VP Platform and Infrastructure Eng at GEICO, Open Compute Project Ex-Chairperson, HW Nerd, Lead Singer @ sinisterdexter.net, and Running Addict
For July, we decided to read a book that was recommended by folks in our book club at least 3 years ago, but which the group finally had the appetite to tackle. The Book of Joy is not a typical book. It is a transcript of a series of conversations between two iconic figures centered […]
In June our book club tackled Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson, and it turned into one of those conversations where the book itself became almost secondary to the stories and experiences it inspired us to share. At its heart, Good Dirt follows Ebby Freeman as she grapples with the murder of her brother, a tragedy […]
For May book club we tackled The Upswing, a sweeping look at the past 125 years of American history and an ambitious argument that societies move in cycles—from extreme individualism (“I”), to collective purpose (“We”), and back again. The premise is simple: through decades of data on economics, politics, civic engagement, and culture, the authors […]
For April’s book club session we read Nancy Kress’s Beggars in Spain. I first read Beggars in Spain a while ago, and it is fairly rare that we choose a book for book club that isn’t new to me. The book was written before the internet had fully taken hold—before we understood just how profoundly […]
For March’s book club we read Aaron Sorkin’s 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History–and How It Shattered a Nation. There was something almost too on-the-nose reading 1929 while sitting in New York City, speaking at a conference focused on the future of data centers—how fast they must scale, how much capital they require, […]
For February’s book club session we read Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller. The novel is an undeniably entertaining using humor and satire to explore the politics of censorship in a small Southern town. The premise is clever: after Lula Dean campaigns to remove “dangerous” books from the local public library, […]
January’s read, Everything Is Tuberculosis, landed with the kind of narrative force that feels both investigative and deeply human.What Everything Is Tuberculosis does so well is invite us in gently through the author’s first person story, and then slowly reveal through weaving in history how much of our understanding of disease—and responsibility—is shaped by stories […]
Rounding out the year, for our final book club session we read Apple in China. This book landed with unusual force for me, in part because it intersects so directly with my professional and personal life. I’ve spent my entire career in or adjacent to the semiconductor industry—in hardware design and development, electronic design automation, […]
For October’s book club session we read Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty. Honestly, this book was not great, which is a rare takeaway for me (reading is one of my favorite pastimes and I cannot think of a time I didn’t finish a book I started or find something genuinely enjoyable about it). True to […]
For September’s book club session we read Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides. This book is both an epic of endurance and a quiet indictment of war itself. In recounting the January 1945 raid on the Cabanatuan prison camp in the Philippines, Sides tells a story that feels almost mythic in its bravery while remaining grounded […]