Curated Tuesday: If you're looking for alternatives to the glut of dystopian stories, try these under-appreciated utopian fiction to ignite a positive vision for the future!
Is AI an existential threat to book reading, or only the most recent challenger? Read a 140-year old debate from Octave Uzanne to get some perspective.
What Norbert Wiener's first principles tell us about the human use of AI, and the AI use of humans
A Reading List of 10 classics in the Spirit of the First Labor Day, 1882 complete with book summaries and public domain links
Max Havelaar: Coffee, Colonialism & Fair-Trade’s Origin Story (1859).
A lucid, timely reading of von Harbou’s darker vision: elites in pleasure domes, workers in data mines, and a seductive Deepfake on the loose.
Special guest Mark Twain wrote "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" in 1901; Here he unpacks its enduring relevance in 2025.
A Square sees beyond his Flatland. Can you?
It's the eternal human tension, stillness vs. action, from 1859 to today
Oblomov, by Goncharov (Part 1, Chapter 1)
From Chap. 3 "Notes of a Trip to Kyoto" by Lafcadio Hearn, 1897
Amidst worship of online profiles & artificial status, a modern monk's journey is enlightening.
Ever look at technology hype cycles with trepidation, like something could go horribly wrong?
Karel Čapek's R.U.R. was fantasy in 1920. Today, the dilemma is tangible, & urgent.
New English translation and over 100 of Robida's best illustrations!
"Unsafe at Any Speed" called it out in 1965, yet blaming consumers remains alive and well today
Bellamy's "Looking Backward" is essential reading for looking forward in 2025
If you're unsure, read Zamyatin's "We," and try to unpack our Digital One State.
Fears of an ecological reckoning aren't new. Richard Jefferies imagined it in 1885.
Read Zamyatin's 1921 dystopia and you're bound to see uncomfortable similarities
Ask your Congressman to read Edward Bellamy's 1888 vision of an American utopia
