A spirited exploration of tech by a devotee who holds out the hope that bright things are just around the corner.
The author has seen the future, and it wears a headset.
Perhaps better known for his hairstyle and hippie-ish ways (“in those days, it was super rare for white people to have dreadlocks, so I was quite exotic”) than for any specific bit of technology, computer pioneer and civil libertarian Lanier (Who Owns the Future?, 2013, etc.) has two purposes here. The first is to offer a vision of what virtual reality is and the cool things it can do, while the second is an amiable tour through his life and his perhaps unlikely course through the very beginnings of VR. As to the former, suffice it to say that Lanier was a smart, geeky kid who was thinking outsize thoughts even as a child (“I was obsessed with what’s usually called philosophy, and it helped”), and he had the benefit of growing up in an eccentric household that encouraged his explorations. As to the latter, working in a state university computer lab to wrestle out the secrets of code and algorithm, Lanier writes that he got hooked early on—not just by the nerdy coolness of the computer world, but also by the outright wonder of the sci-fi things it can bring to real life. In that aspect, the author is an evangelist for the good side of VR, which now offers insights into human perception and cognition that are forcing a radical re-evaluation of who we are. That’s definitely cool stuff. In relating it, Lanier veers between the plainspoken (“the human brain is so finely tuned to watching the human face that if anything is slightly off, the strangeness quickly becomes creepy”) and the mystical (“if the whole universe is your body, then talking would be beside the point”), with lots of solid tech-manual ponderings on phenotropic systems and formulas to boot.
A spirited exploration of tech by a devotee who holds out the hope that bright things are just around the corner.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62779-409-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book.
The co-founder of The Toast and Slate advice columnist demonstrates his impressive range in this new collection.
In a delightful hybrid of a book—part memoir, part collection of personal essays, part extended riff on pop culture—Ortberg (The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror, 2018, etc.) blends genres with expert facility. The author’s many fans will instantly recognize his signature style with the title of the first chapter: “When You Were Younger and You Got Home Early and You Were the First One Home and No One Else Was Out on the Street, Did You Ever Worry That the Rapture Had Happened Without You? I Did.” Those long sentences and goofy yet sharp sense of humor thread together Ortberg’s playful takes on pop culture as he explores everything from House Hunters to Golden Girls to Lord Byron, Lacan, and Rilke. But what makes these wide-ranging essays work as a coherent collection are the author’s poignant reflections on faith and gender. Since publishing his last book, Ortberg has come out as trans, and he offers breathtaking accounts of his process of coming to terms with his faith and his evolving relationships with the women in his life. The chapter about coming out to his mother, framed as a version of the biblical story of Jacob and Esau, is just as touching as a brief miniplay entitled, “The Matriarchs of Avonlea Begrudgingly Accept Your Transition.” Throughout, Ortberg’s writing is vulnerable but confident, specific but never narrow, literal and lyrical. The author is refreshingly unafraid of his own uncertainty, but he’s always definitive where it counts: “Everyone will be reconciled through peace and pleasure who can possibly stand it. If you don’t squeeze through the door at first, just wait patiently for Heaven to grind you into a shape that fits.”
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982105-21-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
A gargantuan but surprisingly agile and spellbinding biography of the plain-speaking, plain-dealing Man from Missouri. As depicted by McCullough (Brave Companions, 1991, etc.), Truman, though the first President of the nuclear era, was fundamentally a throwback to 19th-century midwestern ideals of honesty. Like the young Teddy Roosevelt in the author's Mornings on Horseback (1981), the pre-Presidential Truman most impresses McCullough as a battler against overwhelming odds: the failed farmer and haberdasher; the WW I captain who kept his unit together under deadly fire; and the scorned product of the Kansas City machine who won Senate colleagues' respect by chairing an investigation into WW II defense spending and winning a ferocious primary contest. With the stage thus set, the narrative picks up whirlwind force, following Truman from his assumption of the Presidency upon FDR's death—when "the sun, the moon, and the stars" seemed ready to fall on him—through the decisions to drop the atomic bomb; confront Stalin at Potsdam; send troops to Korea (the most important decision of his Presidency, Truman felt); and fire MacArthur. The book's main event, however, is the legendary "Whistle-Stop Campaign" of 1948, when Truman puffed off the political upset of the century. Readers jaded by Vietnam and Watergate may ask: Could any President be this serene, honest, and courageous? Yet McCullough weaves his spell, convincingly limning a politician who didn't lie, steal, pay attention to pollsters or pundits, or quail in the face of diplomatic or political combat (his major fault seems to have been excessive loyalty to cronies who betrayed his trust). Truman apparently really was, as his Secretary of State Dean Acheson said, the "captain with the mighty heart." Rich in detail, enthralling, and moving: a classic Presidential biography.
Pub Date: June 19, 1992
ISBN: 0-671-45654-7
Page Count: 1120
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992
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