Books 2020: Part III
Friday, January 29, 2021 at 7:51PM Gazettabyte asked industry figures to pick their reads during last year. In the final post - Part III - Alexis Bjorlin and Don Clarke choose theirs.
In 1996, during my first semester as a graduate student in Santa Barbara, I both lost myself and found companionship in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s epic saga, One Hundred Years of Solitude. This work of magical realism has become my comparand against which all other works of fiction are measured.
In 2020, I revisited the town of Macondo and the Buendia family, and discovered a whole new world, offering striking comparisons to our current history, replete with juxtaposed conservative and progressive narratives, luring me into a suspension of disbelief to enjoy the richness of the family and their century-long story unfolding.
I was similarly swept away by Isabel Allende’s recent work, A Long Petal of the Sea. It is essentially a love story – between man and woman, between oneself and one’s cultural identity -- that spans the Spanish Civil War through the rise and fall of Pinochet’s regime in Chile.
There is a prevailing sense of displacement that permeates the book that is accessible to all through the global pandemic experience. While a work of fiction, it is threaded with historical facts - from Pablo Neruda chartering ships to bring Spanish refugees to Chile, to the coup d’etat that overthrew Chile’s first democratically elected President, Salvador Allende - that gave me opportunities to reflect on the fragility of our own democracy.
The most beautiful piece of fiction I read was On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong. Set in modern-day Connecticut (close to my childhood home), it is the story of a Vietnamese immigrant family, written as a letter from son “little dog” to his illiterate mother. In it, some sentences vibrate with raw humanity - not for the faint of heart.
The non-fiction I read in 2020 included Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems, by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. This team from MIT brings a thoughtful perspective to pressing macro-economic issues such as inequality, immigration, technology disruption, universal basic income, and the environment.
Immensely readable, Good Economics for Hard Times examines economic theory and provides empirical evidence in the developing and developed worlds, debunking some commonly held beliefs. They call for active dialogue and intelligent intervention in an increasingly polarised world. “Economics,” they maintain, “is too important to be left to economists.”
Finally, I recommend Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari. This book had been collecting dust on my shelf; it took the global pandemic and threat to our comfortable existence for me to crack it open. It is thoroughly enjoyable - a sweeping history of homo sapiens, how we’ve evolved, all the way to the future of genetic engineering and the potential end of the human race itself.
What made this book good, as with any I’ve read and recommended, was its ability to pique my curiosity and spark lively conversation and debate at the dinner table.
Whereas many have opined that Harari is overly pessimistic about the future, Sapiens gives ample thought-provoking opportunities to consider the accelerating pace of change and our ability as individuals and collectively to impact the future.
Don Clarke, consultant, formerly at BT and CableLabs
I haven’t been a prolific reader since childhood when I would bury myself in science fiction and history books to get away from the daily insecurities of a chaotic childhood.
I grew up in England, which has engendered a moderate political outlook and a keen sense of fair play. I am now living in the United States, bewildered by the tumult of the past year and trying to make sense of the xenophobia and disintegration of societal and political norms here.
It is profoundly depressing to observe what appears to be the re-emergence of fascism around the globe and, over the past year, I have read more books than in the previous forty in an attempt to make sense of it all. Of all of the books listed below, the one that made the strongest impression was The Choice: Escaping the Past and Embracing the Possible, by Dr Edith Eva Eger.
The Choice is a powerful first-hand account of the Holocaust. It begins with a vivid description of the author’s happy family life as a Jewish girl growing up in Hungary. She describes her love of dancing, her oldest sister’s exceptional talent as a musician, the sometimes fraught relationship between her hard-working parents, and her first teenage love - a tragically poignant aspect that propagates through the book.
Her style of writing puts you right there in the room with her as the brutal events unfold which will change the trajectory of her life forever.
The description of the eviction of the family from their home when she was 16 is heartbreaking, and everything that follows is an unspeakable tragedy to which no words I would write could do justice. Her descriptive narrative is vivid and at times very hard to take. Upon arrival at Auschwitz, she describes the moment, in Josef Mengele’s selection line, when her mother was sent to the gas chamber. I was reading a chapter from the book aloud to my wife each evening and I would often break down in tears.
We have all asked at various times during our lives, how could human beings inflict such suffering on others, and not feel any empathy or remorse? But throughout the book, Dr Eger emphasises the importance of hope, and that it is a choice to hold onto hope, or to allow what is happening to you to consume and destroy you. She saw, first-hand, that all who gave up, died.
Eva and her sister Magda survived Auschwitz and the death march that followed - which she describes in horrifying detail, and were ultimately pulled barely alive from a pile of bodies by American soldiers.
In the book, Dr Eger describes her journey after World War II to realise her dream to become a clinical psychologist in the United States, helping others suffering from the effects of trauma.
In the latter pages of the book, she describes several interesting case studies. Now, well into her 90s, she is still practising and giving talks, which she always concludes with a high kick to remind herself of her thwarted career as a ballerina, and to prove to her audience that hope is alive and kicking.
The book does not answer the question of why human beings do what they do, but it is a powerful reminder that we must all play our part to prevent it from happening again.
Some of the other books I recommend from my literary journey over the past year:
Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney To President Donald Trump by Michael Cohen, which provides insight on how Trump ran his businesses before being elected, and how Trump learned how to get what he wanted by observing the techniques used by the mob bosses in his New York circle.
Rage, by acclaimed journalist Bob Woodward, which, through numerous recorded interviews with Trump and other key figures in the administration, provides practical insight on Trump’s approach to the US Presidency, including the mismanagement of the pandemic.
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, by Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, provides deep insight on Trump’s family and the toxic relationship dynamics that shaped his personality.
Lastly, My Friend the Enemy: An English Boy in Nazi Germany, by Paul Briscoe, the British born father of a former colleague of mine who, by a curious quirk of fate, was brought up in Hitler’s Germany.
His description as a small boy and proud member of the Hitler Youth of his participation in the destruction of a synagogue and witnessing attacks on Jews by people who were previously their friends and neighbours is profoundly disturbing.
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