Reading diaries no. 1: escaping the Meta-verse

Reading Careless People and missing Bookstagram

Hi friends,

I hate to admit it, but I miss Bookstagram. I miss posting cozy pictures of coffeehouse reading sessions or throwing pithy observations about my current read on top of a filtered picture of my bookshelf and posting it to my stories. Admittedly, Bookstagram is more about the aesthetics than the book chat, as evidenced by the fact that book reviews are the least interacted with posts on the platform.

I finally left Instagram for good a couple months ago. For far too long, it swallowed large swaths of my time and attention like a lethal black hole. Ultimately, Zuck’s alliance with the evil empire was the final blow for me. After just one week, I felt better — less anxious, more focused — but I still miss the book chats, the gossip, and sometimes even the hot takes. These reading diaries are my answer to that missing. Please indulge me with all of your book talk in the comments!

Speaking of Meta, who’s reading Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams?

Fresh off my local indie’s shelves.

The book chronicles Williams experiences as global director of public policy at Facebook from 2011 to 2017, recounting her encounteres with the company’s morally vacuous leadership and their pursuit of growth at all costs. The title is, of course, a reference to that iconic Great Gatsby quote, an excellent choice on Williams part.

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

The book was announced a week before it was published, likely to minimize Meta’s ability to sue the author or stop the book’s printing. Of course, it immediately tried to do both. They managed to gag Williams so that she can no longer speak about or promote her book, but they failed to stop the books printing. Either way, it’s not a great look for a CEO who’s been touting himself as a “champion” free speech for years now.

I put this book on hold at my library the minute I learned of it. I’ve worked in tech for a long time, and there’s nothing juicier than inside baseball. In the meantime, Roxane Gay posted on Bluesky that she hadn’t previously heard of the book, but was intrigued enough to buy it immediately. Her observations started out like this:

Then, progressed to this:

Needless to say, I couldn’t wait for my library to purchase copies. I went to straight to my local indie and bought the book myself.

So far, it’s dishy and truly shocking. I didn’t need to read a book to know how terrible Facebook’s leadership is, but they’re even worse when rendered in detail. I rarely annotate books, but this time I felt compelled to record my reactions to every moment. The margins are full of comments like “WTF” and “barf” and “this fucking guy….” I’m a few days away from finishing, but I can already say it didn’t disappoint. I’ll be sure to include a fuller review in my Spring: Wrapped!

More current reads…

Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett - I’m reading this as part of my memoir reading project and absolutely loving the depiction of her lifelong friendship with late author Lucy Grealy.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee - Yes, still.

New to my TBR…

The Manicurist’s Daughter by Susan Lieu - After hearing the author give a brief synopsis of this book at my memoir class a few nights ago, I ran to Storygraph to add it to my TBR. Lieu’s mother died after a botched tummy tuck when she was 11. Her search for answers leads her to track down the surgeon, “enlisting the help of spirit channelers” and confronting her family’s trauma in the process. If you’ve read this one, please let me know what you thought!

Other bookish reads…

• DOGE is going after libraries now. Here’s what we can do to fight back.

  • You can also become a member of the American Library Association! I joined this year because I feel passionate about protecting our libraries and fighting against censorship!

• Speaking of that, something about the title of this post captures the sorrow that I inherently feel at the thought of libraries being targeted. It also gives me courage.

• I loved Traci’s nonfiction taxonomy! This gave language to a lot of concepts I’ve struggled to express about nonfiction in the past.

Let’s continue the conversation in the comments and help me stay off Instagram!

Tell me what you’re reading. Tell me if it’s good. Tell me what books you put on your TBR recently and why.

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