Author: Hans de Zwart

The Books I Read in 2020

Covers of the books I read in 2020

At the end of each year, I list the books that I have read during that year. Earlier years were 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012. Below, you will find the list of books that I’ve read in 2020. Every year I also include an overview of my other media consumption habits (magazines, RSS feeds and podcasts).

This year, I managed to accomplish my goal of reading one book per week. I read 53 books for a total of 14.241 pages. That is around 35% more than last year.

Once again, only about 25% of the books that I’ve read were written by women. This is what seems to happen when I just follow my interests. About half the books that I’ve read had authors that were born in the US or the UK, close to 20% were from Dutch writers, and only just over 30% came from the rest of the world.

I’ve ordered the list of books into categories that make sense to me (and that are in many ways overlapping and arbitrary). These are the books that I’ve read and what I thought of some of them:

Digital rights and technology

Doctorow’s insanely prodigious mind has produced a wonderfully smart screed against surveillance capitalism. Rasch has written a nearly poetic book about our technological predicament, and Ten Oever has shown that you can write a PhD thesis that is worth reading.

  • Cory Doctorow — How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism (link)
  • Jessica Rijnboutt, Marcel Heerink and Pim Kruijt — Ethiek in ICT en techniek (link)
  • Miriam Rasch — Frictie (link)
  • Niels ten Oever — Wired Norms: Inscription, resistance, and subversion in the governance of the Internet infrastructure (link)
  • Richard A. Spinello — Cyberethics (link)

B00k C7ub 4 N3rd$

It was a very slow year for the book club. Žižek had a few key insights about the pandemic, but was mostly rambling otherwise. Arora showed a different perspective on the tech world and provided a solid critique of solutionist and techno-utopian thinking. Ball and Greenberg have both written books that are excellent for a laypersons audience, but that were slightly too familiar for my taste.

  • Andy Greenberg — Sandworm (link)
  • James Ball — The System (link)
  • Payal Arora — The Next Billion Users (link)
  • Slavoj Žižek — PANDEMIC! COVID-19 Shakes the World (link)

Sailing and the sea

While sailing across the Southern Atlantic, I naturally was interested in books about sailing and the sea. Rousmaniere’s book is an utterly complete and practical book about all aspects of sailing. Urbina’s reporting from the extreme edges of the lawless oceans was impressive, and Moitessier reported on how he sailed around the globe in a time before GPS and satellite phone.

  • Ian Urbina — The Outlaw Ocean (link)
  • John Rousmaniere — The Annapolis Book of Seamanship (link)
  • Bernard Moitessier — The Long Way (link)

I enjoy reading about the countries I am visiting while I am in them. So that meant a lot of reading about Brazil. I loved Holston’s critique of Brasília, thoroughly enjoyed Grann’s search for the hidden gold in the Amazon, and learned a lot about Brazil’s culture, economy and politics from Rohter. Baker’s book about St. Helena was unique (like the island itself), and Suzman showed how the indigenous people of Namibia managed to sustain themselves on 15 hours of work a week.

  • David Grann — The Lost City of Z (link)
  • Ian Baker — St Helena: One Man’s Island (link)
  • James Holston — The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasília (link)
  • James Suzman — Affluence Without Abundance (link)
  • Larry Rohter — Brazil on the Rise (link)
  • Timothy A. Kerner — Biking São Paulo (link)
  • Oscar Niemeyer — My Architecture (link)
  • Tristan Gooley — The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs (link)

The Pandemic

When COVID-19 hit I too felt the urge to learn about pandemics. I thought Barry’s book would help me understand what a pandemic does to society (it didn’t, it mostly explained what a struggle it was to get any sort of understanding about influenza). However, Giordano managed to write a short and quite insightful essay about the current pandemic.

  • Paolo Giordano — In tijden van besmetting (link)
  • John M. Barry — The Great Influenza (link)

Autobiography and the black experience

All of the following authors have used their personal experiences as a way to tell a larger story about race in their respective societies. These were some of the most impactful books I’ve read for the year. De Kom is a timeless classic, Gargard and Çankaya were both brutally honest, and therefore often quite painful to read. And Noah’s book is absolutely brilliant in how it balances between being funny and absolutely true.

  • Anton de Kom — Wij slaven van Suriname (link)
  • Clarice M.D. Gargard — Drakendochter (link)
  • Trevor Noah — Born a crime (link)
  • Sinan Çankaya — Mijn ontelbare identiteiten (link)

Programming and design

My PHP programming skills were about 15 years old and showed their age (basically I was still solving problems the old school way). Butler and Yank single-handedly managed to upgrade my skills to a 2015 level or so, allowing me to make a search engine for The Big Lebowski quotes.

