Reading Liberally Book Club

Hosted by the 44th LD Democrats

A diverse group of six young adults participating in a discussion in a modern, bright office with large windows and city views.

Welcome!

This book club was created to encourage challenging and engaging reading within the local democratic community. Genres and topics can change monthly but we will always focus on elevating topics and voices of importance.

Membership in an LD is not required, but it is encouraged. All are welcome!

We meet in-person and digitally via Zoom on the last Tuesday of the month in coordination with Wanderlust Book Lounge in Bothell.

Click the sign-up button below to get the latest updates and zoom invitations! All are welcome!

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Book of the Month

Love this book and want more?

Enjoy these other titles for Extra Credit:

  • Weapons of Math Destruction

    By Cathy O’Neil

    Genre: Non-Fiction


    We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated.

    But as Cathy O’Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when they’re wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If a poor student can’t get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), he’s then cut off from the kind of education that could pull him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Models are propping up the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a “toxic cocktail for democracy.” Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.

  • Atlas of AI

    By Kate Crawford

    Genre: Non-Fiction

    The hidden costs of artificial intelligence - from natural resources and labor to privacy, equality, and freedom.

    What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? Drawing on more than a decade of research, award-winning scholar Kate Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the minerals drawn from the earth, to the labor pulled from low-wage information workers, to the data taken from every action and expression. This book reveals how this planetary network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance and increased inequity. Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a material and political perspective on what it takes to make AI and how it centralizes power. This is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world.

  • Ghost in the Shell - Series

    By Masamune Shirow

    Genre: Anime/Sci-Fi/CyberPunk

    This classic anime series is set in the year 2029. Humans augment their bodies with cybernetic parts and upload their consciousness to networks. Major Motoko Kusanagi, a synthetic cyborg agent, leads Public Security Section 9 to hunt the "Puppet Master". This rogue, self-aware AI hacks human minds, manipulating political systems and forcing Kusanagi to question her own identity and humanity.

    In Ghost in the Shell, set in the futuristic New Port City, technological advancements allow people to replace biological limbs and organs with cybernetic replacements, known as "shells". Human brains are housed in mechanical casings that allow direct connections to the internet. In this reality, the "ghost" refers to the person's soul or consciousness, while the "shell" is their physical body.

    This series deals with themes of AI, Conciousness, Self, and our connections in an increasingly digital world.