Paired reading

Has anyone found themselves reading a science fiction work and being so intrigued by the concepts they then look for non-fiction examining the same issues? I ask because I'm reading and enjoying SB Divya's Machinehood at the moment. It explores AI in the 2090s and it's impact on humans who end up having to resort to pills and artificial enhancements to complete even at a low level in the workplace. This sent me rushing to a non-fiction work that I've had on my TBR pile for several months - Kate Crawford's Atlas of AI, which examines the effect of such systems on today's societies.
I'd be interested to know if other folks have any such paired reading suggestions.

On the same topic you are looking into I would recommend the non-fiction work The Rise of The Robots by Martin Ford. Copy I have was published in 2015. It traces the development of the technologies being called AI, looks at their impact on the work lives of people, and predicts these technologies leading to mass unemployment.

He discusses how earlier technologies replaced manual tasks and that retraining for more skilled jobs was seen as the solution. Now, however, as he pointed out, the technologies are getting into the higher skilled jobs (he identifies Legal and Medical jobs as being subjected to automation) so there are limits to the effectiveness of retraining to provide jobs for those displaced by technology. I see the current writers’ and actors’ strikes as a high profile example that Ford’s predictions coming to realisation.

>2 pgmcc: Thx for the rec. I can see my TBR pile growing if this thread takes off!

I find this sort of thing happening more with my general reading. I alternate between Mount TBR and an equally high and tottering pile of magazines and journals on a range of subjects. This recently threw up an instance where, having read a special edition of the UK critical sf journal Foundation devoted to the works and life of John Wyndham, I went to the lower slopes of the TBR pile and pulled out Hidden Wyndham and found it an interesting experience.

A non-genre book on still-born projects to build trans-Alpine railways tuned into this when the magazine pile, without any prompting from me, disgorged a couple of German-language titles focussing on the railway over the Arlberg Pass in Austria, which (all being well) I shall be traversing in about a month's time.

And yet: a similar act of serendipity resulted in my reading Michael Palin's Erebus and starting on the tv version of Dan Simmons' The Terror on DVD at about the same time, though I've not experienced any urge to promote the novel up the reading order.

I sometimes end up pairing fiction and non fiction books inadvertently - examples; Oryx and Crake and the rational optimist, The once and future witches and invisible women

The Overstory sent me to Finding the Mother Tree to learn about arboriculture and mycorhizomes.

Drood by Dan Simmons prompted me to dig out biographies of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins.

>1 SChant: Once instance immediately springs to mind... When I first attempted Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle, I stalled out on the first book. A year or so later I read Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul, which provided history of the same time period and made my 2nd foray into Stephenson's work a delight instead of a slog.

>6 paradoxosalpha: The mountains in the sea by Ray Nayler starts each chapter with a quote from another book. I really wanted to read the one called How oceans think, but (alas) it's not yet written -- and also by a fictional person (details!). It's based on a real book, though: How forests think: toward an anthropology beyond the human by Eduardo Kohn, which I now want to read. I also wonder if that was a book that Richard Powers read while working on The Overstory.

>9 karenb:

Wishlisted How Forests Think, thanks! The best book I read on aquatic consciousness in recent years was Other Minds.

>8 ScoLgo: So that's how to get into the Baroque Cycle! I've tried and tried, just couldn't get through Quicksilver.

>11 Karlstar: Well... it worked for me anyway. Even if one does not end up reading Stephenson's lengthy octology, the Barry book is well worth a look for anyone interested in how the USA came about. For a non-fiction book it reads a bit like a thriller, after it gets done laying out a bit of historical background.

Once I managed to get past Quicksilver and into King of the Vagabonds, things began to take off and shape up into more of an adventure as opposed to a history lesson. By the time I got to the 2nd, (4th?) volume, I was fully invested.

For anyone that has not yet read Cryptonomicon, and who might be considering The Baroque Cycle, I recommend not reading the prequels first or they will fully spoil the ending in Cryptonomicon.

I'm having not just a "paired" read, but sort of a series of reads that I chose inadvertently or intentionally which have raised the ecological theme of humankind ruining planet earth. In rather quick succession, I've read:

Migrations

The Overstory

The Margarets

and now The Sixth Extinction.

Migrations and The Sixth Extinction have worked particularly well together for me, since the latter provides the factual information and the former provides emotional context.

Paired Reading is one of my favorite things to do. Thanks for sharing. I've now got lots more ideas!