#27 [2026/CBR18] Burn Book by Kara Swisher

My book club chose Burn Book: A Tech Love Story (2024) by Kara Swisher as our latest book. We'd already read another tech memoir, Careless People, which I enjoyed. I was hoping I would like Burn Book as well. In the end, I didn't love it. Although there were parts that were engaging, I did not have enough interest in or knowledge about the subject matter for me to appreciate it. 

Kara Swisher has been a tech reporter for three decades, covering tech from the very beginning back in the 1990's. She knows all the players, has scooped a good number of stories, and seems to be important in her field. I might have found this book more interesting if I'd heard of her or knew anything about her. But even though I begrudgingly and eventually accept technological progress, I am usually one of the last ones on the bandwagon. My phone does so much for me now, and I really do appreciate it. However, I also feel relief when I go backpacking, and I'm completely disconnected from all of it.

Swisher discusses her relationships with various tech moguls over the years. She mentions conversations she's had with them, articles she's written about them, and interviews she's done with them. Some of these people I'd heard of, including: Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg. Many of them I had not heard of, but sometimes I'd heard of their companies. Most of this I didn't find particularly interesting. I understand that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did some pretty cool things, but I just don't care if they were interviewed together. 

In a similar vein, I appreciate that Apple was at one time a pioneer in products and design, but I'm not a fan. I don't like how you have to have everything Apple to use anything else from Apple. I don't like that I can't see my brother's photo albums because I don't have an iphone. Everyone says Apple is intuitive, but that's only if you've been using Apple products all your life. Sometimes Apple users feel like a cult that I have no interest in joining. Swisher, on the other hand, seems to love Apple and Steve Jobs and she talks about them a lot.

Swisher seems to be smart and funny, and some of her takes were interesting and/or amusing. (She calls Rupert Murdoch, technically her boss at one time, Uncle Satan). I think I would have been more drawn into the book if she had made it more in depth or personal. She would give a little anecdote about a famous tech dude, and then move onto the next one. But because I don't follow that world at all, I did not have the context for it to be meaningful, I often didn't know anything about the person she was talking about, and I didn't feel like I was learning anything.

My favorite parts of the book were when Swisher wrote about where tech was going (AI) and how it could change all of our lives for better or for worse. She warned us a number of times that having a small, homogeneous group of rich, white, men who care more about money and power than the greater good is not who we want making all these decisions. Many of these tech moguls started out wanting to do good in the world, but they've proven that they do not care about harmful side effects and collateral damage (Mark Zuckerberg). Whether spreading misinformation that potentially sways elections or foments violence around the world, or targeting young teens with predatory advertising, they've shown that new technology needs a legal and ethical framework to be safe.

I can imagine the right person loving this book, but I am not that person.

#26 [2026/CBR18] Here's Looking At You by Mhairi McFarlane

After finishing Cover Story by Mhairi McFarlane, I wanted more and started looking through McFarlane's novels to see if I'd missed any. I was happy to find Looking At You (2014), an older McFarlane novel that I hadn't read before. Looking At You was fine, but it did feel a little dated and is not on the top of my McFarlane list.

Anna Alessi is a history professor in England, forcing herself to go online dating in order to meet the one. She has mostly gotten over a traumatic history of intense bullying from what in America would be called her high school years. The book begins with Anna in high school. Her secret crush, James Fraser, asks if she wants to do a duet at the final school lip sync show. But he just leaves her on stage, laughs at her, and calls her an elephant while the rest of the school throws candies at her. It was premeditated and appallingly mean.

Now, many years later Anna has transformed herself into someone literally unrecognizable after losing about fifty pounds (not the best of tropes). She goes to her high school reunion for closure--or something. James Fraser and his friends are there, but they don't even know who she is. Shortly thereafter, Anna is helping out with a museum exhibition and James's company is brought on for some of the tech. Anna and James have to work together, and he still doesn't know who she is.

At first Anna is very prickly and defensive with James, which he doesn't understand. But slowly the two start getting along better. and even become friends. But one day, they go to Anna's place and James sees an old picture of Anna and the truth is out. James barely remembers what he did to her, and thinks she's making too big a deal out of it.

Eventually James understands how miserable Anna's life was in high school and properly apologizes. There are also some side stories with Anna's sister and James's wife.

I think its pretty gutsy to have a main character do something so mean in the very beginning of the book, and then bring him back as the romantic hero. The problem for me is that it didn't work. I know he was only sixteen and sixteen year old's are especially stupid with undeveloped brains. But there's a difference between stupid and cruel. And I never got the sense that James changed enough for me to really trust him. He consistently seemed low on the caring about other's feelings scale. And he didn't have any good relationships. He hated his best friend and coworkers and had nothing in common with his wife. He didn't know who he was. Even though he supposedly figured this out at the end of the book, he still went back to his wife before finally deciding he should stick with Anna. Their relationship didn't feel very romantic to me.