  • Tom Butler and Kevin Yank — PHP & MySQL: Novice to Ninja (link)
  • Bruno Škvorc — Jump Start PHP Environment (link)
  • Erika Hall — Just Enough Research (link)

Fiction

As ever, the amount of fiction I’ve read in no way reflects the enjoyment I get out of it. Amado’s book reminded me of the joy I once had reading ‘A House for Mr. Biswas’ by Naipaul. It has the same type of light and witty tone, while sharply critiquing society. Evaristo has written a beautiful book about the black female experience in the UK of today, while Emezi has written a pretty disturbing book about trauma. Choukri’s book is a haunting account about growing up poor in post-war North Morocco. After reading Tokarczuk, I now understand why she received the Nobel Prize for literature.

  • Jorge Amado — Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (link)
  • Bernardine Evaristo — Girl, woman, other (link)
  • Mohamed Choukri — Hongerjaren (link)
  • Akwaeke Emezi — Freshwater (link)
  • Olga Tokarczuk — Flights (link)
  • Kiley Reid — Such a Fun Age (link)
  • Barry Smit — De zaak-Mulder (link)
  • Hannah van Wieringen — All Over – acts of love (link)

Non-fiction

There was a lot to like in this category. If you ever wanted to learn how to cook then I can’t recommend Nosrat’s book highly enough (so much richer than her four episodes on Netflix). Pollan is probably my favourite non-fiction writer and his book about psychedelics was a treat. My ‘strijder’ Massih Hutak has written a full frontal and heartfelt attack on the gentrification of his beloved Amsterdam Noord. Kaner, Lind, Toldi, Fisk and Berger’s guide to facilitation is a must-have for anybody who works with groups of people towards a common goal. Rueb’s retelling of the story of a young girl who traveled to the caliphate and managed to escape was magistral. Tooze’s history of the 2008 economic crash taught me a lot about global finance and Malik has provided me with a global perspective on ethics. Brown has written an accessible guide to Stoic thinking and Perel’s book is an interesting take on relationships.

  • Samin Nosrat — Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat (link)
  • Michael Pollan — How to Change Your Mind (link)
  • Massih Hutak — Jij hebt ons niet ontdekt, wij waren hier altijd al (link)
  • Sam Kaner and Lenny Lind, Catherine Toldi, Sarah Fisk, and Duane Berger — Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making (link)
  • Thomas Rueb — Laura H. (link)
  • Adam Tooze — Crashed (link)
  • Kenan Malik — The Quest for a Moral Compass (link)
  • Alexander Wolff — The Audacity of Hoop (link)
  • Derren Brown — Happy (link)
  • Esther Perel — Mating in Captivity (link)
  • Nadia Benaissa — Liefdeswetten (link)
  • Scott Berkun — The Year Without Pants (link)
  • Shell International B.V. — Scenarios: An Explorer’s Guide (link)
  • David J Schwartz — The Magic of Thinking Big (link)
  • Linda de Greef and Ger Post, Christianne Vink, Lucy Wenting — Designing Interdisciplinary Education (link)

My consumption of other media

Due to the pandemic, I felt a high need for keeping up to date with the news. I therefore subscribed to the digital edition of the NRC and read it quite religiously up until about October. I was also subscribed to The Economist (mostly for their daily ‘Espresso’ update), the New York Review of Books, WIRED (digital only), and De Correspondent. I’ve newly subscribed to Logic, and am trying to find the time to read their in-depth pieces on technology.

I strongly prefer to keep up to date through RSS instead of through email newsletters. But I can’t escape email fully and read the newsletters I get from Rick Pastoor (about productivity), Dipsaus, Audrey Watters, and the local neighbourhood I live in. My favourite curators still are Cory Doctorow and Stephen Downes. Both provide me daily with interesting links (thankfully via RSS).

Authors I follow via RSS include Kashmir Hill, Zeynep Tufekci, Evgeny Morozov, Jaap-Henk Hoepman, Karin Spaink, Ben Thompson, Linda Duits, Maciej Cegłowski, Ian Bogost, Matt Taibi (only his free posts), Harold Jarche, Wilfred Rubens, Aral Balkan, Axel Arnbak, Matthew Green, and Bruce Schneier. Organizations and blogs I follow include Colossal, The Hmm, Bits of Freedom, EDRi, Controle Alt Delete, Bij Nader Inzien, XKCD, EFF, The Markup, The Intercept, The Black Archives, Stop Blackface, and Stichting Nederland Wordt Beter. I keep up to date with technology news through Guardian Tech and Tweakers.

My podcasting playlist has not changed much this year. I still listen to all new episodes of This American Life, Een Podcast over Media, This Week in Tech, Cautionary Tales, Dipsaus, Ear Hustle, Strangers (the free episodes only), Radio Rechtsstaat, Reply-all, and (new this year) Esther Perel’s Where Should We Begin. When an episode looks interesting I will listen to Code Switch, De Correspondent, Freakonomics, Intercepted, Glitch, Nextcloud Podcast, Philosophy 24/7, Philosophic Disquisitions, Philosophy Bites, Planet Money, RadioLab, The Tim Ferriss Show, and Your Undivided Attention. My friend Inge Wannet created a short and initially daily COVID-19 related theatrical podcast called Binnenwerkjes, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And I still love 99% Invisible, but am running at least 8 months behind.

