The way modern dating has changed reflects the general pattern of fragmentation and atomization seen in other domains of life. Dating has become disconnected from other social domains, partly due to the growing role of online dating apps. This is the central insight of The New Laws of Love by Marie Bergström, a study of…
Category: book review
Nexus: Yuval Noah Harari’s Perspective on Information, Power, and AI
Yuval Noah Harari’s latest book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, is a narrative treatment of history, anthropology, political theory, and artificial intelligence. It’s a continuation of his ambitious style that began with Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. One of the main arguments of Nexus is that…
‘The Thibaults’ by Roger Martin du Gard: Reflections on a Masterpiece
Reading The Thibaults (Les Thibault) was one of my highlights of 2024. Published originally in serial form between 1922 and 1940, the novel tells the story of a family—their historical context, their relationships, and their movements across the private and public spheres. World War I also casts a heavy shadow over the story, but du…
Re-Discovering the Richness of Everyday Life
Over the past two years, I have created a series of videos based on the book, Qualitative Inquiry in Everyday Life by Svend Brinkmann. I posted the final part a few days ago. In this post, I want to discuss the book’s importance and who can benefit from it. Why is this book important? First,…
James Baldwin’s “Go Tell It on the Mountain”
The feeling of existential unease, of not being at home in the world, is present in James Baldwin’s novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, to a painfully concentrated degree. The novel takes that feeling of unease as its starting point and goes on to explore broader themes related to family, history, and religion. The…