Unless you’re already immersed in the world of underground comix or a die-hard Crumb enthusiast, I can’t say I would recommend this book. Crumb is unarguably a fascinating and complex figure, but this biography fell a bit short for me.

As a curator and an expert on underground comics, Nadel does an excellent job of articulating the technical aspects of Crumb’s work, as well as its profound cultural and artistic impacts. However, the book was overly granular — there are far too many accounts of publishing deals and financial mishaps, lists of artists with whom Crumb rubbed elbows, and painstaking descriptions of individual comics without much additional insight. I would have liked to spend more time in Crumb’s inner world, exploring the traumas, obsessions, neuroses, and questions that shaped him not just as an artist, but as a human being.

Again, if you are already interested in underground comix or love Crumb’s work, then this is definitely worth reading. Otherwise, it's more detail and history than the average person would ever need or want.

I liked this more than I expected given the subject matter and the author’s background in YA fiction. The prose is solid, and I cared about the characters enough to feel immersed in their world. Zevin is adept at conveying the energy, substance, and meaning of games, even to those of us (like myself) who don’t play video games at all. The first half of the book was definitely much stronger, though — the second half lacked focus and jumped between too many characters and plot lines for me to fully engage with any one of them. Aside from Marx, I actually felt like I knew the main characters less and less as the second half of the book progressed.

All in all, pretty good! I doubt it’ll stand out in my memory, but it was fun to read.

An incredibly well-researched, surprisingly engrossing account of OpenAI from its beginnings through now. There are two narratives at play here: one focuses on the intersecting personalities and complicated social dynamics of Silicon Valley’s upper echelon, describing how a small group of individuals were able to create the “empire” that is OpenAI. The other depicts the communities and ecosystems that were marginalized, manipulated, and exploited in the process.

I would have liked to hear even more about the detrimental impacts of generative AI, but (as Hao mentions) the AI industry is largely unregulated, and data on its social, political, and environmental effects is severely lacking.

Overall, this was an excellent read. Hao’s journalism is so clear, sharp, and fair. As a layperson, this book really helped to flesh out my understanding of AI and its ramifications.

Beautifully written, very hypnotic, and very bleak. It made me think a lot about the ways I myself occupy space and move through time, as well as all the minutiae that makes up a day (or a year, or a life). I do plan on continuing the series, but I need a break from the 18th of November for a little while.