There were quite a few one-off podcasting series that I listened to this year: I finally managed to get to the first season of Serial, I thought that De plantage van onze voorouders was incredibly well done, listened to The Missing Crypto Queen in one go, and similarly to De laatste dans. The Scaredy Cats Horror Show made laugh, while Nice White Parents and Kleine jongens steken niet were two very insightful pieces of journalistic work. Finally, I still have some episodes of Together Apart to go.

What will I be reading in 2021?

As I write this, I have currently started 18 books that I’ve yet to finish. I am hoping I will finish at least a few of those in the next couple of months. I don’t have a lot of reading intent for the coming year. I want to read at least two books by Toni Morrison, and I will likely read quite a lot of books about data/AI/technology ethics and about the relationship between technology and racism. Finally, I am hoping to up-skill my thinking on economics through reading Piketty’s Capital and Ideology and Kelton’s The Deficit Myth.

Wees niet bang om je account te deleten als social media je een eikel maakt

Op 6 januari 2019 ben ik voorgoed gestopt met Twitter. Dat was niet alleen maar omdat ik er genoeg van had om als brandstof te dienen voor een surveillance kapitalistisch verdienmodel. Nee, ik vond vooral dat ik moest stoppen met Twitter omdat het platform de allerslechtste kant van mezelf naar boven bracht. Ik ben doorgaans een hele rustige jongen. De mensen die mij boos hebben gezien zijn op één hand te tellen. Mijn bijnaam is “natural born buddha”. Mindfulness komt me aangewaaid. Maar het lukte Twitter keer op keer om een soort woede-machine van me te maken.

Het verliep altijd volgens hetzelfde patroon: Bits of Freedom – de stichting waar ik op dat moment directeur van was – plaatste een tweet met een kritisch perspectief op technologie in de context van mensenrechten. Vervolgens kwam er dan een willekeurige trol langs die zijn (yup, het waren altijd mannen) ongefundeerde en vaak onzinnige mening als antwoord op onze tweet gaf. Omdat dit antwoord nu direct onder onze tweet stond, en ook nog eens voor al onze volgers zichtbaar was, voelde me ik me genoodzaakt om deze spuit elf van repliek te dienen. Ik wilde hem dan in 280 tekens het liefst helemaal kapot schrijven. Mijn collega’s keken me daarna soms wat meewarig aan. Ging het wel goed met me? Dat had die persoon nou ook weer niet verdiend toch?

Deze dynamiek was me natuurlijk al wel opgevallen. En ik had ook allang begrepen dat de op viraliteit gerichte ontwerpkeuzes van Twitter – de retweet optie, de beperkte hoeveelheid tekens per tweet, het gebrek aan gemeenschap en aan context, en de mogelijkheid om elke tweet te zien en daarop te antwoorden – mijn onprettige gedrag in de hand werkte. Maar pas na het lezen van Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now had ik de juiste woorden voor dit probleem. In dat boek is hij duidelijk: “social media is making you into an asshole”.

Lanier heeft een vermoeden over waarom je van sociale media een klootzak wordt. Hij is ervan overtuigd dat we diep in onze menselijke persoonlijkheid een schakelaar hebben die in twee standen kan staan. We lijken daarin op wolven: we kunnen in een solitaire stand of in een roedel stand. In de solitaire stand zijn we vrijer. We moeten wel iets voorzichtiger zijn, maar kunnen in deze stand voor onszelf denken, improviseren en mooie dingen maken. Op ‘standje roedel’ raken we volgens hem geobsedeerd door hiërarchie en de pikorde. We trappen omlaag en likken omhoog. We zien anderen niet meer als individu maar delen ze op in twee groepen: vriend of vijand. Groepsdenken ligt op de loer. En daarmee dus gedrag dat je alleen zult vertonen als je je gesterkt voelt door die groep van gelijkgestemden.

Die roedel stand is funest voor de publieke sfeer. Autoritair denken is bijvoorbeeld geworteld in de roedel. Collectieve processen, zoals onze democratie, werken paradoxaal genoeg het beste als iedereen als individu voor zichzelf denkt, in de solitaire stand dus. Volgens Lanier zetten sociale media platforms zoals Twitter, Facebook, Instagram en YouTube onze schakelaar in de roedel stand. Dit komt volgens hem omdat die platforms ons totaal op elkaar gericht maken in plaats van dat we als individu geconfronteerd worden met een realiteit die groter is dan onszelf.

