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bristlecone's review
3.0
This book is interesting, but not what I expected given the title and description. This is really a collection of essays about self identity, ego, and experience. The author explores some interesting ideas, experiences, and technology and provides interesting musing about their meanings. Much like the thesis of this book ---what is unseen matters --- what is unseen and unexplored by the author also matters. The author explores very limited dimensions of each of the topics engaged in an effort to draw the reader in to the author's vividly described thoughts. But for all the considerations of what is unseen in this book, the author misses a lot. For example, when describing alternate reality technology, the author discusses the possibility of people walking around with alternate reality glasses on that replace structures and walls with open space, providing a sense of well being to the wearers The author discusses the potential misuses of such technology but ignores all of the "unseen" reasons why such technology induced well being is in such demand --- making something invisible isn't solving the larger issue.
This book seems to be an attempt at something similar to Rebecca Solnit's Field Guide to Getting Lost, but I felt it was just less coherent and insightful. But it is filled with peaks at interesting technology and beautifully written descriptions of interesting ideas. It's not what I expected, but still worth a read.
This book seems to be an attempt at something similar to Rebecca Solnit's Field Guide to Getting Lost, but I felt it was just less coherent and insightful. But it is filled with peaks at interesting technology and beautifully written descriptions of interesting ideas. It's not what I expected, but still worth a read.
ahappyhermit's review against another edition
4.0
3 stars for readability,
1 star for thought-provoking ideas
Would definitely recommend this to a friend!
1 star for thought-provoking ideas
Would definitely recommend this to a friend!
eliquinn7's review
adventurous
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
You will read that this book doesn’t match the theme set by its title nor in its introduction.
I would argue that is subject to your own interpretation as the reader. I found the writing somewhat haphazard, with a collection of thoughts regarding invisibility, the concept of identity and “self,” and many scientific and historical examples. HOWEVER, as a self-proclaimed Wikipedia wormhole explorer with an undergraduate degree in physics and interests in psychology and philosophy, I found the book well-written and fascinating, even if the structure was lacking and it may be advertised as something it is not.
Read with an open mind, and I think many will enjoy this commentary on how we interact with the external world from our inner citadels.
Favorite quote: “Inconspicuousness begins as self-protection but soon extends to self-reliance and a deeper appreciation of who we are and where we belong in things.”
drewmoody321's review
2.0
Akiko Busch is not a fan of social media. Nor facial recognition software. Nor AI. Nor the cloud. Nor IoT. It doesn't seem she's a fan of the internet at large. And I don't blame her. But I don't know why she has such a staunch stance against it. And after reading this book, I'm no closer to an answer.
I was so excited to read this one for a long time. It was marketed as a manual for retaining some semblance of anonymity in an increasingly transparent world. And the introduction of the book certainly made it seem like Busch was setting out to write that manual. Instead this book is a collection of musings - not even essays - about different examples of "being invisible." Like fish that use camouflage, or jets that jam radar frequencies, or legends of magical peoples in Icelandic mythology.
Each chapter finds Busch relentlessly providing anecdotes and half thoughts paragraph after paragraph. Rarely sticking with an example of "invisibility" for longer than five or six sentences.
She's a tremendous writer. And some of the things she writes are genuinely fascinating and I'd love to learn more about it. But this book is not what it seems to be. So if you're looking into reading it so that you can find inspiration to quit your Instagram habit, look elsewhere.
I was so excited to read this one for a long time. It was marketed as a manual for retaining some semblance of anonymity in an increasingly transparent world. And the introduction of the book certainly made it seem like Busch was setting out to write that manual. Instead this book is a collection of musings - not even essays - about different examples of "being invisible." Like fish that use camouflage, or jets that jam radar frequencies, or legends of magical peoples in Icelandic mythology.
Each chapter finds Busch relentlessly providing anecdotes and half thoughts paragraph after paragraph. Rarely sticking with an example of "invisibility" for longer than five or six sentences.
She's a tremendous writer. And some of the things she writes are genuinely fascinating and I'd love to learn more about it. But this book is not what it seems to be. So if you're looking into reading it so that you can find inspiration to quit your Instagram habit, look elsewhere.
karenreads1000s's review
2.0
Struggled to get through this book. The ideas were more about true invisibility than psychological invisibility. The technical advancements sections added some good examples. The focus felt more on camouflage, "absorbed and assimilated by the world".
dsinton's review
5.0
So many things I loved about this book. Want to read again and it becomes a pathway.
