Moonlight Murder by Uzma Jalaluddin

MOONLIGHT MURDER by Uzma Jalaluddin is her second Detective Aunty novel and I found it even more enjoyable than the first, although also a bit slow-paced in parts. Kauser Khan, the main character, is an older widow whose heritage is Muslim and South Asian. She lives in Toronto where her son (Ali, then 15) was killed by a hit and run driver eighteen years ago. The story revolves around her belated investigation of his death and the more recent death of another young teen, Qasim, close friend of her granddaughter, Maleeha. As the beautiful cover illustrates, the culture of the tightly knit community in the Golden Crescent neighborhood of Toronto is integral to the story and Jalaluddin brings to life secondary characters like Kauser’s daughter; old friends May (“Who knew that a shared love for Louise Penny and the Public Library would lead to a friend for life?”), Fatima, and Nasir (also a potential romantic interest); the local police; and several high school students, including the brother, Kamal, and the best friend, Joquiem, of Qasim as well as some of his teachers. The dual mysteries (“Two parallel stories, separated by decades and circumstance, linked by place and community. Both deaths assumed accidents. Both with unanswered questions about motive, story, and intention…”) offer suspense and surprise. Kauser is an appealing character who relies on her faith and also still grapples with grief (“It felt good to make plans for the future. It felt good to feel capable of thinking beyond the next few days. She had lived her life in survival mode for so long, wrestling with the ghosts of death, loss, and grief, … but she could feel something shift inside her now, at last.”). Read this series in order as you anticipate the next title.

I am Not a Robot by Joanna Stern

I AM NOT A ROBOT by Joanna Stern (former technology writer for The Wall Street Journal) is subtitled “My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything” and looks at a variety of areas (e.g., health, travel, communications) while using real world examples to showcase some potential benefits and downsides of AI. For example, Stern spent time with a very experienced radiologist and AI looking at mammogram and ultrasound images. It was fascinating to hear the health professional praise AI. In contrast, when she went to the dentist, AI was used as a crutch to justify recommending unnecessary and expensive procedures. Bill Gates told her, “The foundation of AI advances for healthcare are both in the discovery side and in the delivery side,” referring to being able to speed up innovation and to offer more and better explanations to patients. In fact, Stern interviewed “nearly two hundred people – from everyday users to some of the most powerful voices in this industry,” including  Steve Mann (the “father” of wearable computing), Sal Khan (educational technology leader), and Mustafa Suleyman (Microsoft’s CEO) amongst others. She shares her thoughts in a variety formats, often essentially bullet pointing ideas as when she describes her experiences with a variety of wearables or her problems with relying on AI only to answer texts and emails (that was a very short experiment). Stern explores potential impacts on education through a visit to her alma mater, Union College in Schenectady, New York, finding that teachers and students share concerns about AI’s impact, especially on critical thinking skills. Stern’s writing style is distinctive, and Publishers Weekly acknowledges that, saying, “Stern’s balanced, clear-eyed assessments and crisp, funny prose (‘I was teetering on the edge of the AI-byss’) make this stand out among the growing crowd of books on AI.” Highly recommended.

Below is a 20 minute video interview dealing specifically with writing and researching I AM NOT A ROBOT, but if you are curious about Stern’s twelve years of tech reporting at The Wall Street Journal, check out a wider variety of videos.

How to Start by Jodi Kantor

HOW TO START by Jodi Kantor is subtitled “Discovering Your Life's Work” and is a slender (112 pages) text intended to offer informative reading for the 18- to 25-year-olds in your life. Kantor, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, was asked to give the commencement speech at Columbia and that, in turn, inspired this text. She writes about developing craft (an often-slow accumulation of skill), identifying need, and the interplay between the two: “The craft she is learning will change and refine her assessment of that need. To meet that evolving vision, she will pursue higher forms of craft -- more skilled, new tools. Fresh needs will emerge, of the richness and strength of her craft will help her address the unexpected.” That may be a bit abstract for many 20-somethings, but they will likely benefit from Kantor’s acknowledgement of how universal their generation’s struggle is. HOW TO START is recommended by authors like Reid Hoffman (Superagency), Shonda Rimes (Year of Yes), and Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project) and this title also made me think of Tina Seelig’s What I Wish I Knew When I was 20 (she has a new book, What I Wish I Knew about Luck, forthcoming in June).

Jodi Kantor recently paired with Jennifer Breheny Wallace (Mattering) at a FAN session to discuss HOW TO START and the goals of financial stability, satisfaction (being connected to what one does), and contribution (how your career helps others). The recording will be available on the FAN (Family Action Network) website soon.