Al deze platforms kapitaliseren onze beperkte aandacht. Ze verdienen meer geld naarmate we meer tijd bij ze besteden. En dat hoeft helaas geen quality time te zijn. Hun maatstaf voor succes is nooit de mate waarin ze de publieke sfeer gezond houden. Nee, hun growth hackers zijn echt alleen maar geïnteresseerd in meer gebruikers die langer blijven plakken.

Voor dit soort platforms is het feit dat Twitter-president Trump eigenhandig haatvolle online discussies weet te scheppen, dat meer Facebook gebruik leidt tot meer vreemdelingenhaat, of dat er onder een Facebook livestream van een protest tegen Zwarte Piet duizenden afgrijselijke racistische en seksistische reacties worden geplaatst, niets anders dan de collateral damage van hun ambitie om ongeacht de maatschappelijke consequenties zo snel mogelijk zo veel mogelijk geld te verdienen. Online haat is daarmee dus één van de onvermijdelijke uitkomsten van hoe we op dit moment ons informatie-ecosysteem ingericht hebben.

Dit hoeft niet zo te zijn. Het is wel degelijk mogelijk om platforms te ontwerpen waarin de gebruikers niet in de roedel stand gezet worden en waar we wel op een duurzame manier kennis met elkaar kunnen delen, elkaar kunnen steunen, en zelfs een gezonde politiek kunnen bedrijven. Maar dan moeten we die platforms wel zo ontwerpen dat ze succesvoller zijn naarmate ze ons beter mensen maken.

Voor nu kun jij alvast het advies van Lanier opvolgen: als je een nare kant van jezelf ontdekt bij het gebruik van een online platform, als je er onzeker van wordt, of als je merkt dat je iemand neer wilt halen, dan is vertrekken bij het platform eigenlijk de enige verstandige optie. Dat heb ik begin 2019 dus bij Twitter gedaan. Ik ben er oprecht een beter mens van geworden.

Dit artikel verscheen voor het eerst op 4 november 2020 bij Lilith.

How The Dude Was Duped By Big Tech

A website with The Big Lebowski quotes was blocked for no reason by Facebook. Looking for justice at a tech company that has automated the enforcement of its rules. Written by Reinier Kist.

Cult film The Big Lebowski (1998, directed by the Coen Brothers) tells the story of The Dude: a former hippie minding his own business, who falls prey to powers that are bigger than himself. The Dude happily fills his days bowling, smoking joints, bathing and drinking White Russians. But the easy life of this Californian Oblomov — on flip flops, wearing a bath robe, and brilliantly portrayed by Jeff Bridges — is roughly upended one day when two thugs kick in his door, threaten him, and pee on his rug. That act drags The Dude into a plot full of misunderstandings and colorful characters. An at the end, after his weird adventures, it turns out that all of it — spoiler alert — was for nothing.

This story is not about The Big Lebowski, but about thebiglebow.ski, a search engine for quotes from the film. A film which, more than 20 years after being released, still has a large number of loyal fans. Like The Dude in the film, the website and its founder Hans de Zwart became beholden to bigger powers. And just as in the film, the whole plot turns out to be based on a misunderstanding. But before that becomes clear, De Zwart has to go on a monthslong odyssey full of frustration and wondrous twists and turns.

Abusive?

The story begins when thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook. Hans de Zwart, like The Dude a former activist who is taking it easy, has launched the site in the middle of May. The former director of dutch digital rights organization Bits of Freedom is a fan of The Big Lebowski. He has noticed that there isn’t a good search engine for quotes from the film. “Even though about every single sentence from the script is eminently quotable,” says De Zwart. So he builds the search engine in a week, including the possibility to share the quote on social media.

This is where Facebook says: no. Users who want to share their favorite quotes on the social network get the following message: “Your message couldn’t be sent because it includes content that other people on Facebook have reported as abusive.” Facebook subsidiary Instagram also blocks the site. Who has reported him? And Why? These questions put De Zwart on a search for justice.

All the dude ever wanted… was his rug back…

De Zwart wants to complain to Facebook, but that is only possible if he has a Facebook account. As a digital rights activist he doesn’t participate in social media, mainly because he doesn’t want to add to the surveillance economy. Still, he decides to create an account.

He immediately gets angry at Facebook messing up his name. The company changes his name to ‘Hans De Zwart’, with a capitalized D. A small annoyance, but for De Zwart it signifies something bigger: “It is the arrogance of a giant American corporation which considers the correct spelling of the names of millions of Dutch people an edge case.”

Then it turns out that Facebook doesn’t see De Zwart’s complaint as a complaint, but as an “experience”. The chance that Facebook will look at it is small. At the top of the complaint form is the following message: “While we aren’t able to review individual reports, the feedback you provide will help us improve the ways we keep Facebook safe.” When he hands in his complaint he gets a message: “Thank you for your experience.”

After a few weeks of waiting, it becomes clear to De Zwart that no one at Facebook will look at his complaint. He still has no idea what part of his website is “abusive” and why he is being blocked.

