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in which the author discusses five books he’d read, if time permitted.
1. 7th Sigma, by Steven Gould.
I don’t regularly dive into SF (for all you losers out there that are out of the loop, that’s “science fiction”), but this book about weird superbugs that consume metal (cars, buildings, etc.) and then spawn even more superbugs that eat even more metal and spawn even more superbugs until the entire southwestern United States is consumed seems like it might be popular among the acned kids at the back of the class doodling D.C. Comics logos in their biology textbooks.
2. The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media, by Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld.
This is, like, a comic book, but somehow also somehow a timely analysis of our modern media and how it shapes society. But it’s also a comic book. At press time, it was unclear how popular it would prove among the acned kids at the back of the class doodling D.C. Comics logos in their biology textbooks.
3. The End of Christianity, by John W. Loftus.
Christianity turned out to be a bummer for a lot of people. In fact, its first victim was Christ Himself. However, Christ didn’t contribute to this book of essays critiquing the religion that brought you the Inquisition. I guess he was too busy working on his new record.
4. Histories of Computing, by Michael Sean Mahoney.
Computers. Who knew?
5. The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez: The True Adventures of a Spanish American with 17th-Century Pirates, by Fabio López Lázaro.
This is a really old book about pirates that I think was lost for a few centuries and then found again and is now being republished, but the trick is that the adventures detailed herein aren’t actually “true” in the New York Times sense, but “true” in a post-modern “What is the What?” sense. So buy your tickets now, because they may sell out in the first 30-45 minutes.