600bars's review
1.0
What a disappointment! This book has survived 2 of my hold shelf cullings smh. Because of the title I thought this was going to be more of a guide on how to live under a surveillance state, or at least how to stop being so concerned with putting yourself on display. I quickly realized it wasn’t that, but was going to be a meditation on the concept of invisibility. That would have been fine with me tbh. I love to chat about the politics of recognition. Everyone is anxious about being seen. Anyone remember that (annoying) period a few years ago where ppl were obsessed with saying “do not perceive me”?
I love a good meander and ponder on a concept, but this book was written just like my early undergrad papers where I was trying to get to the word count. Every chapter is basically the author listing art projects and personal or scientific anecdotes that aren’t even necessarily supporting an argument. She will have a paragraph describing a project, then another paragraph describing another art project, then a third describing a third, and it moves on paragraph after paragraph introducing a new reference without ever connecting it to the theme or topic. And because each item gets one paragraph, we barely get into what it means or what it’s doing because most of those words are used to describe the project/painting/item. Then at the end of the chapter she will have a paragraph that lists a couple of the works, (as if I can remember any of them bc by that point they’ve all glazed by), as if that’s a meaningful conclusion synthesizing all these works together.
It’s not that there even needs to be an argument. I thought of other books I’ve read recently that I enjoyed. The book of Eels blends memoir and science and art and history, with a clear structure. Every other chapter is a memoir about the author's personal history with eels, and then the alternate chapters discuss Eels in literature or eels in history or eel breeding techniques etc. It’s a well-organized way to talk about one thing, in this case eels, from every angle.
Busch attempted a structure like the one above, but all the anecdotes and examples in each chapter could’ve been placed anywhere and it would barely have mattered. Eels are a concrete thing, and invisibility is a slippery idea, so let me compare it to other works that explored a concept. 10:04 by Ben Lerner is technically fiction but we all know it isn’t really. That book is about the seemingly vague idea of “things being the same except totally different”. It wanders around the idea through experience, art, etc. I was fascinated and couldn’t stop thinking of examples. Drifts by Kate Zambreno (also technically fiction but again we all know) does something similar with the concepts of dailiness and solitude. So I’ve definitely read things that successfully blend anecdotes, art criticism, literary criticism, science facts.
It’s unfortunate because I would have loved to read something on the topic of invisibility, on turning away from the self and how our current age makes that difficult. Also, the title made me think there would be a prescriptive aspect to this book that was not present. I really wish I had abandoned it, because I recognized what was wrong pretty early but thought maybe it would get better but then it continued in the same fashion for the whole rest of the book.
I love a good meander and ponder on a concept, but this book was written just like my early undergrad papers where I was trying to get to the word count. Every chapter is basically the author listing art projects and personal or scientific anecdotes that aren’t even necessarily supporting an argument. She will have a paragraph describing a project, then another paragraph describing another art project, then a third describing a third, and it moves on paragraph after paragraph introducing a new reference without ever connecting it to the theme or topic. And because each item gets one paragraph, we barely get into what it means or what it’s doing because most of those words are used to describe the project/painting/item. Then at the end of the chapter she will have a paragraph that lists a couple of the works, (as if I can remember any of them bc by that point they’ve all glazed by), as if that’s a meaningful conclusion synthesizing all these works together.
It’s not that there even needs to be an argument. I thought of other books I’ve read recently that I enjoyed. The book of Eels blends memoir and science and art and history, with a clear structure. Every other chapter is a memoir about the author's personal history with eels, and then the alternate chapters discuss Eels in literature or eels in history or eel breeding techniques etc. It’s a well-organized way to talk about one thing, in this case eels, from every angle.
Busch attempted a structure like the one above, but all the anecdotes and examples in each chapter could’ve been placed anywhere and it would barely have mattered. Eels are a concrete thing, and invisibility is a slippery idea, so let me compare it to other works that explored a concept. 10:04 by Ben Lerner is technically fiction but we all know it isn’t really. That book is about the seemingly vague idea of “things being the same except totally different”. It wanders around the idea through experience, art, etc. I was fascinated and couldn’t stop thinking of examples. Drifts by Kate Zambreno (also technically fiction but again we all know) does something similar with the concepts of dailiness and solitude. So I’ve definitely read things that successfully blend anecdotes, art criticism, literary criticism, science facts.
It’s unfortunate because I would have loved to read something on the topic of invisibility, on turning away from the self and how our current age makes that difficult. Also, the title made me think there would be a prescriptive aspect to this book that was not present. I really wish I had abandoned it, because I recognized what was wrong pretty early but thought maybe it would get better but then it continued in the same fashion for the whole rest of the book.