In The Margins – Gail Holmes

From StoryGraph: Inspired by a real person, In the Margins is the story of spirited book-collector Frances Wolfreston—the woman who uniquely preserved the earliest part of Shakespeare’s legacy.  

England, 1647. As civil war gives way to an uneasy peace and Puritanism becomes the letter of the law, Frances Wolfreston, a rector’s wife, is charged with enforcing religious compliance by informing on her parishioners. This awful task triggers memories of her mother, Alice, who inspired Frances’ love of books and secretly practised Catholicism at great risk. Conflicted, she doesn’t report a reclusive and mysterious midwife to delay her going to gaol.

My Thoughts: I really need to review these in a more timely manner! I have vague recollections of enjoying this. Frances went out on a limb to help the people around her but was stymied by small minded people in the village. 4-stars.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power – Shoshana Zuboff

From StoryGraph: The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called “surveillance capitalism,” and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior.

In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth.

My Thoughts: This was a big read—704 pages to be exact. I actually started it last year and had to return it to the library. Reading this made me even more determined to limit the intrusion of smart technologies into our home. It was scary reading actually. some lines of note:

“Industrial capitalism followed its own logic of shock and awe, taking aim at nature to conquer “it” in the interests of capital; now surveillance capitalism has human nature in its sights.” p 346

“With this reorientation from knowledge to power, it is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal now is to automate us. In this phase of surveillance capitalism’s evolution, the means of production are subordinated to an increasingly complex and comprehensive “means of behavioral modification.” In this way, surveillance capitalism births a new species of power that I call instrumentarianism. Instrumentarian power knows and shapes human behavior toward others’ ends. Instead of armaments and armies, it works its will through the of “smart” networked devices, things, and spaces … surveillance capitalism must be reckoned as a profoundly antidemocratic social force” pp512-513

“This is not the automation of society, as some might think, but rather the replacement of society with machine action dictated by economic imperatives.” p 482

I found this a 5-star read.

Local Birds of Bayside – Rex Davies and Frank Park

As the title says, this is all about the birds in my local area. It had descriptions and illustrations of the most common local birds and also where they can be seen. Interestingly the authors noted when they wrote the book in the 90’s that bird populations had improved from the previous 30 years. Since then I think the situation has kept improving. I’ve spotted Fairy Wrens which were listed as occasionally seen in a particular area in the southern section of our council, all up and down the coastal reserves every year we’ve been here. This year I’ve also spotted red-rumped parrots which are listed in the book as being spotted in rare years (maybe that means I won’t see them for a few years). Anyway reading this prompted me to include spotting and photographing the local birds on my 101 list. I’m not going to put a star rating on this because it is one of those niche reads.

Inhale & Exhale – Nicole MacPherson

From StoryGraph: Michelle’s life has stagnated. Her days are spent balancing the demands of running her yoga studio with parenting her teenage daughter, Livvy – all while contending with her workaholic ex-husband, Paul. Under pressure from her sister, and facing mounting loneliness, Michelle decides to re-enter the dating scene for the first time in thirty years. How different can it be?

My Thoughts: I love reading Nicole’s blog and this novel had her trademark whit and insight into life. I loved the characters, well not the ex—he was a complete twat. The scenes where everything came to a head were devastating, I went back and reread those passages because they felt so raw (maybe I’m a masochist in my reading taste?). Congratulations Nicole! I was left wanting more which I guess is high praise. 4.5 stars.

Kulin Tales: Seven Seasons of the Bunurong – Sonia Marie

This is a picture book about the seven seasons of the Bunurong people who are the people indigenous to the land I live on. They marked there seasons by various signs of nature included the movement of the stars, the flowering and growth of certain plants and the appearance of particular animals and birds in the environment. It also included a lot of the Bunurong language. Their seasons make a lot more sense of our weather than the way we traditionally break our year into three month blocks but a lot harder to do quarterly planning with.

The Best of Brighton Trivia – Marc Fiddian

This is the third book I read this month in an effort to learn more about my local area. The book was a collection of paragraphs on people, places and events in Brighton. There was a lot of sports related trivia, and to be honest, I did not really care about what the Brighton Footy Club was doing back in 1948, but hidden in amongst all that were some real gems.