What to Read Next: January 31, 2025
Issue #364, testing out a new format
This edition of What to Read Next is free for all subscribers.
Happy Friday, readers!
This newsletter recently celebrated its seventh birthday and I’ve been thinking a bit about the format. From the beginning, I’ve featured two reviews each and every week. But I’m getting a bit of a seven-year itch and would like to try something new.
The experiment: Each Friday, I’ll provide one primary review of a book I recently read and enjoyed, along with a few other sections that will vary week to week:
a recommendation based on recent headlines (staying out of politics as much as possible)
“5 Things” from pop culture recs to links to random ideas
monthly recaps
upcoming titles I’m excited about
and more!
It may be a little longer, but also more skimmable and hopefully more fun. I’d love to hear what you think!
Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart by Nicholas Carr
Nicholas Carr has been one of the foremost thinkers and critics of our online age with pioneering books like The Shallows and The Glass Cage. Those titles explored and critiqued what computers and the internet does to our brains and our society. Superbloom, published this week, does the same thing for digital communication, specifically in the form of email and social media.
Rather than mining the psychological effects of these tools, as most books in this space tend to do, Carr looks at social media from more of a communications theory perspective. It’s a sociological and cultural deep dive, very much along the lines of Marshall McLuhan’s now famous dictum, “The medium is the message.”
The gist is that the very nature and structure of online communication has led to the toxic effects we’re now seeing. Depersonalization, combined with too much communication (a surprising find!), basically makes us all hate each other. It’s perhaps less about human nature than about how these technologies have been set up from the very beginning to fall short of our expectations.
Superbloom is far more philosophical and thought-provoking than it is practical, so don’t go into it expecting tips for fighting the machine. What you will come away with is a deeper understanding of human communication and why fighting the machine is more important than ever before.
You can check out Nicholas Carr’s Substack, New Cartographies, to get a taste of his ideas before jumping in.
Read More Books is a reader-supported publication. Paid subscribers get full access to every issue and the archives. Subscribe today for just $5/month or $45/year.
In the News: D.C. Plane Crash
This section offers a book recommendation based on recent headlines, to help you make sense of the world with a bit more depth and context rather than just clickbait.
Meltdown by Chris Clearfield and Andras Tilcsik
Tragedies like what happened in Washington, D.C. late Wednesday night tend to come about through a combination of human error and system failure (not DEI). In Meltdown, the authors give a clear-eyed view of how complex systems fail, including why America’s infrastructure — from electrical grids to transportation systems and more — is bound to break down at times.
It is also worth noting that this is the first major commercial airline crash in the U.S. since 2009, which makes air travel the safest mode of transportation available.
January Round-Up
Short takes on other books I read this month.
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. My second reading of this book and I enjoyed it even more this time around. It’s Patchett at her best — lyrical and moving writing without a ton of plot.
Attention Span by Gloria Mark. This was our Big Read non-fiction selection for January. It was well done and generally very interesting, but also left just a little something to be desired. There are a lot of books in this space; read one or two and you’re good.
The Razor’s Edge by M. Somerset Maugham. The Big Read fiction selection for January was a hit. Maugham’s philosophical novel is incredibly thought-provoking and as interestingly structured as anything I’ve read. Definitely pick it up if haven’t read it before.
Robert E. Lee: A Life by Allen Guelzo. I’ve read a lot of Union-focused Civil War histories, so it was interesting to read a bit more about the Confederate side of the war. I agree with the Wall Street Journal’s take: “Guelzo punctures the Lost Cause mythology without indulging in culture-war polemics, and he examines Lee’s life and moral culpability with a judicious eye.” This is a cradle-to-grave biography, but once I got to the war years I couldn’t put it down.
5 Things: Links and Opinions
📖 Bookshop.org has entered the ebook space. The prices look good, which is really important, but I’m still too dependent on my Kindle. The physical weight of dedicated e-readers, which Bookshop doesn’t yet support, gives them a real leg up over phones and tablets.
🚨 Chris Hayes’ new book The Sirens’ Call is on my radar, but I’m starting to get wary of the torrent of new books about attention and distraction. I’ll wait to see if it has legs before jumping in myself.
⚓ I enjoyed Jeff O’Neal’s substack post about when to drop anchor versus when to open the sails — a metaphor for sticking to your guns versus being flexible. I appreciate when a writer is okay leaving questions unanswered. Go follow Jeff O'Neal’s newsletter.
🎾 Congrats to American Madison Keys for winning the Australian Open (her first major title). She was a heavy underdog against Aryna Sabalenka and showed incredible resilience in winning the three-set match. American women put on a much better show than the men right now.
🪱 Dune 2 and Furiosa recently arrived on Netflix, which means I finally watched these blockbusters. They were both awesome and very much lived up to my own hype. Directors Denis Villeneuve and George Miller are among our era’s greatest cinematic storytellers. I’ll definitely be watching ‘em again.
Thanks so much for reading! Be good to each other.
-Jeremy
Loved this issue - the round up and 5 Things were great additions.
Enjoy the new format!