Two novels, one eminently readable, the other vapid

The eminently readable novel, is Tom Rachman's The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

The vapid novel is the latest Dave Eggers offering with a long, gimmicky title: Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

Reviews of the novels can be found here and here, respectively.

2025?

2025 could very well be the title of a new Dave Egger's new novel, The Circle, because the plot is a close echo of the plot of George Orwell's dystopian classic, 1984.

Orwell's totalitarian regime was the government, whereas Eggers' is a tech-behemoth resembling Google or Facebook. The company credo is "All That Happens Must Be Known." It has several Orwellian maxims like, "Secrets Are Lies," "Sharing Is Caring," and "Privacy Is Theft."

According to the New York Times, The Circle

Attempts to use the coming-of-age story of a young woman to create a parable about the perils of life in a digital age in which our personal data is increasingly collected, sifted and monetized, an age of surveillance and Big Data, in which privacy is obsolete, and Maoist collectivism is the order of the day. [Eggers] reminds us how digital utopianism can lead to the datafication of our daily lives, how a belief in the wisdom of the crowd can lead to mob rule, how the embrace of “the hive mind” can lead to a diminution of the individual. The adventures of Mr. Eggers’s heroine, Mae Holland, an ambitious new hire at the company, provide an object lesson in the dangers of drinking the Silicon Valley Kool-Aid and becoming a full-time digital ninja.