Apparently my last post about “The Circle” lacks an actual review and a clear recommendation to read or avoid the book. Thanks to Urs Reupke for spotting this omission. So, this post is a follow-up meant to add the missing parts.

The book is a documentary of a possible future. It’s not exciting in itself. You won’t read it for its stylistic finesse, because there is none or at least none of which I am aware. But that’s probably what makes it so readable. You feel right at home. There are product presentations that could be part of an Apple keynote. There are discussions with people who totally avoid using social networks and between those who use them modestly and those who use them to protocol each of their movements.

It’s from this familiarity that Dave Eggers shows us what could be the next steps. And as you see those next steps from a distance you get a chance to think about them in way you most likely won’t while being part of the development.

So I highly recommend this book because of the thinking it triggers.

Privacy, security and mass surveillance have been hot topics since Edward Snowden’s revelations. So it’s no surprise that some authors take up those topics and write books based on them. Dave Eggers’ “The Circle” is one of those.

For me “The Circle” is a modern variant of “1984”. Dave Eggers takes all the nice and cool technology we have today and asks “What if we push it further? What if we do what can be done?”. Because he takes what we know and use nowadays it’s far more shocking and depressing than “1984”. “1984” feels archaic and funny at times when read today. “The Circle” seems to be pretty possible.

The Circle is a big company. Just picture a company that produces the devices most people buy, provides the search engine most people use and owns the social networks most people spend their time on. And it’s a company that still grows as it regularly gulps new startups they call “plankton”.

The Circle gradually introduces new technology and new features that cut away at the privacy of its users. It’s all for the bigger good. As each of the new technologies provides new levels of convenience to them or even goes so far as to prevent crime, people are amazed and demand it before it’s even available.

Consequently people find new ways to employ those new technologies for even more convenience and security, happily accepting that in the end there is no privacy, no place on earth were you cannot be seen on some camera.

“The Circle” ends with a depressing vision of total surveillance and poses the question “At which point does sacrificing privacy for convenience and security turn out to be insecure and inconvenient and will we be able to turn back when we reach it?”

Last week I’ve been on a short vacation at the Baltic Sea with my parents, my sister and her family. As I’m quite addicted to reading fiction books whenever there’s an opportunity, it was no question whether I would take a book with me. The question was more which and in which format. Normally I would take my Kindle Paperwhite which I use for most of my fiction reading. But with children and a dog around, I decided to take a paperback with me. You can toss it into a corner and even sit on it if you feel like it. And if it gets torn it’s not as expensive to replace as a Kindle. Looking at the paperbacks in my bookshelves that I haven’t read yet, I finally decided to read “A Wild Sheep Chase” by Haruki Murakami.

I’ve read some books by Murakami during the last few years and whenever asked I’ll say that for me Murakami’s books are like the movies of David Lynch. They are weird and often while reading you don’t understand what’s going on. Most of the time they are pretty slow books. So there isn’t much suspense driving you to read on and find out what’s going to happen next. The thing that keeps me reading those books from cover to cover is a mild sense of curiosity of what strange idea he’ll come up with next. And then the writing is very well or more correctly what the german translations I’m reading — as I have no clue of Japanese — succeed to preserve is well written. I like those strange dialogs and those strange protagonists having them.

Like with any other book by Murakami, it’s rather pointless to give a summary of the book. At the center is a guy who’s made to look for a sheep by some mafia boss. But that’s not why you would want to read it or “After Dark”, “Kafka On The Shore” or “Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World”. It’s just because they are very satisfying reads.

“The Adjacent” by Christopher Priest is a strange book. It’s not an easy read. There’s no classical beginning, middle and end and also there is nothing like a classical climax.

The book tells several different stories. They are separate, but also somehow connected. Those stories are told in shorter and longer parts. So you get part of one story, then another and then again return to the earlier one. Then you also realize that one story told somewhat later in the book is a prequel to an earlier story. Sounds pretty chaotic, doesn’t it? So you probably won’t be amazed to learn that I was frequently asking myself “What the fuck is going on here?”

The stories aren’t very special when looked at separately. They are strange, but there’s nothing to make you feel attached to any of the protagonists. Most stories are about photographers who are so much into photography that they literally make photographs of anything. And they also seem to have quite a lot of sex with women they don’t really know, but those scenes aren’t described overly vividly. So don’t have any hopes for porn literature here. Those photography guys have all very similar names. Other names from different stories also have peculiar similarities.

Give special attention to the names. Even if it sometimes look like some typo, you can be quite sure that it’s not and the change is intentional.

There is no grand final. There is no chapter that sums it all up and tells you what the heck is going on here. It’s up to you to guess it. Later chapters give more and more clues, but you’ll never get a clear answer to the enduring “What the … ?” question.

The book is like a puzzle. The individual pieces don’t look spectacular, but once you put them together, it’s quite a different thing. So the old “The whole is more than the sum of its parts” also applies here.

