Reading notes for 2025

• Justice for Animals (Nussbaum). This was a rewarding read. Nussbaum – not entirely surprisingly – rejects utilitarian arguments based on suffering and pain and instead leans on her capabilities approach (adapted somewhat for non-human animals). Beautifully written.
• The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science (Strevens). Strevens – definitely not “Stevens” – focuses on Popper and Kuhn as presenting two different models of scientific knowledge generation, both of which are incomplete. Instead, his account of the unique success of science is built around the “iron rule” – roughly, as I understand it, that empirical evidence rather than theoretical elegance should be the final arbiter of scientific truth.
• Rebel Health (Fox). I’m not sure I was really the right audience for this book. It focuses on how consumers/communities have in some instances driven innovation in healthcare, sometimes against active hostility from the medical profession. Interesting discussion, but I didn’t find the framing of these consumer-driven activities as “rebellion” very convincing.
• Making Medical Knowledge (Solomon). This is an interesting critique of medical epistemology, especially what counts as (high quality) evidence in evidence-based medicine. It advocates for a form of epistemological pluralism rather than dogmatic adherence to the EBM-hierarchy that seems to have a totemic-like status in medical research, but a relatively flimsy rationale.
• Studying Those Who Study Us (Forsythe). This is a collection of articles by Diana Forsythe, a medical anthropologist who conducted ethnographic studies of medical informatics/AI researchers in the 1990s. The key insight for me was that medical AI research then – and now – tends to be detached from the needs of end users and focuses excessively on technical evaluation.
• Speak, Memory (Nabokov). Wonderful memoir regarding Nabokov’s early life in pre-revolutionary Russia and as a refugee (albeit a highly privileged refugee) in Western Europe. The writing is quite beautiful, although – given that this is Nabokov – keeping a dictionary at hand is necessary (or at least it was for me).
• Quest the Sexual Health (Epstein). Outlines and investigates how the concept of “sexual health” has developed since the 1970s, especially how placing sexuality under a “health” umbrella risks medicalising aspects of sexuality (e.g. is low desire a medical problem per se)
• Psychology of Human Sexuality (Lehmiller). Useful general textbook on the psychology of sexuality. I have a new PhD student working on sexuality, primarily focussing on STIs, so this was useful background reading.
• Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction (Nagel – Jennifer, not Tom). Part of the Oxford Very Short Introduction series. I was looking for a short refresher on epistemology and knowledge (“justified true belief”) and this did the job. Very clearly written – it made me want to look into Jennifer Nagel’s work on confabulation.
• The Balanced Brain (Nord). Very readable book that attempts to synthesise current research in the brain sciences for the general reader.
  
• The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age (Wachter). This book was published in 2014/15, but is still highly relevant. It outlines some of the drives and challenges in digitising healthcare. I’ve started using some of the case study chapters as readings in one of the subjects I teach here in Australia
• Modern China: A Very Short Introduction (Mitter). I am trying to learn more about China, especially in terms of key cultural values and the drivers of its education and research culture. This book provided some useful historical and economic background.
• I Deliver Parcels in Beijing (Anyan). This book was – according to the Economist – a big hit in China. It is a memoir that relates, in fairly flat prose, the author’s experience in several jobs in a rapidly changing China. The main chunk of the book is – as the title suggests – focused on the author’s experience as a delivery driver in Beijing. It’s alienating, gruelling, stressful, work, with little autonomy. The book gave me some insights into the gig economy, but I wasn’t entirely clear on what was distinctly Chinese about his experience; the work – and the experience of the workers – looked similar in broad outline to, say, a delivery driver in Detroit, or an Amazon Warehouse worker in Los Angeles.
• The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China (Jia, Li, Cousineau). This was probably the most memorable book I read in 2025. It attempts to do several things. First, it describes the history of the Chinese examination system and its central importance in Chinese society as a beacon of (imperfect) fairness. Second, it describes the advantages and disadvantages of this system. Third, it places the exam system within the broader context of Chinese society, as a “centralised hierarchical tournament.” Fourth, it compares the Chinese examination system to systems in other countries, particular with respect to the role of universities.
  
• Modern India: A Very Short Introduction (Jeffrey). This short book briefly outlines the development of India, particularly focusing on the colonial period and more recent history. It outlines some of the core features of modern India, especially the pressures that exist for younger people and some of the contradictions inherent in the world’s biggest democracy (and now most populous country).
• Dopamine Nation (Lembke). Readable popular science account of the way in which our technological environment facilitates (encourages) behavioural/substance/food addiction.
• The AI Con (Bender & Hanna). A polemical work on both the limitations of machine learning/LLMs and the cynicism of Big Tech. I broadly agreed with the conclusions, with some major caveats, but I wasn’t entirely persuaded by some of the arguments.
• Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death (Monso). This was a fascinating book about how (and indeed, if) animals understand death. Monso outlines what a fleshed-out concept of death looks like (e.g. death implies non-functionality, death is irreversible, death is universal, etc.) and then develops what a minimal concept of death might look like. This minimal concept of death has fewer criteria, focused on non-functionality and non-recoverability of functionality. As I understand it, she makes the claim that this minimal concept of death is achievable by many types of more complex animals.
• Wendy Cope: Collected Poems (Cope). I’ve always enjoyed Wendy Cope’s poetry (“Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis”) and have been enjoying this edition of her collected works.
• What (Cooper Clarke). Reading John Cooper Clarke (or better, listening to him reading) always reminds me of home. This collection did not disappoint.