Tag: reading

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Every year, Locus magazine does a review issue in February. In it, their editors and reviewers list their favorites of the year. One of those reviewers this year was Alexandra Pierce. She recommended this novella. I picked it up on her recommendation as a well-written story that explores deeper issues.

The story is that of an unnamed boy and woman. The boy lives below decks on a sort of chain gang about a generation ship. The woman is a professor aboard that same ship in a caste that is just slightly above that of the boy. She gets the boy out of the Hold and brings him to the university. He struggles to adapt there while relying on the Practice that he was taught in the Hold by an old man.

This is a tale of class and hierarchy in society. It moves rather slowly and the writing is dense. It borders on being for English teachers only but never quite tips into that territory. Clearly the author is not just talking about space. This is a metaphor for all human societies. And what the author has to say in her exploration is well worth reading this short book.

My rating: 4/5

Signs of Life by Sarah Pinsker

I’m a big fan of this author. Both of her novels (A Song for a New Day and We Are Satellites) are fantastic. Highly recommended. This story was rated the fourth best story of 2024 by Uncanny magazine readers. For me, it was the best of the top five stories selected by readers.

Signs of Life by Sarah Pinsker (2024) — 11,996 words (about 48 minutes for the average reader)

Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf

I have heard of this book off and on over the last few months. Most recently, John Warner mentioned it in his newsletter article about who should read his new book. What he wrote there finally put this book on my list to read. And my recently launched Daily Dose of Empathy project got me to read it.

The book is a review of the neuroscience and evolutionary history of how the human brain changes in order to read using practical examples of modern reading acquisition. Humans are absolutely not built for reading. But the brain being so adaptable, it literally changes in order to learn to read. And when people struggle to read (e.g. dyslexia) what differences are there in the brain? This book looks deeply into those differences and takes a first stab at trying to figure out the why of how this happens.

While this book is written in easily approachable language common to all modern nonfiction, it deals with the complex topic of neuroscience in general and the brain specifically. While I read a lot of that detail, much of it was more complex than I was interested in fully understanding. The book is so well written that I didn’t find that an impediment to reading or enjoying the more accessible information that I gleaned from reading it.

My rating: 4/5