I have been reading three terrific new books.  They are not behemoths –  two  of them are very short – and I finished Allegra Goodman’s novel today.

Allegra Goodman’s breathtaking new novel, Isola, is based on historical incidents. The prose is spare and elegant, the plot rapid-fire, and the contrast of the narrator’s wealthy childhood with her exile to an uninhabited island is described in devastating detail.

Set in the 16th century, it is part coming-of-age story, part survival story. The heroine, Marguerite de la Rocque, orphaned at three, is fabulously wealthy until her sadistic guardian, Jean-François Roberval, squanders all her money, sells her house, and takes Isola and her nurse to live in his own dingy house, which he also loses. Then, for his own amusement, because in every encounter with Marguerite he seeks to break her, he forces her and her nurse to accompany him on a sea voyage to New France (Canada).  Furious when he discovers she is having affair, he dumps Margurite, her nurse, and her lover on an uninhabited island near Canada. And then the novel turns into a harrowing survival story. 

Gripping and unputdownable. Five stars.

The AI Con, by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna. Until recently, I ignored the articles about AI, because I had read enough about it in science fiction, thank you.. But I recently read two strange essays about human relationships with AI chatbots. A poet entrusted her chatbot to write her emails and was comforted when it said, “It’s hard to be a working mom.” A mental health worker in the UK confided in a chatbot when he couldn’t sleep.  In response to his questions, the chatbot explained that it wasn’t sentient and couldn’t feel.  And that’s a reality check for all of us.

I am halfway through The AI Con.

This short, compelling book exposes the hype of AI, its dangers, its misuse, its inability to be human, and its casualties.

Here’s a quote from the introduction. 

To put it bluntly, “AI” is a marketing term. It doesn’t refer to a coherent set of technologies.  Instead, the prhase “artificial intelligence’ is deployed when the people building or selling a particular set of technologies will profit from getting others to believe that their technology is similar to humans, able to do things that, in fact, intrinscially require human judgement, perception, or creativity.

O brave new world.

I have barely begun Natasha Brown’s Universality, longlisted for the Booker Prize, but the premise is fascinating.  A journalist investigates a brutal attack on a young anarchist who lives on a commune.   The novel, however, is subtle:  soon we’re off the commune and investigating corrupt bankers and other villains.

Still in progress.