Reading Recommendations

Summer Reading Series: Biography

The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip by Stephen Witt

This captivating biography doubles as a sweeping chronicle of the modern tech revolution.

Centered on Nvidia’s visionary CEO, Jensen Huang, the book traces the company’s rise from a modest startup focused on making computer components for PC video gamers to the world’s most valuable corporation by 2024.

Witt’s reporting illuminates how Huang’s big bet on artificial intelligence transformed Nvidia from a graphics card manufacturer into the backbone of the AI era.

In terms of biography, Witt’s interviews with Huang, his colleagues, and industry insiders enable him to paint a compelling portrait of a relentless innovator who defied Wall Street skepticism to reshape computing.

As a self-described member of the “marginally tech literate”, I found the book to be a valuable guide that explained key computing concepts and the specialized hardware and software that has made AI possible.

What sets The Thinking Machine apart, though, is its ability to contextualize Nvidia’s ascent within the broader cultural, economic, and scientific forces driving the AI boom. Witt explores the intellectual ecosystem that enabled Nvidia’s dominance, from academic breakthroughs to geopolitical tensions over chip supremacy.

Additionally, and importantly, Witt also discusses the growing anxiety among leading technologists and influential tech-oriented thinkers (including Geoffrey Hinton and Nick Bostrom) about the unchecked advancement of AI, and contrasts this with Huang’s more optimistic and pragmatic stance.

Witt’s treatment of these themes invites readers to consider not just the marvels of AI, but also the responsibilities that come with creating machines that can “think” faster and more efficiently than humans.

-Rob

Summer Reading Series: Narrative Non-Fiction

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides

This is a detailed and morally complex account of one of history’s more consequential explorers. Captain James Cook, an 18th-century British navigator, is renowned for his three epic voyages that dramatically expanded European knowledge of the Pacific.

This book focuses on Cook’s third and final expedition, launched in 1776, which aimed to return a Polynesian man named Mai to his homeland and to search for the elusive Northwest Passage.

Sides portrays Cook not just as a brilliant navigator, but as a man increasingly consumed by stress, paranoia, and authoritarian impulses. As the voyage progresses, Cook’s treatment of native populations grows harsher, culminating in his violent death in Hawaii.

Themes explored in the book include:

• Imperial Ambition vs. Indigenous Sovereignty: Sides examines how Cook’s voyages, though often framed as scientific and diplomatic missions, paved the way for colonial exploitation and cultural disruption.
• The Clash of Cultures: The book delves deeply into the misunderstandings, miscommunications, and power imbalances that defined Cook’s encounters with Indigenous peoples across the Pacific.
• The Psychological Toll of Exploration: Sides charts Cook’s transformation from a disciplined and humane leader into a man increasingly plagued by paranoia, authoritarianism, and emotional instability. This theme underscores the immense physical and psychological strain of long-term maritime exploration.

While Sides’ work may not be as sensational as Jaws (or have as much popular appeal), I found the book to be a gripping narrative that balances high-seas adventure with a thoughtful critique of colonialism.

-Rob

Summer Reading Series: Non-Fiction

1776 by David McCullough

This book brings to life the pivotal year of the American Revolution with impressive detail and compelling storytelling.

Focusing primarily on George Washington and the Continental Army, McCullough captures the uncertainty, courage, and resilience that defined the struggle for independence.

McCullough chronicles not just Washington’s military campaigns, but the deep philosophical and practical divisions among colonists themselves – roughly one-third supported independence, one-third remained loyal to Britain, and one-third were undecided or indifferent.

Most importantly, 1776 shows how leadership during crisis requires both conviction and flexibility, as Washington repeatedly had to adapt his strategies while maintaining his core principles.

The book reminds us that the democratic ideals we take for granted were forged through messy compromise, painful setbacks, and the willingness of ordinary people to persist through uncertainty— serving as a reminder that deep divisions, however intense, are not unprecedented and offering hope that the divisions we experience today need not be permanent.

-Susan

Summer Reading Series: Non-Fiction

The Power of Wonder by Monica C. Parker

Have you ever wondered where all your curiosity went? Do you see it sometimes in a small child and think, was I ever that in awe with wonder? It seems to me as we get older, life gets busy, complicated and sometimes challenging and wonder can fade. Where has our sense of wonder gone? How can we get it back?

Monica Parker helps to give us clarity on the importance of regaining that sense of wonder.

Parker reveals real paths to incorporate a sense of wonder in our lives. She goes deep into the connection with neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, literature and even business.

You will learn about elicitors of wonder like art and architecture, love and other elements of wonder. You will learn how they can transform our bodies and brains.

She has a “Wonder Wrap-Up” at the end of each chapter, focusing on how wonder is directly related to each chapter topic.

I especially like this excerpt from Part Three – Living in Wonder, Chapter 13 “Resilience”:

“More than just a simple ameliorator, every element of the wonder cycle, from openness to awe, supports a more resilient psyche in even some of the most extreme and terrible situations. This attribute of wonder means we can reap some benefits even in challenging times.”

I believe, in these challenging times we are facing, we could all benefit from learning how to weave some more real wonder into our lives.

-Donna

Summer Reading Series: Substack

Paul Krugman’s Substack

Note to readers: Substack is an online platform that enables creators, primarily authors and journalists, to publish newsletters and build subscription-based communities.

The signal to noise ratio on Substack is generally… unfavorable. However, there is in fact some gold in them hills.

