Some notes on recent books on China, encyclopedias, American history, and a stab at a fiction thriller.

Reading

On the recommendation of several friends, I decided to read Recursion by Black Crouch, a 2019 thriller centered around time travel (sorry to give away part of the plot there). I understand the appeal, I suppose: this is a textbook fast-paced thriller with short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, and short shrift given to anything that isn’t a cliche-dripping on-the-nose description to move the plot along.

If you can’t tell already, it wasn’t my cup of tea. But I finished it because there is always something to take away from a book, even if you didn’t like it. For me, the prose was too distracting to enjoy the plot, which was somewhat interesting, though I think the author ran out of ideas at the end, and the conclusion was not particularly interesting. I wouldn’t normally say something negative about a book someone else wrote–I know how much work it is to create and publish a book–but Crouch is a best-selling author, so he’ll be fine either way.

I suppose what bothers me is that there are good thrillers written without flowery prose that still manage to tell a good plot.

High-minded literary fiction this is not. But that’s fine: there is a place for plot-driven works of fiction. The problem for me was that I just couldn’t get over the prose. Clearly, it’s not a problem for the many, many people who enjoyed this book, but I have to reluctantly conclude that I did not. For example, The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum is no one’s idea of fine literature, but it’s a good story that is told in a way that keeps you engaged. For readers willing to stretch their vocabularies a little further, Zone One by Colson Whitehead is a zombie novel by a Pulitzer Prize winner, offering a mix of action and actual, line-by-line, legit writing. Similarly, The Passage by Justin Cronin is a fast-paced novel written by someone who can write, and, for me at least, that’s the difference between being distracted by prosaic prose and being able to sit back and enjoy a lighter read.

So, I tried. I had better luck with All the Knowledge in the World: The Extraordinary History of the Encyclopedia by Simon Garfield, which hit my sweet spot by being informative, well-written, and thought-provoking. Even better was Heather Cox Richardson’s How the South Won the Civil War, which convincingly argues that the introduction of the West into America led to the persistence of southern aristocratic, caste- and race-based systems, even though the North won the Civil War. We still suffer from this dynamic today; witness the Electoral College, which negates the overwhelming population advantage of coastal cities, which generate the majority of economic strength and lean liberal. We are still hostage to a handful of rural states under the thumb of billionaires who manipulate their prejudices and actual suffering towards neighbors rather than up towards the elite who run things.

Finally, I’m almost done with Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company by Patrick McGee, a deeply impressive book from last year that highlights how–see a theme here?–America is undercutting its future. McGee documents how Apple embarked on an unprecedented journey to scale up a workforce in China capable of building its millions of iPhones and computers, investing billions of dollars in training and manufacturing know-how on a scale 10x the US’s Marshall Plan.

Until the 1990s, Apple manufactured all its products domestically in the United States, and with it, the know-how to integrate the entire supply chain. China provided the scale to match Apple’s skill and rolled out the red carpet. Apple executives, motivated by short-term profit margins, always felt they had the upperhand in these relationships. But it turns out the knowledge transfer was real.

Since 2008, Apple has trained 28 million people (larger than California’s labor force) and recognized investing $55B a year in China by 2013, double that of the Marshall Plan and 4x that of Biden’s chips act, “once in a century investment” by treasury secretary at a time. I will likely write a dedicated review of this book once I finish reading it.

Gaming

I’m not a huge gamer, but I enjoy playing when given the chance. My daughter and I have been playing coop games recently, completing It Takes Two and A Way Out. The former was really fun, aside from the divorced-couple plot, which I could have done without. Well, for the last year or so, we have been working on Split Fiction, the third title from the same game studio that made the first two games, and we finally finished the last section on a recent weekend morning. It was a fun game that is also quite long: it’s amazing how many different ways they can have you work together on tasks. The plot centers on two female writers who are imprisoned by a malicious corporation, trapped in their own creations, and forced to escape.

The gameplay and graphics were excellent, as were the abundant side quests you can complete. My daughter was particularly keen to complete as many as we could. All in all, it’s a modern coop game that was super fun, difficult without being seriously hard, and resulted in probably 20-30 hours of good fun with my daughter, so I chalk it up as a solid win.

Watching

Current events have dominated my limited viewing. I was particularly moved and impressed by Canadian PM Carney’s speech at Davos, speaking truth to power. Noteably this speech was largely ignored in mainstream US media. Make of that what you will.