Anna was more sympathetic, but a lot of her character was just her looking to get married, which seemed a little tiresome. I'm also not a huge fan of the losing weight to become an entirely different, and very hot, person. I might have preferred if Anna had stayed the same and James had changed into a more substantive adult who noticed and cared about other people who weren't as hot as him. I love McFarlane, but I don't think this one aged as well as some of her others.

#25 [2026/CBR18] Daughters of the Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove (2025) by Barbara Demick is another book I first saw on NPR's Favorite Books List. Then my husband read it, and he also recommended it to me. Demick is a journalist who was based in China for a number of years. She writes about China's one-child policy, and how that affected children and families in China. Because of the draconian rules around having too many children, children were being abandoned in growing numbers, especially baby girls. In 1992, China allowed for international adoption and over 160,000 children were placed out of the country--most to the United States--over the next three decades. 

Demick focuses on two twin girls, who were the third and fourth children of two rice farmers born in an isolated mountain town in China in 2000. The twin girls were Fangfang and Shuangjie. While the parents were in the city with Shuangjie making money to pay the fine for their children, Fangfang was brutally kidnapped from her aunt and uncle's home where she had been staying. It is estimated that as many as ten percent of the children adopted out of China were forcibly taken from their parents or relatives.

So, Shuangjie grew up with her family in China with the shadow of the traumatic kidnapping of her twin sister. Fangfang was adopted to an older, religious couple in Texas who had already adopted one little girl from China. Both girls grew up in a loving family, but they had drastically different experiences. Through Demick's reporting, she met Fangfang's family in China, and thought she might try to figure out where Fangfang ended up for them. With a lot of luck, Demick discovered Fangfang's likely location, but when she reached out to the family, they were not interested. Fangfang--now Esther--was only nine years old and her adopted father had just died. Demick told Fangfang's Chinese family that their daughter was safe in America, but left it alone after that.

Many years later when the girls are seventeen, Esther decides that she wants to know more about her birth family, and they get in touch with Demick again to help them. Demick facilitates some Facetime calls and then finally a meeting in China with the two families.

This book was fascinating. I was aware of the one-child policy in China, but I knew almost no specifics and had never thought critically of what it would entail. The breadth of the Family Planning Association, how many people were involved, and their powers over people's bodies and lives was shocking to read about. The kidnapping of children to sell them to orphanages was brazen and astonishing.

I was impressed by Demick's ability to explain complex policies in a huge country without getting bogged down in too many details. I also like that the book starts out in China, from the point of view of the birth parents. It gave me a better understanding of the people in China and the tragedies they faced through the one-child policy. In addition, I was impressed by how much compassion she had for everyone involved. She really focused on the people and their love for their children.

Demick also discusses orphans, specifically Chinese and Korean orphans raised in the United States. When Esther came to China, she finally looked like everyone around her, but she was also an American foreigner.

I found this book hard to put down, and I feel like I learned a lot. Highly recommended.

#24 [2026/CBR18] Cover Story by Mhairi McFarlane

I've read many books by Mhairi McFarlane and really enjoyed most of them. So, when I saw she had a new book out, Cover Story (2025), I knew I was going to read it. McFarlane writes romance-centric novels but with more developed characters and storylines than you sometimes see in your flimsier romances. McFarlane is Scottish and her books take place in England, so there are a lot of Britishisms and other cultural references that sometimes fly over my head. I still enjoy reading them, though.

Bel is an investigative journalist working in a tiny satellite office in Manchester with her coworker Aaron and a rotating intern. The latest intern is Connor. Older than the usual intern, Connor has recently switched career tracks from finance to journalism. He's not happy about being up in Manchester, he recently dealt with a bout of depression, and he's unsure about his relationship with his girlfriend of five years. So, his first impression of Bel, Aaron, and the Manchester office is not positive, and he doesn't hide his feelings. Bel immediately labels Connor a snobby finance bro and wants nothing to do with him.

Bel hears from a source that the mayor is having inappropriate relationships with young women in his office. She decides to go undercover to befriend the woman who runs the AirBnB the mayor uses for his liaisons. When Connor stumbles into her at an inopportune time, he is roped into the undercover business as her boyfriend. 

As Connor and Bel work together, their relationship slowly thaws into a good working relationship and then into friends. Part of why this case is so important to Bel is that she recently fell into a similar trap with an older man at her previous work. Even worse, when she wizened up and left, he began stalking and harassing her.

Bel and Connor's romance is a very slow burn, but I liked their interactions and I didn't get bored while reading. I also thought McFarlane did well in explaining how Bel felt about the man at her previous work who was pretty nefarious. The guilt and blame she put on herself was tremendous, but I imagine a lot of women could relate.