Automated decisions

Facebook and Instagram have grown into essential communication platforms with billions of people sharing information and news. And for many (online) businesses these sites are the only way to reach their customers. That is why it is important that the information on Facebook and its subsidiaries find their way to users in a transparant and honest way. And that there is an equitable complaints procedure for people whose website has been blocked for whatever reason.

The power of the large internet platforms, and the responsibility that comes with that power, was the subject of a historical antitrust hearing at the US House of Representatives this year. Being a digital rights activist, De Zwart knows this discussion very well, so he starts to meticulously log his attempts to get clarity.

Don't run away from this dude! Goddamnit, this affects all of us! Our basic freedoms.

Halfway June, De Zwart tries to buy a Facebook ad for his website. He has read that Facebook might be willing to listen to your complaints if you are spending advertising dollars with the company. He creates a completely innocent advertisement and pays 5 euro to distribute it to the users of the network.

The advert is rejected, “this ad contains or refers to content that has been blocked by our security systems (#1885260)”, notes Facebook. De Zwart has no idea what the error code means and to complain about this, he first needs to agree to four sets of legal terms. Which he does, without reading them. But after reporting the problem, he again gets no indication whether Facebook is planning to do anything with his complaint. “Thanks for helping us improve!” is the happy message from the platform.

Writing in his log book he notes that he now has another problem: “I want my 5 euro back, but I can’t find any way of doing that.”

He thinks about just letting it all go. Of course he doesn’t really care about the 5 euro, it is the principle that matters. All the while he is clicking himself into an RSI injury, trying to keep all the settings on his Facebook account as privacy friendly as possible.

This whole fucking thing—I could be sitting here with just pee-stains on my rug.

Why does he worry himself so much over this? De Zwart sees “the arbitrary (not to say totalitarian) decisions of the company” as a serious limitation on our freedoms, he emails to the author of this article. Especially since so many people have become very dependent on Facebook.

He considers the block to be “ridiculously disproportional”. Pages of the website which evidently don’t violate any of the ‘community standards’ and also don’t have any potential copyright issues, can’t be shared either. De Zwart doesn’t understand why it is completely impossible to get some form of due process at Facebook. He believes that there should be a working complaints procedure for website owners. A procedure that can also be used by people who don’t have a Facebook account.

Prophetic words

“It appears that Facebook will only look at problems if they realize that it might cost them too much political or media capital if they continue to ignore them”, writes De Zwart at the end of his email.

These words turn out to be prophetic. A few days after the author of this article presents the case to a Facebook PR person, the problem is solved. Nobody had reported his website for “abusive” material — just like the film revolves around a kidnapping incident that has never taken place. The website has all this time been incorrectly labelled “by our automated tools” as spam, according to the spokesperson. “Our apologies for the inconvenience.”

Thebiglebow.ski can now be shared without limitations on Facebook: a bittersweet victory. “If this can happen to me, then I should assume that this happens to (tens or hundreds of) thousands of other people too”, according to De Zwart.

The end of the film is similarly bittersweet. The dude has an even nicer rug, but loses a friend. Hans de Zwart still hasn’t gotten his 5 euro back.

This article was written by Reinier Kist and originally appeared in Dutch in NRC on August 3rd, 2020. It was translated into English by Hans de Zwart.

The Books I Read in 2019

Covers of the books I read in 2019

At the end of each year, I list the books that I have read during that year. Earlier years were 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012. Below you will find the list of books that I’ve read in 2019. Every year I also include an overview of my other media consumption habits (magazines, RSS feeds and podcasts).

This was a slow reading year for me: I only managed to read 39 books for a total of 10.350 pages (last year I managed 52 books and 12.417 pages). It was a busy year, where I was trying to close out and hand over my work at Bits of Freedom, while also preparing for a year of travel and organising a huge real life game.

Only about 24% of the authors that I read were women. That is a bad result and reflects the fact that I didn’t put a lot of intentionality in my reading: I mostly just read in a very instrumental way, picking up books as I felt that I needed them.

I’ve ordered the list of books into categories that make sense to me (and that are in many ways overlapping and arbitrary). These are the books that I’ve read and what I thought of some of them:

Digital rights and technology

None of the books that I read in this category gave me huge new insights nor a new framework of looking at technology. Kaye’s short book is a good introduction for people who haven’t thought much about the topic. Brunton was less on the ball than in his previous books. And Van Dijck and Poell give a useful definition of platforms in the context of an argument for public values. The book with the most staying power (at least for me) is probably Odell’s.

