Books
Finished reading: Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe 📚
A gorgeous picture book biography.
📚💬 " ChatGPT has access to every poem ever written, at least in theory, but it can’t feel anything when it generates a poem from a prompt. Is this still poetry?" John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “It’s a near certainty that generative AI can have some positive effects on human writing, but for that to be true, we must hold fast to what makes writing meaningful to humans.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “What do we make of a technology that is simultaneously undeniably powerful, has access to all the information in the world, and can produce outputs at a speed unmatchable by humans, but at the same time is also untethered from reality?” John Warner, More Than Words
📚💬 “The things ChatGPT is ‘smarter’ at… are relatively limited as compared to our human capacities for experience, reflection, analysis, and creativity…” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “It’s not that ChatGPT makes stuff up. It has no capacity for discerning something true from something not true. Truth is irrelevant to its operations.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “Large language models do not ‘write.’ They generate syntax.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “Removing thinking from writing renders an act not writing.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “…ChatGPT cannot write. Generating syntax is not the same thing as writing. Writing is an embodied act of thinking and feeling. Writing is communicating with intention.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
📚💬 “…segregating people by those who are allowed and empowered to engage with a genuine process of writing from those who outsource it to AI is hardly democratic. It mistakes product for process.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
Finished reading: Born in Fire by Nora Roberts 📚
Technically I read this in the binding of the Irish Born trilogy that has all 3 books, but I’m giving myself credit for each individual book as I finish it. La Nora writes such a moving story.
📚💬 “‘That was it,’ Maggie said with a laugh. ‘I was bright. Brie was sweet.’” Nora Roberts, Born in Fire
Finished reading: Before She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome 📚
Finished reading: Thank You, Omu! (Caldecott Honor Book) by Oge Mora 📚
A lovely picture book about generosity with super cool cut paper mixed media illustrations!
Finished reading: Shadow’s Heart by Kresley Cole 📚
Finished reading: What I Did For a Duke by Julie Anne Long 📚
Oh wow. I love both main characters in this one. The heroine is so tired of being seen as a reliable dog geyser person. The hero is deliberately prickly and mysterious. I love them.
Finished reading: The Secret Garden by Mariah Marsden and Hanna Luechtefeld 📚
The Secret Garden is one of my favorite books from childhood and this is an excellent graphic novel adaptation that captures its magic beautifully.
💬📚 “Rather than seeing ChatGPT as a threat that will destroy things of value, we should be viewing it as an opportunity to reconsider exactly what we value and why we value those things.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
Finished reading: I Kissed an Earl by Julie Anne Long 📚
A headstrong lady! Shipboard romance! As always, Julie Anne Long does the job.
💬📚 “Do you want to look back on a life of items crossed off lists drawn up in response to the demands of others? Or do you want to hang on to, and repeat, and remember, the thrill of discovering things on your own?” Rob Walker, The Art of Noticing
Finished reading: How to Tell When We Will Die by Johanna Hedva 📚
This book challenged me. I don’t know the last time I had to look up several new-to-me words in a book, but we’re talking decades. This book was full of essays that resonated deeply with my own experiences and others that were like a window into a completely different world. I’m so glad I read it.
📚💬 “I want a life capacious enough to contain what I choose to be true about myself and that which I did not but have nevertheless learned to work with, to use, to wield.” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom
📚💬 “…kindness is a form of magic we can choose to know how to do. What matters is attending to suffering, no matter why it’s there.” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom