Ready Player 1

There is a quote on the front of this book from the Huffington Post: Delightful! an adult Harry Potter.

I would never call this book delightful. It was suspenseful, imaginative, clever but not delightful. Harry Potter is a story about love, self sacrifice, friendship, and defeating an evil dictator. This book also contains elements of those things. It's the setting of the two novels that makes one delightful and the other vaguely creepy. At times while reading, I felt the same queasy feeling I had when I read the Handmaid's Tale.

The book takes place in a video game / virtual world called the OASIS.  The real world is a miserable, hopeless place that everyone wants to escape because they are mostly destitute due to living under a fascist government.

The creator of the OASIS dies. He has no heirs or friends and lived a very isolated existence because (people assume) he had Asperger's.. and he was a mad genius and billionaire because of the world he created. He decides to give his company and his billions to the person who can win the game he created within the OASIS.

The book's author is clearly passionate about video games. He creates a fantastic virtual world -- far more creative than anything you could experience in the real world.. like Disneyland would be super dull in comparison.  At the end of the book there are a few sentences of dialog between characters about the fact that the real world is a better place to be .. escaping is not a good idea. This would be like reading a book about people who have the best time of their lives all while high and then at the end, someone says, you know, drugs aren't good.

The best part of the book were all the obscure references to pop culture in the 80's.  Fun book.. I just hope that future does not become reality.

Homegoing

This is the best novel I've read this year. I love this book.

Every year, the Seattle Public library chooses a book that they suggest the city read. The idea is that the city can participate in a conversation about the book as people do within book clubs. They buy hundreds of copies and make sure there are many available at each branch.

The author, Yaa Gyasi, is a young woman (29) born in Ghana who immigrated here with her family when she was very young. Her father is a professor. Their fanily ultimately settled in Mobile, Alabama. Gyasi attended Stanford, then the Iowa Writer's workshop.

The New Yorker wrote a lovely review:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/yaa-gyasis-homegoing

The book is an interesting story of Africans who stayed in Africa and those who were brought to the US. It feels like an explanation of how we got here since slavery shaped this country and our politics. It is also a story about the disintegration of community in a culture that values the individual over the family and how that causes suffering especially to vulnerable populations but really, to everyone.

Oddly, it is not a depressing book to read.

local adventures

I've never been much of a hiker.. instead I've chosen cycling or running or other outdoor endeavors. Suddenly, I love hiking.  There are so many great hikes right around Seattle so I decided to start exploring.

For Mother's day, I decided to go to Poo Poo point on Tiger Mountain. On a Sunday morning it only took 25 minutes to get there. I went with a dear friend and we enjoyed the 4.5 miles to the top with one small exception: we saw a black bear.

There are signs all over Tiger mountain that tell hikers bears live there but everything you read says it is highly unlikely you'll see a bear. As we approached the end of the trail, we passed two women raising their arms in the air saying in loud voices "there is a bear right there there is a bear right there." And sure enough, 10 yards away: a bear. My friend and I imitated the women and because rational thought was beyond my grasp I just kept walking forward on the trail. The bear just watched us. When my friend and I reached the top, we tried to figure out how we could get down without going back the way we came. 

Here's the top:

It's a popular place to launch para gliders so we wondered if we could hitch a ride. Alas, not possible so we headed down after a long conversation of who the bear would likely attack.. my friend insisting I run because I have children and me refusing to be the person to leave anyone behind. Or one hopes..

To celebrate Mother's day with the family, Ryan rented a very cool electric boat on lake Union. It was a beautiful day and great fun for all.

Oink: A food for thought mystery

Oink was our latest book club pick. It was selected because we read so much depressing, heavy stuff that we decided we wanted something light, fluffy and inconsequential. This was definitely that book.

I liked it because the narrator teaches women's studies and likes food and generally sees the world just as I see it. Also the book read like something I would write.. not extremely well-thought out or deep. A good book if you are tired of the heaviness of the world.

Plutocrats

The subtitle of this book is "The Rise of the new global super rich and the fall of everyone else."

I bought this book at the bookstore in the Pike Place Market. It was a featured used book at the front of the store. Somehow, I thought it was going to be a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. It was not.

The book, written in 2012, describes the economic and political forces that brought us our current economy -- the one that works for a few much better than it works for anyone else. It was really interesting. A few things I learned

There are 40,000 HNWI (high net worth individuals) in the US. This means they are worth $30 million dollars or more. Most of the super rich today are the working rich meaning they benefitted from a combination of globalization and technology (the internet, big data) rather than those who inherited wealth 100 years ago. Although the author points out that in a generation or two, those people will be handing down their money creating a large class of idle rich.

The number of billionaires has increased across the globe. Russians benefitted from privatization and knowing the right people. The Chinese did the same.  One interesting fact about Chinese billionaires is they all must remain in the good graces of the Chinese communist party. In the last 20 years, 13 Chinese billionaires have been executed.

The rise of authoritarianism is also explained. No happy news there but there is a link between the super rich and the US propaganda network. I was surprised (sort of) to learn that even the wealthy who support some traditional Democratic party values tend to want to keep the system as it is. All believe they've earned their good fortune through effort rather than systemic advantages. The fact that only a few of these people are women or people of color should make these people question their assertions.. but of course, it only reinforces it.

So, not great.

Whidbey Island

I purchased a cabin for 3 nights on Whidbey Island during a fundraiser I'd attended last year. Ryan came one night while my kids stayed with my mom. Then two college friends joined me for the next two nights. We had to plan that last year to find a date that worked for all three of us.

Whidbey is lovely. We hiked and ate and chatted. It was great fun.

hiking with Ryan. The wind was extremely strong so the scarf is holding my hair down.

friends in front of the Whidbey Inn.. pretty place but we did not stay here.

Back to the Sleeping lady

Once a year, I visit the Sleeping Lady for a lovely yoga weekend. It's a dream. Food, yoga, hiking, sleeping. The best.

I attend every year with a friend from my amazon days. it's the only time we see each other even though she lives down the street. middle aged life.