail
'I can't remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book' David Sedaris
'A rare wonder . . . I was left in bits' Douglas Stuart
* WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2022 *
* SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 *
* SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021 *
* A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK *
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This is a story about…
I grew up reading my dad’s hardcore sci-fi and my mother’s romance, horror, and thrillers. This led to my desire to become a published author. Prior to 2012, I was a bestselling Canadian author with a handful of titles published. After hitting #4 on Amazon’s Bestsellers list, I was approached by agents and publishers. Within weeks I signed multiple contracts. Trident Media Group asked to represent me. Yes! I signed two audio deals with Audible, and multiple deals with foreign publishers. One of my mottos has always been to help other writers when I can, so I share my marketing expertise and experiences.
When I was a fledgling author, I had no experience selling books, but I had sold Pampered Chef, Amway, cosmetics, and other companies’ products. Penny’s marketing books helped me to look outside of the box, especially outside the bookstore or Amazon. Many of her strategies helped me get to the highlight of my career, when one of my thrillers was #4 after The Hunger Games trilogy on Amazon.com’s overall bestseller list, out of millions of books.
Learn How to Turn Amazon into your 24/7 Book Sales Machine!
Are you ready to take your Amazon sales to the next level?
How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon (2021 edition) teaches you exactly how to do it – but smarter and with more success.
Named as one of the top influencers of 2019 by New York Metropolitan Magazine, Penny Sansevieri has also taught Amazon-centric classes and webinars to thousands of authors leading up to the release of this ultimate guide to mastering the Amazon marketing system.
The 2021 edition also introduces a brand new Powerhouse Amazon…
I’m the author of two novels, both of which explore the impact of the digital age on my characters’ lives. I’m old enough to have experienced being a teenager before the Internet but young enough to have used it all my adult life. I can’t forget the before-times! While I’ve benefitted a lot from what the tech industry calls Web 2.0, I’m also really alive to the losses: social, economic, personal, and existential. From our work lives to our communities to our health and sex lives–nowhere is free from technology’s influence. We are living in fascinating and dangerous times.
This novel is a wild dystopian ride through a tech company that is so powerful it verges on a corporatocracy. I really relished it!
Everything that has ever made me uncomfortable about the digital age is magnified here and then pursued to its ultimate conclusion. The book is both a thriller and a novel of ideas. The author carries off all of the different elements brilliantly.
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Tom Hanks, Emma Watson and John Boyega
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - a dark, thrilling and unputdownable novel about our obsession with the internet
'Prepare to be addicted' Daily Mail
'A gripping and highly unsettling read' Sunday Times
'The Circle is 'Brave New World' for our brave new world... Fast, witty and troubling' Washington Post
When Mae is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Run out of a sprawling California campus, the Circle links users' personal emails,…