Connor was dreamy, but he sometimes felt too good to be real. And speaking of realistic, almost every male character in this book was obsessed with Bel. We have Connor, of course; Bel's ex-boyfriend; Bel's office fling/stalker; co-worker Aaron; and even the mayor of Manchester as soon as he sees her. It was a little much, but didn't detract from my enjoyment of the novel.

#23 [2026/CBR18] Heartwood by Amity Gaige

Heartwood (2025) by Amity Gaige is yet another book that I originally saw on NPR's Favorite Books List. It is about a woman who goes missing on the Appalachian Trail (AT) and the search to find her. Heartwood sounded like something I would like, so I got it from my library back in December. But I was about to do some solo backpacking and camping, and I wisely decided I didn't want to read a book about a missing hiker while I was sitting alone in my tent at night. Now it's about five months later, and I finally got around to it.

Gaige states at the end of this book that this story was partially inspired by the tragic story of Geraldine "Gerry" Largay, a 66-year-old woman who had been hiking the AT. When she went off the trail to go to the bathroom, the woods were so thick that she could not find her way back. She survived for 26 days in her tent before succumbing, writing to her family in her journal. Her body was found two years later.

In Heartwood, Valerie Gillis is a 42-year-old nurse who is hiking the AT as a way to take a break and reset after the heartbreak of being on the frontlines during COVID. She is alone, but her husband is supporting her trek, meeting her every few days with supplies and logistical support. Valerie is in Maine, but she doesn't show up to meet her husband as they'd agreed. He waits one day because she is often delayed and then goes for help.

Beverly is a Maine State Game Warden. She is 57 years old, and has been in charge of missing persons cases in the woods for a number of years. She is good at her job and has a great record. Beverly is fleshed out with details of what it's like to be the only woman in a male dominated field, her complicated relationship with her mother and sisters, and her determination to find Valerie.

Lena is a 76-year-old woman who is living in a Connecticut nursing home. She is immediately sucker punched by the news of the missing hiker because her own estranged daughter is the same age as Valerie and also a nurse. Lena's immediately takes it upon herself to find out everything she can about the case.

The search brings out hundreds of volunteers and wardens as they search for Valerie. But their confidence in finding her decreases as the days continue. It's possible that she's lost, but there's also the outside chance that she was the victim of foul play. There are a number of suspects, including Valerie's husband. Some hikers are also suspicious of Valerie's last hiking partner, who had already left the trail because of a sick father. In addition, there is a SERE campus that is right near where Valerie disappeared. SERE is military training for captured soldiers and it stands for: Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. Plenty of internet sleuths think the military is hiding something, and their poor relationship with the Maine State Game Wardens don't help.

I liked this book. It was well written and seemed to have a good understanding of what long distance hiking is like. The characters are developed and feel like real people. My wanting to know what happens kept me reading, although I was sometimes frustrated when I felt like we were finally getting somewhere and the book changes perspective. I had the hardest time understanding Lena. I wish I could have related to her more. 

Recommended.

#22 [2026/CBR18] Unshrunk by Laura Delano

Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance (2025) by Laura Delano is another book I discovered on NPR's List of Favorite Books. I have an older brother who fell into some major mental health problems when he was in college. He has had a very hard life since then. He is often difficult, nonsensical and hard to be around, but I also know what he was like before he got sick. In an effort to understand him better or maybe find something to help him, I find myself reading a fair number of books about Schizophrenia and mental health. When I saw Unshrunk, I was intrigued and was able to get the Audiobook from the library.

Laura Delano is the author and narrator of Unshrunk. She grew up very well off, an outstanding student, and a competitive squash player. But at 14 years old, she began having mental health problems--struggling with her feelings and anger towards her family. She saw her first psychiatrist who labeled her as bipolar and started her on a mood stabilizer and antidepressant. And so for the next thirteen years, Delano's life was a parade of more psychiatrists, more prescribed drugs, more symptoms, repeated stays in hospitals, thoughts of suicide, and one serious suicide attempt.

Delano's family was able to give her access to some very good psychiatric resources. She also managed to graduate from Harvard and go to a debutante ball in the middle of all of this. But her mental, and then physical health was such a struggle, that Delano did not want to live anymore. Doctors told her she had "treatment resistant" bipolar, which meant the drugs weren't helping  her, and she needed more.

After being put in a Borderline Personality Group Therapy class, Delano met another woman who convinced her to go to AA meetings. These meetings helped Delano get sober, and she started taking a more active part in her care. She read all of the information she could get about the drugs she'd been prescribed. Most of them were FDA approved because the drug's efficacy had been shown through six-week trials. (And sometimes this efficacy was only marginally better than the placebo effect). There were no long-term trials, and they had never been tested on children, including the ones she had been prescribed as a child. She also read about some of the debilitating side effects, many of which can cause new mental or physical issues.