The mood of the book is dark, even dystopian at times. There’s always some war going on. It’s always a different war, but it’s always said to be “the war that will end all wars”.

Only if you make it to the end, you can fully appreciate it, because only then you realize that it’s all about …

A friend recommended “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt and when he asked whether I’ve already read it some months later, I finally decided to do it.

After reading the dedication of the book which includes Bret Easton Ellis I had certain expectations and Donna Tartt fulfilled them. Rich kids on a liberal arts college in New England having rich kids’ problems. And as a fan of Ellis’ works, Tartt’s writing style appealed to me.

The first third of the book is quite a good read. It’s the setup. People get to know each other and the reader gets to know them and to feel that there’s something lurking behind the scenes.

The characters in the book are well designed and don’t feel too stereotypical. The most interesting of them is called Bunny and you actually get told on the first page of the book that he is going to be killed.

Between the setup and the killing itself, which happens roughly in the middle of the book, the author tries to make sure the reader understands that Bunny absolutely must be killed. That part is a bit long and somewhat tedious. It tries to play with psychology and with the decay of a troubled mind.

I actually started asking myself how long it would take Tartt to rescue the reader and the protagonists of the book and finally kill Bunny. Then it happened and I wondered somewhat skeptically what other great secrets might be hidden in the second half of the book, because actually the big secret that seemed to be lurking in the setup wasn’t really that big.

Those other secrets actually are quite disappointing. There are some twists and turns but nothing really stunning.

Tartt’s writing style makes up for the lack of an engaging story in the second half, but it’s not as satisfying as Ellis’. “The Secret History” is OK but it’s far from being outstanding and I fail to understand why it was and probably still is hyped as if it were.

As a voracious reader I’m always looking for new books to add to my list of books I might read sometime. This list is never empty. Currently there are over 50 books on it. So there is no real urgency to have new sources filling it, but better to be safe.

One of the sources filling this list is the venerable Locus magazine which provides reviews of science fiction and fantasy books since 1968. Locus is currently the only magazine I’m subscribed to and it’s still delivered by mail and made of paper. I have found some good books through Locus.

But I’m also interested to learn what other people with interests similar to mine are reading. That’s where book centric social networks, on which members rate books, come into play. Actually quite a few of those communities exist, but most don’t offer a native iOS app or don’t even bother to provide a responsive website useable on an iPhone or iPad. One of them has an app, but the core, the book ratings, is hidden behind lots of useless stuff.

Bookitics is my take at a social network for book lovers.

The first thing you see when you open the app are the newest book ratings for your last search.

You can put any search term you’re interested in into the field at the top and have Bookitics search for it at once. Often, like in the image above, you will have searches that you want to execute repeatedly. I’m interested in science fiction. So I have a search called “science fiction” that searches for books with the tag #scifi.

When I used to buy books made of paper, I would go into a book shop and just look through the books on the “science fiction and fantasy” bookshelf. I would pick up books with interesting covers and read the description on their backs, which sometimes also contains praise from other people for the book.

With Bookitics it’s very similar. You have a search, a specialized bookshelf if you will, and you see the book covers at the center. When a cover catches your eye, you notice who rated the book and how highly they rated it. Maybe you know the person who rated the book or maybe you want to know why they think the book is outstanding and worthy of five stars. At this point you tap on the book cover to read the details of the rating.

The book rating details are like the flip side of a book. Here you’ll learn why someone rated a book like they did. It’s where you see their short review of the book and if they provided a link to a longer review, you will be able to go to that longer review. If others have rated the same book, you’ll also see their ratings.

Bookitics uses App.net as its backend. App.net handles your account, including your password, whom you follow and all sorts of other things. They also offer two-factor authentication. So your account is pretty secure. App.net is a solid base and it’s quite fast. With this base the development of Bookitics concentrates on enabling users to rate books without much fuss and to find ratings for interesting books.

If you have a passion for books, give it a try. It’s free as is the App.net account you’ll need to use it. Bookitics is now available on the AppStore for your iPhone or iPod touch and soon for your iPad.

I read “Cities in Flight” — a space opera by James Blish — for the first time more or less a quarter century ago. As usual back then, I was scanning the science fiction and fantasy bookshelf of my local library for something new to read as this paperback tome caught my eyes. It was a bit worn, but still in good shape. I got home and started reading and only took a break when I really needed to do something else.

“Cities in Flight” is huge. At the first reading it was magnificent, but even now as I have finished reading it for the third time, it’s still breath taking. Just think about it: Cities that just take off, leave earth and fly around the stars with velocities faster than light. Just coming up with such an idea is mind-blowing. And it doesn’t stop here. James Blish also hurls whole planets through the universe.

“Cities in Flight” could be called the mother of space operas. At least for me it is. It’s the first I’ve ever read and there aren’t many others that match it’s scale. The “Night’s Dawn” trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton is probably one of them. But while that one populates its universe with many characters, “Cities in Flight” needs little more than a handful of them to tell great stories.

