LOCAL STORIES
- Four Reigns by Kukrit Fadiman - A sweeping multigenerational tale of a minor courtier (and her family/friends) in the Thai royal palace, from childhood to old age - over the course of 4 kings, from the late 19th century to mid 20th century. It was a pretty breezy read, kind of like Buddhist royal gossip - but as an outsider, gave an interesting view on how a Thai author-journalist characterized his society, proper social roles (esp vis-a-vis Confucianism), royalty, and interactions with the foreign (farang ) world. There was a simplicity to the book that was kind of rewarding - kind of like when tidying up, and everything fits in its place. (All the characters, especially the protagonist, acted as they should , in conformity to their rather simplistic characters and Buddhist social mores.) That said, it was also kind of frustrating: people weren’t really open to change, and the protagonist feels annoyingly unfeminist (to the contemporary western reader) - her role is to serve her husband and family, she self deprecatingly says she cannot understand politics or finances, etc.
- Sighteeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (h/t Ashley B) - I read these short stories years ago and remember it as uneven. Werner read it this time and mostly agreed. Maybe give a pass.
LONGFORM
I actually haven’t read anything I’ve LOVED enough to recommend, with one singular (and important!) exception:
- Truth, Disrupted (Harvard Business Review) - SUCH a good article. A group of MIT researchers recently published their findings on how “false news” travels on Twitter. (Scholarly article from Science magazine is unfortunately behind a paywall.) Luckily, this HBR piece is a great companion/follow-up article looking at: (A) why truth matters (sounds obvious, but they make points I hadn’t thought of before); (B) how false news spreads (with interesting tidbits like: false news spreads faster than true news, this speed differential is due to humans not bots, and is despite the fact that false news often originates with poorly networked accounts); and (C) what we can do about it, as tech companies/designers, policy makers, and general citizen consumers. I had SO MANY aha moments from this.