Notably, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman provides a frequent, diligent, and sober voice of reason.

Following his departure from The New York Times in 2024 (Departing the New York Times) Krugman has demonstrated the utility of a less controlled media environment – which is encouraging, given my general negative perception of these platforms.

Although I’d heartily recommend reading most of what he’s written (regardless of alignment with his particular views), the following Krugman article is an easy read: Bad Times for College Graduates.

The labor market is in a bizarre place. Unemployment is at near-historic lows, and yet, college grads are experiencing levels of unemployment more reflective of post-shock economies, e.g. the years following the 2008 Crash.

Krugman rejects the thesis that this is driven by advances in AI, noting instead it reflects a broader economy-wide attempt to hedge against the uncertainty of The Trump Economy – no one is hiring, and no one is leaving.

DOGE layoffs coupled with funding cuts to research programs have resulted in an influx of mid-career professionals who may be edging out more recent college grads.

Data on that assertion has yet to be collected, but my proximity to recent college grads offers some anecdotal evidence in favor of that hypothesis.

Although I think Krugman’s rejection of the “AI is taking the jobs” narrative is correct (for now, anyway), he probably fails to consider this as a long(er) term side effect of the “slow crisis” of the post-COVID years. I mean this on both a macro and micro sense.

From a 30,000 foot view, cheap money and altered user behavior (I know I was watching a lot more Netflix and buying more video games circa spring 2020 than I am now, for one) created a massive run up of hiring particularly concentrated in the tech sector, which of course had knock-on effects to other industries.

This likely resulted in a capacity overextension, which has led to a bleed-off of newer hires – sometimes slow, sometimes more violent (see The Guardian article: Meta to Fire Thousands of Staff).

Effectively this really just augments the trend Krugman notes: workers stay put, those fired re-enter the labor force as better labor than college grads willing to take roughly the same salary.

The critical point here is that contra to Krugman’s implicit assertion, a “crisis did happen”, but the pain and initial shock has been displaced intertemporally.

-Alex

Summer Reading Series: Fiction

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

This modern classic of metafiction is not exactly beach reading (unless you’re renting a cottage in Innsmouth), but it does serve as good company during restless summer nights.

The labyrinthine structure of the book itself invites re-reads and new explorations to discover secret passageways through the book’s multi-layered plot. This is my third time through – and I am not particularly one to re-read books.

House of Leaves is largely centered around a family who discover one day that the inside of their house is somehow bigger than the outside. Soon after, a door to a non-Euclidian hallway appears, and things get stranger and stranger.

This core story is framed as a film, the contents of which are described to the reader through the medium of an academic analysis of this fictitious film, complete with footnotes to sources both real and fictitious.

The contents of this analysis are assembled (with ample commentary) by one Johnny Truant; and if you’re lost already with how many Matryoshka doll layers we’re in now, don’t worry, that’s kind of the idea.

In practice the text is much more readable than what I’m describing here, made more comprehensible through clear delineations of typography – helpful, especially as the narrative layers start to bleed into each other.

Anyone proximally interested in either horror or seeing how far a mainstream book can push experimental text formatting owes it to themselves to grab a copy.

Get the full color version (no, there are no pictures, and yes, it matters) – eBook readers take heed, the structure of the text invites frequent flipping around of either the book – or your head.

-Alex

Summer Reading Series: Non-Fiction

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Coming from a Gen Z’er, I can confidently say that the average young person’s thoughts about the future are bleak.

Climate change poses an existential threat to our planet and way of life as we know it, the prospect of owning a home – traditionally the foundation of building personal wealth – now seems like a far-fetched luxury, and the increasingly competitive job market paired with the rising cost of higher education make for a triple threat of uncertainty.

Throw on top of this our most formative years spent on Zoom and unprecedented political turmoil and divisiveness and no wonder you’ve got a discontented, unsettled, and frankly pessimistic generation.

However, all is not lost.

In fact, as Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson point out in Abundance, there is the world to be gained. We are currently at humanity’s zenith of technological innovation.

In the past 50 years green energy has reduced drastically in price, the internet and now artificial intelligence has transformed our access to information and each other, and advances in biotech have pushed some diseases into obsolescence.

Abundance makes it clear that the future we want is in our control.

The book points to the fact that well-intentioned regulations passed in the later-half of the 20^th century have actually hindered the government’s ability to implement radical projects.

The private sector’s ultimate goal is to make a profit. Klein and Thompson argue that the government, if wielded correctly, can account for externalities and can afford to pursue projects that don’t have an immediate profit incentive.

Abundance provides a refreshing new identity to political change that has, for me at least, sparked hope for the future.

-Greg

Sumer Reading Series: Fiction

Circe by Madeline Miller

This book is a reimagination of the life of a minor Greek goddess from Homer’s Odyssey.

The protagonist is portrayed as a complex, deeply human character who is exiled by the Titans to an island, where she hones her skills in witchcraft and encounters legendary figures like Odysseus, the Minotaur, and Medea.

Miller weaves together multiple Greek myths into one cohesive narrative while exploring timeless themes of family trauma, self-discovery, and what it means to choose mortality over immortality.

The most intriguing aspect may be how Circe grapples with her divine nature.

She’s portrayed not as an all-powerful deity, but as someone learning to navigate relationships, motherhood, and her own agency in a world dominated by capricious male gods, while she gradually transforms from a marginalized immortal into a powerful, self-aware woman.

-Susan