Delano decided to get off of her meds, but there was also very little information about safely getting off psychiatric medications. These meds can affect every system in the body, and she'd been taking them for years. Lithium is the go-to drug for bipolar, but there is a very fine line between the amount of drug that is therapeutic and the amount that is toxic. In addition, getting off bipolar medication too fast can trigger a larger manic episode than never taking it in the first place. Delano found her best information on various online forums from other patients who had used trial and error to very slowly wean themselves off.

In the end, Delano was able to wean herself off all of her medications, stay sober, be a part of a healthy relationship, run a business, and raise her children. She says that her brain is certainly not always healthy, but she is better now at dealing with negative thoughts and emotions. Delano is not against all psychiatric drugs for all people, but she thinks they are pushed too quickly without adequately informing the patients of the real risks and other options.

I appreciated that Delano telling her own story really showed how difficult dealing with mental health problems can be. Some people are under the illusion that psychiatric drugs are some kind of panacea. If anyone has mental health issues, they just need to get on their meds. But it's not that simple. Delano was compliant with her meds and trying everything, desperate to get better. Instead, she kept spiraling down. I could see why she was hopeless.

In the end, though, like most psychiatric books I read, I found it kind of depressing. I'm glad that Delano was able to figure out what worked for her. But she is very smart, determined, and has a large amount of support and resources. Also, what worked for her, isn't necessarily going to work for someone else. There are plenty of people whose psych meds are incredibly helpful to them. What it comes down to in the end, is we don't really understand mental health very well.

#21 [2026/CBR18] These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

I saw These Summer Storms (2025) by Sarah MacLean on NPR's Favorite Books List. I've never read anything by Sarah MacLean, but I'm a fan of romance novels, and this one seemed interesting enough. So I picked it up. Unfortunately, I found this one more disappointing than not. After a fun beginning, the plot did not feel believable, and I didn't like the characters. By the end of the book, I was curious how it was going to end, but I was also ready for it to be done.

Alice Storm hasn't seen her very rich family in five years. She is the daughter of a tech billionaire, Franklin Storm, who is egotistic, controlling, and unlikable. When she publicly outed her father's company for its bad practices regarding sexual harassment, her father told her to "get off his island." In all that time, Alice has not seen her mother, Elizabeth; her two older siblings Greta and Sam, and her youngest sibling Emily. She was cut off from all of the money and made her own way as an artist and art teacher in New York City.

But she has just received news that her father is dead from an accident, and she is on her way back to their private island off the coast of Rhode Island for his funeral/celebration of life. Her ex-fiance, Griffin, has just recently broken things off with no explanation. On the train, she sits next to a good-looking man who helps her get away from paparazzi and gives her a ride. They end up hooking up before she sneaks away in the morning.

Alice sails across the island to meet her mostly rude and obnoxious family--except for Emily, who is in a happy relationship and seems like a genuine, caring person. It doesn't take long before the guy Alice slept with the night before shows up at the island. He is Jack Dean, and her father's number two man at his company. Jack Dean is there to tell them about their father's wishes as far as the will is concerned and oversee/judge the process.

Franklin Storm gave most members of the family a personal letter with a task to fulfill. All members of the family must complete the task or none of them will get their inheritance. Greta must break off her years-long relationship with her father's bodyguard--a man she loves more than anything. Sam can only talk on even hours, and he has to clean and fix a bunch of things on the island. Alice did not get a letter at all, but she must stay on the island for the whole week. Even though Alice is now self sufficient and doesn't care about the money, she is facing incredible family pressure to stay. Emily did not receive instructions, and Elizabeth, their mother, was instructed to say one nice thing about Franklin every day and "tell the truth."

I'm pretty sure there is nothing remotely legal about this, but it also doesn't make a lot of sense. Greta is supposed to break up with the man she loves. Franklin is not a likable character, but it's still a mystery why he would do this to his daughter. The book says he doesn't like to share, but he's dead; he doesn't have to share. And wasn't he already sharing his favorite bodyguard when they were secretly, but not so secretly hooking up before he died. And Franklin liked his bodyguard. Why would he do this? Also, all Greta has to do is tell her beau everything that's happening. He can disappear until the end of the week, and people can think they broke up. Greta inherits the money, her bodyguard boyfriend comes back, and the problem is solved. This plotline drove me crazy.

Another big problem for me was that I didn't like Jack Dean. This book could have turned around for me if I had been into the love story. And when they first met on the train, he was really promising. But when they're on the island, they were always fighting. He never apologized or explained anything to her. He was constantly lying or withholding information, and I didn't trust him. He is too much like her father. The only thing they had going for each other was the physical attraction--not the best basis for a long-term relationship. Not my favorite book of the year.