{"id":23765,"date":"2025-07-20T12:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T12:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/23765\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T12:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T12:42:09","slug":"burn-book-is-a-disturbing-read-on-the-tech-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/23765\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Burn Book’ is a disturbing read on the tech industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBug Hollow,\u201d by\u00a0Michelle Huneven\u00a0(Penguin, 2025)<\/p>\n

Family dynamics propel this fast-paced novel. The Samuelson family in Altadena, Calif., endures an unwieldy casserole of experiences and emotions for more than 50 years, starting in the 1960s. Don\u2019t let the humor lull you: The pivotal event is the accidental death of their son at 18; he is a continuing presence in their family. In a fairly brief novel, Huneven garnishes the story with surprises, detailing her characters with precision and a sure hand. My favorite is Phil, the dad, but the entire family is memorable, primarily due to their foibles. Huneven is an author I\u2019ll read again. \u2014 3 stars (out of 4);\u00a0Neva Gronert,\u00a0Parker<\/p>\n

\u201cBurn Book: A Tech Love Story,\u201d by Kara Swisher (Simon & Schuster, 2024)
\n\""Burn“Burn Book: A Tech Love Story,” by Kara Swisher (Simon & Schuster, 2024)<\/p>\n

A fascinating and disturbing read about the tech industry from journalist Kara Swisher, who has interviewed virtually all the players and continually served as a prophet\/prodder and source of annoyance to tech\u2019s most famous CEOs. Swisher doesn\u2019t hold back, describing Zuckerberg as the world\u2019s most dangerous man and Elon Musk as one of its most evil. Swisher is prescient, cheeky, funny, brilliant. This is a keenly written memoir and a canary in the coal mine. A crucial read. \u2014 3 1\/2 stars (out of 4); Jo Calhoun, Denver<\/p>\n

\u201cBirding to Change the World: A Memoir,\u201d by Trish O\u2019Kane (Harper Collins, 2024)<\/p>\n

For the first 45 years of her life, consumed by a highly demanding career as a human rights journalist, Trish O\u2019Kane barely noticed birds. But then she stumbled into a volunteer teaching job at a women\u2019s prison and soon landed a paid teaching job at Loyola University in New Orleans. She fell in love with her new house and neighborhood near Lake Pontchartrain, but within weeks, Katrina hits. Over the next few months, surrounded by a devastated natural world, she clings to each sighting of a solitary bird and becomes an \u201caccidental birder,\u201d letting her newfound appreciation for these survivor birds heal and refuel her. To pursue a PhD in natural resources, she moves to Madison, Wis., where her apartment borders the locally beloved but threatened Warner Park, teeming with birds. She\u2019ll need her background in activism and social justice, her talent for teaching, and her newfound passion for birds, to fight this fight. \u2014 3 1\/2 stars (out of 4); Michelle Nelson, Littleton<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mighty Red,\u201d by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins, 2024)
\n\""The“The Mighty Red,” by Louise Erdrich (Harper, 2024)<\/p>\n

On a snowy night in North Dakota, seven high school football players leave a party and take a late-night snowmobile ride down a hill and into the freezing Red River.\u00a0 A year later, Gary Geist, the quarterback and a member of the town\u2019s most prominent family, is still reeling from the consequences of that night.\u00a0 He finds solace in Kismet, a former goth girl classmate and member of the Ojibwe tribe, who is just beginning her adult journey with college in mind, not an early marriage. Besides, Kismet already has an even younger boyfriend named Hugo who also wishes to claim her as his own.\u00a0 This love triangle is at the heart of this somewhat disjointed tale of three families trying to make it through the 2008 recession without losing their homes, their farms and their sanity.\u00a0 Like many contemporary novels, \u201cThe Mighty Red\u201d addresses issues of conservation and climate change, where over-farming the land and using deadly pesticides to produce more sugar beets threaten to divide the farming community.\u00a0 \u2014 2\u00bd stars (out of 4); Karen Goldie Hartman, Westminster<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust,\u201d by Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa (Simon & Schuster)<\/p>\n

This book is based on an unpublished memoir, augmented by interviews, letters, documents and photos that corroborated the unlikely story of this Jewish woman who aided and rescued countless Poles from the Majdanek concentration camp during World War II.\u00a0 It not only affirms the heroine\u2019s belief in the value of each human life, but also illustrates the human capacity for both goodness and evil, while offering a testament to mercy and hope. \u2014 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBug Hollow,\u201d by\u00a0Michelle Huneven\u00a0(Penguin, 2025) Family dynamics propel this fast-paced novel. The Samuelson family in Altadena, Calif., endures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[7103,223,3832,88,2558,7104,2628],"class_list":{"0":"post-23765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-book-reviews","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-colorado","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-the-know","14":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}