Book reviews

• Neuromancer (William Gibson) — The book that started cyberpunk. I went to the source through a beautifully produced YouTube audiobook - after replaying Cyberpunk 2077 one too many times.
• The Soul of Malaya (Henri Fauconnier) — A Frenchman's 1930 memoir-novel of colonial Malaya, picked up after I fell for Malaysia in February. A quiet, atmospheric window into a world that has almost vanished in a hundred years.
• Debt: The First 5,000 Years (David Graeber) — A sweeping anthropological history of debt - the book I picked to step back and look at money from a distance. Strong on history, and I read the modern chapters with a filter.
• How to be Swedish: Learning Swedishness in 55 Steps (Matthias Kamann) — A light and funny guide to Swedish culture, picked up at a bookstore in Gothenburg during my road trip across Sweden.
• Factfulness: We're All Wrong About the World (Hans Rosling) — Hans Rosling's eye-opening book about why our instincts deceive us about global progress, and how to think more clearly.
• South vs North: India's Great Divide (R.S. Nilakantan) — A random book bought at Hyderabad airport in India, filled with a large number of tables and digits.
• Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire (Roger Crowley) — The first book I thoughtfully read about the history of Portugal, focusing on one of its most famous periods.