My Bookshelf

I was not always a reader. Growing up I actually loathed reading. If I could find a way to do something to learn, I would much rather be active than sedentary. I learned to love reading in 6th grade and for decades I read mostly fiction. Recently, as I’ve started to take a greater interest in finding ways to improve the world around me, rather than just survive it, I have returned to reading as a source of continual exploration and growth.

I still prefer to do projects and so a lot of my reading is through audiobooks as I take my kid to school. To help me retain critical points from these books I am committing to writing my thoughts down here. This helps me capture a point-in-time reflection on the book, and perhaps start conversations with others.

Note Where possible I link directly to the publisher for books, or to the wikipedia page. If you would like to read them I recommend checking your local library, supporting a local bookstore, or ordering through the author’s site.

What I am reading

• Technology is not Neutral, Stephanie Hare - Audio
• Trustworthy Machine Learning, Kush Varshney - Physical, though the link is to his web version for free access

Highlights of what I have read since 2021

• Sand Talk; How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, Tyson Yunkaporta - Audio and Physical
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff - Audio and Physical
• This is How they Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race, Nicole Perlroth - Audio
• Race after Technology: Abolinist Tools for the New Jim Code, Ruha Benjamin - Audio
• The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World, Pedro Domingos - Audio and Physical
• The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values, Brian Christian - Audio
• Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, Safiya Umoja Noble - Audio
• Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, Cathy O’Neil - Audio
• The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?, Michael J. Sandel - Audio
• The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don’t, Nate Silver - Audio

What I will read soon

• All Too Human, Anne McLaughlin
• Data Feminism, Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein
• The Costs of Connection, Nick Couldry and Ulises A Mejias
• Value Sensitive Design: Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination, Batya Friedman and David G. Henry
• Design Justice: Community-Led Practicies to Build the Worlds We Need, Sasha Costanza-Chock
• Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows

A list of old favorites and cornerstone books I read before 2021 (and likely need to revisit)

Data Visualization and Analytics

• Introduction to Probability, Dimitri P. Bertsekas and John N. Tsitsiklis
• Now you See it, Stephen Few
• Information Dashboard Design, Stephen Few
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward Tufte
  • I have all of his books.

Religious Studies

• Sickness unto Death, Søren Kierkegaard
• I and Thou, Martin Buber
• Existentialism and Human Emotions, John Paul Sartre