AI for Good by Josh Tyrangiel

AI FOR GOOD by Josh Tyrangiel takes a generally positive stance as it describes “How Real People Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Fix Things That Matter.” Tyrangiel is a writer at The Atlantic and he uses examples from healthcare, government, and education to illustrate his points in this relatively short (272 pages) book. Citing practical case studies that center on The Cleveland Clinic, Operation Warp Speed, and Khan Academy; The Wall Street Journal notes that Tyrangiel writes that success “often hinges on a point person at the technology partner (e.g., OpenAI, Palantir) who combines technical fluency with the ability to inhabit a client’s challenges and understand the environment in which the technology must function.” Hence, a potentially transformative technology like AI may need to more gradually evolve for effective implementation; Tyrangiel also further develops the idea of institutional resistance in these complex environments which means battling “professional cultures, government policies, entrenched stakeholders, money, rivalries, emotions” and more. This tension (speed vs human values) makes it all the more important that we each better understand the technology; Tyrangiel asks his readers to “spend an afternoon with ChatGPT, Claude, or whatever equivalent you like” which will be “different from any previous interaction you’ve had with software.” He advocates making the technology your own and offers powerful suggestions like “make an AI summarize its own privacy policy in bullet points an eighth grader can understand” and “stay close to Team Human” by gauging who it is empowering. A thought-provoking critique. 

You Can't Hurry Second Chances by Michelle Stimpson

YOU CAN'T HURRY SECOND CHANCES by Michelle Stimpson is about a new life in small town Texas. Joyce Hicks has finally decided to divorce her husband after thirty years of being unfulfilled in her marriage. She moves away from Austin and settles in her grandmother’s house, but finds that her funds cannot cover all of the needed renovations in a timely manner. Her tenant, Gabriella Santos, is a talented chef who also struggles to see her own self-worth. Together the two of them push and pull each other along until Joyce learns to make decisions (including saying No to her daughter and Yes to a date with an old friend) with more confidence and Gabriella becomes brave enough to showcase her talents in public, leading to a new opportunity. Aspects feel like a coming-of-age story involving adults – with a rather abrupt, but happy ending.

The Mountains We Call Home by Richardson

THE MOUNTAINS WE CALL HOME by Kim Michele Richardson is a work of historical fiction subtitled “The Book Woman's Legacy.” It continues the excellent series which began with The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, followed by The Book Woman’s Daughter. This time, readers find Cussy Mary, a young woman whose skin appears blue due to genetic factors, in jail for marrying a white man, Jackson Lovett. It is the early 1950s (prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia) so the partners are separated and imprisoned. This is a hard book to read at first as Cussy works long hours in the prison kitchen and laundry, amidst harsh conditions. Eventually, she and the readers find hope and some respite as she is assigned librarian duties and begins to transform life for other inmates through literacy and the escape that books often bring. Concerned with freedom and bodily autonomy, there are many sad aspects, including talk of lobotomies, a botched death sentence, and threatened abortion. This title is a LibraryReads Hall of Fame selection and for interested book groups, a Reading Group Guide is included which also explores rural vs. urban life and several social issues. Library Journal describes THE MOUNTAINS WE CALL HOME as “a deeply satisfying companion novel … exploring injustice, belonging, and the transformative power of literacy with compassion and grace.” Kim Michele Richardson is herself passionate about literacy and has honored the Pack Librarians by founding an initiative called Courthouses Reading Across Kentucky, establishing Little Free Libraries across the state.

The Westerners and The Gunfighters

As we look this year to America’s 250th anniversary, here are a couple of lengthy and ambitious non-fiction texts worth exploring. 

THE WESTERNERS by Megan Kate Nelson is subtitled “Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier.” Nelson, whose The Three-Cornered War was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, chooses to profile seven individuals who represent the diversity -- Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, Mexican Americans, and Canadian and Asian immigrants -- which is often ignored or forgotten but was present out West during the 1800s. She weaves together and overlaps stories featuring a biracial fur trader; the richest woman in Santa Fe; and Sacajewa, plus others like Little Wolf (a Northern Cheyenne chief); a soldier and gold miner; and female immigrants who remained resilient in the face of prejudice. Kirkus says that this very long title (464 pages) “sometimes plods,” but provides “a useful survey of the ‘messy, complicated lives of the real people who built the West.’” Booklist called it “a uniquely compelling look at the dynamism and conflict that defined the West.” THE WESTERNERS received a starred review from Publishers Weekly for its “richly layered portrait of the 19th-century frontier.” Nelson’s Epilogue section reprises how white Americans distorted facts and created myths in order to “fit a narrative that was compelling to them.” She concludes by stating, “If we do not acknowledge this expansive history of the West as a pivotal part of the nation's past, this erasure will continue the work of the frontier myth and usher us into an unjust future.”

THE GUNFIGHTERS by Brian Burrough is another thoroughly researched and well-written text. In contrast to Nelson, Burrough focused on the violence associated with white male dominance and some of the more memorable characters (many familiar names) from the nineteenth century. I read this as part of a Texas book group, and it helped me to better understand some of the cultural underpinnings for Texans. For example, there is an apparently locally well-known song about Sam Bass, but even Burrough acknowledges that “perhaps the gunfighter legend is dimming.” He hypothesized that “A gunfighter's fame endures, in almost every case, in direct proportion to his engagement with the written word, because he either talked to a journalist or two, as Hickok did; wrote an autobiography, John Wesley Hardin’s route; fired off letters to governors and newspapers a la Jesse James and Billy the Kid; or became involved in a shootout so spectacular it drew national attention … Wyatt Earp” Beverly Gage (This Land is Your Land) says Burrough “tells his story as only a loving -- but conflicted -- son of Texas could.” Several maps, numerous footnotes, references, and an index are included.