  • David Kaye — Speech Police (link)
  • Finn Brunton — Digital Cash (link)
  • Jenny Odell — How To Do Nothing (link)
  • José van Dijck and Thomas Poell, Martijn de Waal — The Platform Society (link)
  • Marjolein Lanzing — The Transparent Self: A normative investigation of changing selves and relationships in the age of the quantified self (link)
  • Jan Kuitenbrouwer — Datadictatuur (link)
  • Alexander Belgraver and Silvia Belgraver — Eerlijk nieuws zonder censuur (link)

B00k C7ub 4 N3rd$

We only read six books with the book club this year. The most monumental and thought provoking is certainly Zuboff’s book, which gave us a whole new vocabulary with which to critique what we now call ‘surveillance capitalists’. I enjoyed finally hearing how Snowden managed to get those files out of the NSA, and thought that Modderkolk did some amazing pieces of journalism in his book about ‘cyber security’. Stross proved once more that I am not the type for science fiction (I’ll keep trying though). Both Van Essen and Pomerantsev had some memorable scenes in their books, but both didn’t manage to fully convince me in other ways.

  • Shoshana Zuboff — The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (link)
  • Edward Snowden — Permanent Record (link)
  • Huib Modderkolk — Het is oorlog maar niemand die het ziet (link)
  • Peter Pomerantsev — This is Not Propaganda (link)
  • Rob van Essen — De goede zoon (link)
  • Charles Stross — Accelerando (link)

Self improvement and how-to

The book that has had (by far) the most practical impact on my life is Pastoor’s book about how to get a grip on your work. Although I wasn’t bad to start with, it really helped me to easily accomplish some of the things that I would find difficult in the past. I would truly recommend the book to anybody who wants to accomplish anything. I was ready to hate De Becker’s book, but found that it had some profound insights on how to deal with difficult people (e.g. stalkers). Den Dekker has written a beautiful book about Chi Kung, and if you ever want to go and hitchhike across the ocean on a sailing boat, then I think that Van der Vreeken’s book is required reading.

  • Rick Pastoor — Grip (link)
  • Gavin De Becker — The Gift of Fear (link)
  • Chris Guillebeau — The $100 Startup (link)
  • Matt Kepnes — How to Travel the World on $50 a Day (link)
  • Peter den Dekker — The dynamics of standing still (link)
  • Royal Yachting Association — RYA Competent Crew Skills (link)
  • Suzanne van der Veeken — Ocean Nomad (link)
  • Jelmer de Boer — Thuisblijven is duurder (link)
  • Tom Hodgkinson — Business for Bohemians (link)

Fiction

Once again, I didn’t read a lot of fiction, but the things that I did read were all very good. My mind was completely blown by Marlon James, I absolutely loved his book. Murdoch and Baldwin are both skillful interpreters of the human condition. The graphic novel by Altaribba was completely haunting (and beautiful). If you have young children, get them Tori.

  • Marlon James — A Brief History of Seven Killings (link)
  • Iris Murdoch — A Fairly Honourable Defeat (link)
  • James Baldwin — If Beale Street Could Talk (link)
  • Antonio Altaribba and Kim — The Art of Flying (link)
  • Barry Smit — Bloedwonder (link)
  • Brian Elstak and Karin Amatmoekrim — Tori (link)
  • Joke van Leeuwen — Toen ik (link)

Non-fiction

Judah wrote a harrowing and brilliant portrait of London. Tolentino is an incredibly talented writer and I thoroughly enjoyed reading her essays. Walker’s book made me change my sleeping habits but also made me understand much better how sleep actually works (so listing it under self-improvement wouldn’t do it justice). Bythell managed to make me laugh out loud on many occasions with his wry diary entries from the frontier of a second hand bookshop. Abdurraqib shares my love for A Tribe Called Quest, which made his book a pleasure to read.

  • Ben Judah — This is London (link)
  • Jia Tolentino — Trick Mirror (link)
  • Matthew Walker — Why We Sleep (link)
  • Daan Dekker — De betonnen droom (link)
  • Hanif Abdurraqib — Go Ahead in the Rain (link)
  • Harry G. Frankfurt — On Inequality (link)
  • Peter Wohlleben — The Hidden Life of Trees (link)
  • Shaun Bythell — The Diary of a Bookseller (link)
  • adrienne maree brown — Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (link)
  • Mark Traa — De Russen komen! (link)

My consumption of other media

2019 was dedicated to saving as much money as possible (in order to travel for all of 2020). I therefore cancelled all my regular subscriptions to magazines. As The Correspondent’s subscription continued well into 2020, I continued to read their pieces on the basis of their daily newsletter. At the end of the year I took out a subscription to The Economist, mainly for their excellent daily Espresso news app, but also as I way to stay in touch with what is happening with the rest of the world while I am traveling. I continued to read Stephen Downes and Audrey Watters (luckily they continued to write!) and am still subscribed to the Dipsaus newsletter.

The rest of my reading comes via my RSS reader (which I consider to be my personal inoculation against misinformation). I used the reader to read Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing, Maxim Februari and Marcel van Roosmalen at the NRC, and Karin Spaink, Caroline Haskins, Jaap-Henk Hoepman, Ben Thompson (Stratechery) Linda Duits, Kashmir Hill (until she went to the New York Times), Evgeny Morozov, Ian Bogost, XKCD, Zeynep Tufekci, danah boyd, James Bridle, Matthew Green, and a whole bunch of digital rights organisations. I also read Tweakers and Guardian Tech via their RSS feeds.

