Happy Friday, readers!
This week I’m featuring two books that each come in at well under 200 pages, but offer thought-provoking and soul-stirring ideas well beyond that slim page count. One just came out last month and the other has been in the bookish milieu since it came out five years ago.
Let’s jump right in.
As always, I’d love to hear what you’re reading and enjoying.
The Internet Will Die, and So Will You: On Learning to Live in Our Digital Age by John West
Non-Fiction (Culture) | 2026 | 163 pages
“More than a joy, reading is also my last, best defense against the cold waters of instrumentalism, because unlike nearly every other one of my activities, reading captures my full attention while accomplishing more or less nothing measurable except the passage of time.”
The philosophical discussion about the modern digital era will never cease to interest me. At various times I’ve thought I’d be done with this niche subject, but I continue to come back to it again and again. Perhaps that compulsion speaks towards my discomfort with my own digital compulsions . . . sometimes I have a good balance, but certainly not always.
Moving on — John West’s new book, The Internet Will Die, and So Will You, is a unique and worthwhile entry in this field. Pulling more from the world of art and religion than from psychology and neuroscience, West offers a very human argument for engaging much more with the real world while still being able to use modern tools as tools.
He comes from an authoritative position: as a journalist and coder for the Wall Street Journal, he well knows the power of 1s and 0s to tell compelling stories — as well as their power to entrance us. He also brings the spirit of a poet to the book, citing the likes of Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, and the Bible (there’s some cliche in that combination of sources, but it works well).
What was especially interesting in this book was his discussion of the internet as a physical thing. It runs on servers and wires and real transmissions — and like any hardware, it can break down over time. Sites go offline, links break, outages remind us of the pre-internet age (which might as well be the stone age) . . . the entire ecosystem is more fragile than we think it is.
I was hoping for a bit more narrative cohesion, but overall I rather enjoyed John’s thoughts on what it means to be fully human in the digital age. As a bonus, there are some great thoughts on reading:
“Reading is not for attention, though it can recharge it. Reading is not for empathy, thought it can inspire it. Reading is not for education, though it can give you one. Reading is for reading.”
The Internet Will Die, and So Will You is well worth your attention and will likely inspire you to engage more fully with the real world — never a bad thing.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Fiction | 2021 | 118 pages
“he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another?”
There isn’t a whole lot more that needs to be said about this delightful fable by Irish author Claire Keegan. Small Things Like These has been part of the bookish conversation since it was first published in 2021; it has earned the praise of critics, average readers, and even Oprah. It’s the shortest book to ever be shortlisted for the Booker Prize and found a spot on the New York Times’ 100 best books of the 21st century. Its accolades are many.
I’m happy to report that this 118-page story lived up to every expectation I had and is likely to become an annual re-read.
The plot is simple, and borderline non-existent at times: It’s 1985 and Christmas is fast approaching. Bill Furlong, middle-age Irish dad with five daughters, is trying to wrap up his coal deliveries so that he can enjoy the holiday with is family.
A wrinkle in his plans: Bill encounters a desperate young lady at the school for girls. His spidey sense tells him that something feels off and he needs to decide whether to stick his nose out a bit or let it slide.
Small Things Like These is masterfully done — Keegan can write the hell out of a sentence — and can be read in a couple hours or less. I’ve never read a book so short in which the characters and setting have so powerfully stayed with me. I don’t quite know how Keegan did it, but it’s a marvel. This book absolutely deserves a spot on your lifetime reading list if you haven’t read it yet.
Thanks so much for reading. Be good to each other. Until next week,
-Jeremy
I saw the movie Small Things Like These. with Cillian Murphy. Excellent and affecting film. Now for the book!
I have read Small Things Like These twice and it’s one of my all time favorites! It spurred me on to read her other books which I also enjoyed! She is a writer I would read without knowing anything about the book.
I love how you said “she can write the hell out of a sentence!”