“Cities in Flight” is a very well written captivating space opera. If you ever wondered what’s the fuss with all that talk about space operas, get your feet wet with this one and you’ll probably enjoy swimming quite soon.

When I read about “The Cusanus Game” by Wolfgang Jeschke in the October 2013 issue of Locus, I was somewhat amazed, because it’s originally a german book. Although I live in Germany, I have read nearly no science fiction books by german authors. I only remember having read some books by W.D. Rohr, but that must have been more than a decade ago.

As the review of “The Cusanus Game” was very positive — it even got into the Locus “2013 Recommended Reading List” —, I put it on my Amazon wish list and came around to reading it now.

This is a very slow book. It takes its time to unfold. And it never succeeded to make me sink into it. I’ve always stayed an outsider, reading about some interesting events. There are tons of ideas in this book and some rather gripping scenes, but between them the story flows so slowly that it’s bordering on being boring.

I prefer books which succeed to make me a part of them while I’m reading them. Books that make me read them for hours until I realize that suddenly day changed into night and the room around me could use some light. Books of this kind are rare, but “The Cusanus Game” is on the other side of the spectrum.

Nevertheless, reading it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Wolfgang Jeschke presents some interesting ideas about time travel and about how a Europe after a nuclear catastrophe could look like. It’s this aspect of the book that kept me reading it till the end.

Some people not liking it, complain that it repeats whole passages again and again. It’s true that it does. There is one part of the book that is repeated several times with some variations. Time travelers always mess around with events and this kind of repetition is a nice way to handle that aspect of time travel. I don’t buy books by the pound, so repetitions like this don’t bother me.

“The Cusanus Game” is an interesting, but by far not light, read.

Although I have once tried and then stopped listening to podcasts some years ago, current discussions and the appearance of more and more podcasts and podcast apps in my RSS feeds and timelines on social networks made me wonder if something has changed in the meantime. Maybe even I have changed and could muster the patience to listen to podcasts nowadays.

So I downloaded two of the current apps on my iPhone and subscribed to a bunch of podcasts. Oh dear, some of them even go on for two hours and new two hour episodes are published each week.

I put my earphones on, plugged them into the iPhone and started the first podcast. As before after 30 minutes or something like that my mind began to wander. I lost track of the podcast. But I told myself “Just take it as a normal talk show on the TV. You don’t follow each and every work on the TV.” and “You might improve your crappy English pronunciation just by listening to podcasts”. OK, especially the last one kept me to it. But I couldn’t listen to the episode in one take. I just fell asleep.

I needed two takes on two evenings to hear through the whole episode. By the time I finished it, the next was already two days old. How would I ever keep up with the pace and how would I even succeed in hearing more than just one podcast regularly?

My podcast apps obediently kept downloading episodes of 5 podcasts I never came around to hearing. So I decided to drop the one two hour per episode podcast and try the others.

In the end I decided that it was no use. Apparently I haven’t changed. I regularly fall asleep when listening to podcasts or I somehow loose track of the podcast I try to listen to. And then it really is different than TV. On TV you actually see the people talking. If the talking is at least somehow interesting that’s enough to keep me focused on the show — at least for longer than half an hour. A podcast cannot keep me focused even if the topic is interesting.

So I’m back to my RSS feeds, which can keep me even more focused than TV as reading is and stays my preferred way of acquiring new knowledge.

Besides, an advantage of anything written is that you can jump forward and over boring sections. You can scan the section headlines and get an understanding of what’s to come that is way superior to the linear nature of podcasts.

It’s been a long time since last I read a fairy tale. “A Face Like Glass” by Frances Hardinge is a really beautiful one.

The book starts in the caverns of a cheesemaster, a specialist who creates cheeses. As I love good food and am especially fond of nice cheeses, that started off very promising. And the promise was fulfilled. The book is fantastic from first till last page.

The book is full of people creating delicacies – be them desserts, wines or what not. At one point I even thought “You could get fat by reading about all this food stuff”. The author has some really amazing ideas about what food could be possible. As this is a fairy tale, most of the creations are simply impossible, but who cares. They are really compelling fantasies.

By now you probably got the idea that the book I’m talking about here is some kind of food lovers book, but that’s not the case. That’s only one aspect.

There are dark secrets and intrigues. The world described here is some kind of medieval society that for some reasons lives below earth in a complex of caverns called Caverna.

It’s a firework of fantastic inventiveness. You meet guys to whom none talks longer than five minutes, because talking longer to them would drive anyone insane. There’s one person who never sleeps totally. There’s always either his right or his left brain awake because he fears betrayal and murder. Both brain hemispheres have different personalities and scheme against each other. And all people have to learn face expressions, because they don’t have any natural ones and cannot show their emotions on their faces.

It’s all crazy, it’s all fantastic and you have to read it, if you ever loved to read fairy tales.