Prince Caspian
by C. S. Lewis, published 1951
Lucy and her siblings return to Narnia just in time to help the titular prince claim his throne. It’s been a year since their adventure through the wardrobe, but hundreds of years in Narnian time, so no one expects them. “It was as if King Arthur came back to Britain, as some people say he will. And I say the sooner the better.”
Not quite as magical as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but there’s still plenty of magic, a fun adventure, and Caspian is easy to root for. I enjoyed it but it’s not in my top three Narnia books (a ranking I made up just now and worry this will create more work for me later. No matter).
Murder in Mesopotamia
by Agatha Christie, published 1936
Hercule Poirot detects again!
This book is told from the point of view of a witness, Amy Leatheran, who is “encouraged to tell the story” of a murder at an archaeological dig.
Nurse Leatheran was called in to attend Louise Leidner, the wife of the main archaeologist at a dig in Iraq, who has been suffering from “nerves.”
Leatheran sees right away that the vibes are off, and Louise’s somewhat magnetic and strong personality have upset the team’s equilibrium. When Louise is murdered, it seems impossible: everyone has an alibi…or do they?
Poirot must unravel the mystery of who killed her and why. Honestly, I cannot see that anyone would have figured out the labyrinthine conclusion, so I just enjoyed the ride (and if you did figure out the ending before you got there, please let me know; your mind sounds like a fascinating place). Not completely top tier Christie, but a solid entry in the top half maybe. Nurse Leatheran is a stand in for a Dr. Watson or Capt. Hastings character who is telling the story and admiring the detective as he reconstructs the crime, and I thought that worked pretty well.
Unreasonable Hospitality
by Will Guidara, published 2022
Most restaurants that aspire to greatness are led by a chef and the restaurant “back of house,” while the “front of house” staff just tries to keep up. Guidara was a “front” guy who paired with a “back” chef to try to marry a hospitality focus with a culinary focus. Their ambition: to be the best restaurant in the world (no big deal). Their ambition drove them hard, which opens its own set of questions, but it led them to innovate in extraordinary ways.
While you don’t need to aim to be the best _____ (fill in the blank with your own field), there is so much in this book that is applicable to anyone in a service industry, not just the restaurant industry. And many people are in some kind of service industry, even if they don’t view it that way. Many jobs have some sort of customer / client, and many jobs have more than one employee with some sort of hierarchy/ management structure in place.
I’m not always big on “business books” and I have limited tolerance for the “self help” section, but I thought this book was good.
Guidara’s idea is this: treat employees well and treat customers / clients really well, and your business will thrive. If your staff feels supported and encouraged to go above and beyond for their customers, they will find ways to surprise and delight the people who come through your doors. It is sort of an argument for treating humans humanely, which I appreciate. So many businesses are focused on the next quarterly earnings statement, and anyone pushing back against extractive business is something I am interested in. Speaking of extraction….
The Age of Extraction
by Tim Wu, published 2025
There’s a lot of overlap here with Enshittification by Cory Doctorow here, but with a slightly different focus.
“‘The conviction was universal that the country was in real danger from another kind of slavery sought to be fastened on the American people, namely, the slavery that would result from aggregations of capital in the hands of a few individuals and corporations controlling, for their own profit and advantage exclusively, the entire business of the country.’” This was Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan in 1911, but it feels extremely modern.
Wu argues that tech platforms have dominated modern life in ways that drive our economy and their unfettered access to data, attention, and money have meant that they are extremely extractive and harming us all. They are largely unregulated, and they control vast amounts of capital that allow them to put their finger on the scale to their benefit.
While it is depressing to read about all the ways that tech platforms and the AI race are plundering humanity and the planet, Wu does remind us that we emerged from the early-20th century Gilded Age and there are things that can be done to restrain the current tech overlords.
He posits that the economy is not inherently self-balancing, and government needs to intervene sometimes to help balance it, especially by being anti-monopoly, creating neutrality rules, and treating some platforms like utilities. He also notes that union/ worker power is also at a low, and that can help to restrain companies and create a balance if re-established.
All of this would take political will to push through, and while it would be a tough road, it is not impossible. The question is just whether there are people in power who are willing to use that power for restraint instead of self-dealing.