Not much has changed for me in podcasting land. I listened to all new episodes of This American Life, Een Podcast over Media, This Week in Tech, Dipsaus, Ear Hustle, 99% Invisible (although I am behind), and Reply-all. Next to that I listened to three interesting series: Tim Harford’s Cautionary Tales and two podcasts created by AudioCollectief Schik, namely Laura H. en El Tarangu. When I see an interesting episode I will listen to podcasts by The Correspondent, RadioLab, Glitch, Philsophical Disquisitions, Philosophy Bites, Freakonomics, Philosophy 24/7, New Books in Philosophy, Planet Money, Radio Rechtsstaat, The Tim Ferris Show, Triangulation and Your Undivided Attention.

What will I be reading in 2020?

As I will be traveling for all of 2020, I will likely mostly read books that relate in some way to the country where I am at or to the activity that I am doing. I already know that this will mean reading books about a few places in South America and a few books that are about (long distance) sailing and the sea.

The Books I Read in 2018

Covers of all the books I read in 2018.

At the end of each year, I list the books that I have read during that year. Earlier years were 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012. Below you will find the list of books that I’ve read in 2018. Every year I also include an overview of my other media consumption habits (magazines, RSS feeds and podcasts).

I managed to read one book a week last year, exactly 52 books. The majority of those were read in the latter half of year, when I finished the thesis for my masters in philosophy. There was an increase in the number of books by women that I read (from close to 25% in 2017 to close to 35%), but it still isn’t what I’d like it to be. More than half of the books were written by people who were born in the either the US or UK. However quite a few of those writers do come from a bicultural background.

I’ve ordered the list of books into categories that make sense to me (and that are in many ways overlapping and arbitrary). These are the books that I’ve read and what I thought of some of them:

Digital rights and technology

After reading Gerard I sold most my of meagre Bitcoin holdings, he wrote a thorough debunking of the blockchain concept in general and Bitcoin in particular. Bartlett and Lanier have both made quite radical arguments in two very clearly argued books. Jeong’s concept of ‘garbage’ is a useful way of looking at the shit on some parts of the web. Stephens-Davidowitz makes you realize that Google has more psychological data about people in the world than any other organization ever before. Don’t bother reading Taplin.

  • David Gerard — Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts (link)
  • Jamie Bartlett — The People Vs Tech (link)
  • Jaron Lanier — Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (link)
  • Sarah Jeong — The Internet Of Garbage (link)
  • Seth Stephens-Davidowitz — Everybody Lies (link)
  • Yuval Noah Harari — 21 lessen voor de 21ste eeuw (link)
  • Jonathan Taplin — Move Fast and Break Things (link)
  • Safiya Umoja Noble — Algorithms of Oppression (link)

Justice, ethics and identity

I had the privilege of being able to invest a whole week into reading Rawls’s masterpiece. To me he is the model of how one should do philosophy. Pettit’s ideas are more appealing to me though, and this book is a great summary of his thoughts on civic republicanism. Appiah has written a definitive guide to identity in the current moment. Macfarquhar’s book is a wonderful introduction to age-old ethical dilemmas through stories of lived experiences. Qureshi should be read by anyone who wants to understand more about the current plight of Muslims in the UK.

  • John Rawls — A Theory of Justice (link)
  • Philip Pettit — Just Freedom (link)
  • Kwame Anthony Appiah — The Lies That Bind (link)
  • Larissa Macfarquhar — Strangers Drowning (link)
  • Asim Qureshi — A Virtue Of Disobedience (link)
  • Reni Eddo-Lodge — Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race (link)

B00k C7ub 4 N3rd$

The book club was back in full effect last year. Unfortunately with plenty of middle of the road books. Bridle was the exception and brought the mindset of an artist to our technological predicament. I now also understand why Harari is such a bestseller: the man can write. The corporate take-over in Magnason’s near fiction novel will stay with me for a while longer. Nagle wrote the most intelligent thing I’ve read all year about the ‘culture wars’. Schneier’s book is a good overview of where we are at when it come to securing the internet of things.

  • James Bridle — New Dark Age (link)
  • Yuval Noah Harari — Homo Deus (link)
  • Andri Magnason — Lovestar (link)
  • Angela Nagle — Kill All Normies (link)
  • Bruce Schneier — Click Here to Kill Everybody (link)
  • Bruce Bueno De Mesquita and Alastair Smith — The Dictator’s Handbook (link)
  • Fred Kaplan — Dark Territory (link)
  • Jean M. Twenge — iGen (link)
  • Ryan Holiday — Conspiracy (link)

Self improvement and how-to

Books that teach you new skills can have an incredible influence on your daily or professional life. Parker’s book on how to run gatherings (a place where people come together to do something) might have been my favorite book of the year. She really nailed it. Carroll has managed to change my productivity-practice: I used to have all my todos online, now I’ve switched back to paper.

  • Priya Parker — The Art of Gathering (link)
  • Ryder Carroll — The Bullet Journal Method (link)
  • Eva Rovers — Practivisme (link)
  • Juana Clark Craig — Project Management Lite (link)
  • Michelle McGagh — The No Spend Year (link)
  • Caroline van der Velde — Oudergids autisme (link)
  • Rolf Potts — Vagabonding (link)

Fiction

Wow, I’ve read some wonderful fiction this year. All of the below come recommended. Neale Hurston was incredible and Ross was weirdly hilarious. Didion writes beautiful prose and I couldn’t stop reading Isik and his coming of age in the Bijlmer.

  • Zora Neale Hurston — Their Eyes Were Watching God (link)
  • Fran Ross — Oreo (link)
  • Joan Didion — The Year of Magical Thinking (link)
  • Murat Isik — Wees onzichtbaar (link)
  • Chibundu Onuzo — Welcome to Lagos (link)
  • Barry Smit — Ondijk/Punt (link)
  • Vamba Sherif and Ebissé Rouw — Zwart (link)

While traveling in Mexico, I read these three pieces of excellent writing by current Mexican writers. Luiselli was my favourite.

  • Valeria Luiselli — The Story of My Teeth (link)
  • Yuri Herrera — Transmigration of Bodies (link)
  • Juan Pablo Villalobos — Quesadillas (link)

Graphic novels and art

I loved Elstak en Duysker’s children’s book, mainly because of its bold graphics. The novel by Drnaso was haunting and made me feel empty inside afterward. Dalí is ever the prankster, and I look forward to reading the following chapters in Sattouf’s life.

  • Brian Elstak and Esther Duysker — Trobi (link)
  • Nick Drnaso — Sabrina (link)
  • Salvador Dali and Philippe Halsman — Dali’s Mustache (link)
  • Riad Sattouf — The Arab of the Future (link)
  • Verzetsmuseum Amsterdam — Explosiegevaar! (link)

Non-fiction

I was mesmerized by Godfrey-Smith’s book about octopuses, which turned out to be insightful look at consciousness and at our own minds. Beerthuizen’s book had some good examples of how organizations managed to find business sponsors for their activities. The two museum catalogues were both worth the read. Hislop and Hockenbull’s book was actually better than the exhibit at the British Museum, which can’t be said about the book about the National Museum of Anthropology (even though it was excellent). Taleb both infuriated me (more so than with his earlier books), but also made me think. Wallman should have just done a TED-talk, his premise is interesting but too thin for a book.

  • Peter Godfrey-Smith — Other Minds (link)
  • Marcel Beerthuizen — Show me the money (link)
  • Ian Hislop and Tom Hockenhull — I object (link)
  • Mónica del Villar — 100 Selected Works: National Museum of Anthropology (link)
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb — Skin in the game (link)
  • Catherine Ingram and Andrew Rae — This is Dalí (link)
  • James Wallman — Stuffocation (link)

My consumption of other media

My media consumption looks very similar to last year’s. I am subscribed to De Correspondent, Het Parool, Wired Magazine and the New York Review of Books. I get three newsletters: the OLDaily by Stephen Downes, the weekly newsletter by Audrey Watters, and whenever Dipsaus sends out one. Outside of these I get most of my news through my self-hosted RSS reader. I read a few people diligently: Kashmir Hill, Evgeny Morozov, Cory Doctorow, Cathy O’Neil, Karin Spaink, Jaap-Henk Hoepman, and Linda Duits. I wish there was a way for me to receive the columns of Maxim Februari and Sheila Sitalsing in my inbox. The only web-comic I read is XKCD. For other news, I read The Intercept (which is getting better again), Wired Security, Guardian Tech and Tweakers. For work I follow most digital rights organizations, Pricacy Nieuws and Privacy Barometer.

I still listen to a lot of podcasts: Every episode of Reply All, This American Life, Dipsaus, Ear Hustle, This Week in Tech, Een Podcast over Media, and Strangers (which is on a very long hiatus). New is Goed Nieuws with Joris Luyendijk. If I have time, or if the show looks particularly appealing, I listen to Radio Rechtsstaat, 99% Invisible, The Most Perfect Album, RadioLab, Pakhuis de Zwijger, Freakonomics Radio, Intercepted, The Guardian Long Read, Triangulation, and sometimes even the Tim Ferris Show.

What will I be reading in 2019?

Outside of the books that I will have to read for my job as the director of Bits of Freedom and the books that I will read with the book club, I will try and read the books that I have already bought and haven’t read yet. So that would be this list. Next to an attempt to read more fiction, I will also read some foundational texts in ethics (probably through anthologies).