The Circle
The Circle is a 2013 dystopian novel written by American author Dave Eggers. The novel chronicles tech worker Mae Holland as she joins a powerful Internet company. Her initially rewarding experience turns darker.
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28recommend
62mentions
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2013–2026years
48% recommend48% neutral3% critical
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What Hacker News says
- Required reading: The Circle by Dave Eggers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(Eggers_novel)
- Required reading: "The Circle" by Dave Eggers.
Skip the movie; the ending sucks and there's too much drama.
The book neatly lays out how little steps towards a better life (like being able to find your lost dog) lead to an oppressive surveillance state. Every step is a good thing and makes logical sense. The end result is not good.
- tl;dr: I teach introductory computer science (CS1) at the University of Illinois (https://www.cs124.org/). What book should my students read to help introduce them to the field of technology?
In past years I assigned chapters from "Coders" by Clive Thompson for students to read, assessed by a few points of multiple-choice questions on our weekly quizzes. My goal was to complement the technical content and get students thinking about some of the broader issues surrounding technology. I think "Coders" does a nice job of this—covering some of the history of computing, discussing mental health challenges associated with software development, and providing well-reasoned arguments on sensitive topics such as gender and meritocracy.
Maybe I should just bring back "Coders". It was written before the rise of generative AI, but still holds up fairly well.
But I thought I'd ask this community for additional ideas. Note that this could either be required for some small amount of credit, or optional, incentivized with a small amount of extra credit. I'm also receptive to different or more open-ended goals, which is probably reflected in some of the ideas listed below. Generally speaking, I'd like the book to counterbalance an observed tendency among students in my course towards not being wary enough about the computing technology that they will one day participate in creating.
To get you thinking, a few options that I've been considering:
* "The Circle" by Dave Eggers. One of the better satirical takes I've read on our modern technology-centered era. Unfortunately includes some problematic sexual content. * "1984" by George Orwell. Or "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. I'd probably lean toward "1984", since it just seems like a better match for the present moment somehow. * "Weapons of Math Destruction" by Cathy O'Neill, or one of the many similar cautionary technology tales. One concern is that these tend to be somewhat more focused on one or two specific topics, and don't provide as nice of an overview as something like "Coders". * "Unmasking AI" by Joy Buolamwini, or something similar that mixes biography and technology criticism. Similar specificity concerns here to the group above.
Excited to hear your ideas! Thanks in advance. At this point about 2,000 students take my course each year, so whatever I choose does have the potential to impact more than a few young people.
- Might be a good time to re-read The Circle (Dave Eggers).
- You should The Circle and The Every by Dave Eggers. They present a future where it is expected that everyone share everything publicly. It seems shockingly plausible in some ways.
- I’m loving raising my new kid. Funny enough, one of her favorite books right now is Hello Hello by a Brenden Wenzel. I love the way she’ll carry it over to me and crawl into my lap, waiting for me to begin, turning each page for me, how she says hi to the animals in its pages. I don’t care how many times she wants to repeat it, watching her learn and enjoy reading is absolutely delightful. I feel like I’m giving her a superpower by teaching her to enjoy reading. I’ll also read literature or magazine articles aloud to her, and it’s amazing how talkative she’ll become for the next little while, stringing together sentences of babble.
Personally, one of my life goals is to read a book by an author from each country. It’s a little fuzzy since countries have come and gone through history, then there are territories, autonomous regions etc, and maybe not a huge selection of books from each that have been translated into English. I just want to gain a worldwide perspective. One I’ve been slowly chipping away at and had put down for a while but recently became very relevant again is Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. Also recently finished the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by Cixin Liu, The Every by Dave Eggers (not really part of the goal, I just like his work, I‘d recommend that and it’s prequel, The Circle, to this crowd) and am saving the 6th and final volume of Knausgård’s Min Kamp for the long arctic winter ahead.
