What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Dream Hotel’

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Updated 16 June 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Dream Hotel’

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  • “The Dream Hotel” is more than a compelling narrative; it is a reflection on the complexities of freedom and the influence of technology on our lives

Author: Laila Lalami

Reading Moroccan-American novelist Laila Lalami’s “The Dream Hotel” was an eye-opening experience that left me simultaneously captivated and unsettled.

The novel weaves a story about one woman’s fight for freedom in a near-future society where even dreams are under surveillance.

The narrative centers on Sara, who, upon returning to Los Angeles International Airport, is pulled aside by agents from the Risk Assessment Administration.

The chilling premise — that an algorithm has determined she is at risk of harming her husband — immediately drew me in. Lalami’s portrayal of Sara’s descent into a retention center, where she is held alongside other women labeled as “dreamers,” is both fascinating and disturbing.

What struck me most was how Lalami explores the seductive nature of technology. I found myself reflecting on our current relationship with data and surveillance.

The idea that our innermost thoughts could be monitored and judged felt unsettlingly familiar. As Sara navigates the oppressive rules of the facility, I felt a growing frustration at the injustice of her situation, which echoes broader societal concerns about privacy and autonomy.

Lalami’s writing is lyrical yet accessible, drawing readers into the emotional depth of each character. The interactions among the women in the retention center are especially poignant, showing how strength can emerge from solidarity.

As the story unfolds, I was reminded of the resilience of the human spirit, even under dehumanizing conditions. The arrival of a new resident adds a twist, pushing Sara toward a confrontation with the forces trying to control her. This development kept me invested in seeing how she would reclaim her agency.

“The Dream Hotel” is more than a compelling narrative; it is a reflection on the complexities of freedom and the influence of technology on our lives. It left me considering how much of ourselves we must guard to remain truly free.

In conclusion, Lalami has crafted a thoughtful and resonant novel that lingers after the final page. It is well worth reading for those interested in the intersections of identity, technology and human experience.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘How to Change a Memory’ by Steve Ramirez

What We Are Reading Today: ‘How to Change a Memory’ by Steve Ramirez
Updated 16 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘How to Change a Memory’ by Steve Ramirez

What We Are Reading Today: ‘How to Change a Memory’ by Steve Ramirez

As a graduate student at MIT, Steve Ramirez successfully created false memories in the lab. Now, as a neuroscientist working at the frontiers of brain science, he foresees a future where we can replace our negative memories with positive ones.

In “How to Change a Memory,” Ramirez draws on his own memories—of friendship, family, loss, and recovery—to reveal how memory can be turned on and off like a switch, edited, and even constructed from nothing.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘In The Brain, In Theory’

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Updated 16 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘In The Brain, In Theory’

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  • Engineering is the use of knowledge to solve technical problems, to build an artifact with a plan

Author: ROMAIN BRETTE 

“In The Brain, In Theory,” Romain Brette argues that the brain is not a “biological computer” because living organisms are not engineered.

Engineering is the use of knowledge to solve technical problems, to build an artifact with a plan. Brette reviews the main theoretical frameworks for thinking about the brain, including computation, neural representations, information, and prediction, and finds them poorly suited to the study of biological cognition.

He proposes understanding the brain as a self-organized, developing community of living entities rather than an optimized assembly of machine components. 

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Physics of the Tropical Atmosphere and Tropical Cyclones’

What We Are Reading Today: ‘Physics of the Tropical Atmosphere and Tropical Cyclones’
Updated 13 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Physics of the Tropical Atmosphere and Tropical Cyclones’

What We Are Reading Today: ‘Physics of the Tropical Atmosphere and Tropical Cyclones’

Author: Kerry Emanuel

“Physics of the Tropical Atmosphere and Tropical Cyclones” provides readers with a firm grounding in the observations, theory, and modeling of tropical weather systems and tropical cyclones.

How and why do tropical cyclones form? What physics underpins their genesis, intensification, structure, and power?

This authoritative and accessible book tackles these and other questions, providing a unifying framework for understanding most tropical weather systems.


What We Are Reading Today: The Seed Detective by Adam Alexander

What We Are Reading Today: The Seed Detective by Adam Alexander
Updated 13 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: The Seed Detective by Adam Alexander

What We Are Reading Today: The Seed Detective by Adam Alexander

In “The Seed Detective,” Adam Alexander shares his own stories of seed hunting, with the origin stories behind many of our everyday vegetable heroes.

Taking us on a journey that began when we left the life of the hunter-gatherer to become farmers, he tells tales of globalization, political intrigue, colonization and serendipity – describing how these vegetables and their travels have become embedded in our food cultures.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘What Matters in Jane Austen?’

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Updated 13 July 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘What Matters in Jane Austen?’

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  • In this work he poses 20 questions such as: “Why is the weather important?” “How much money is enough?” “Why is Darcy so rude?” and “What do the characters call each other?”

Author: John Mullan

To mark 250 years since the birth of one of the most famous women authors in English literature, John Mullan’s “What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved” has been reissued.

First published in 2012, the book is a kind of literary scavenger hunt, with Mullan as guide — witty, knowing and visibly delighted by the patterns and puzzles he uncovers.

We go on the journey with him, uncovering the meanings embedded in the seemingly minor, but not minute, details of Austen’s fiction.

The Lord Northcliffe professor of modern English literature at University College London, Mullan is a leading authority on Austen. He has edited “Sense and Sensibility” and “Emma” for Oxford World’s Classics and has published widely on 18th- and 19th-century literature.

In this work he poses 20 questions such as: “Why is the weather important?” “How much money is enough?” “Why is Darcy so rude?” and “What do the characters call each other?”

That last question forms one of the book’s most interesting chapters for me. It’s about the seemingly stealthy and subtle ways in which the characters address others by a name and the power of not saying their name at all.

In Austen’s world, names are never casual. A shift from a formal title to a first name can signal a change in status, desire or familiarity. A name can be a quiet form of rebellion or a coded expression of closeness or longing. It matters whether someone is “Miss Bennet” or “Elizabeth,” whether a man dares to use her given name directly and whether that liberty is permitted or returned.

Again and again, Mullan shows us how much Austen could signal with the smallest of choices. What seems like a passing detail is likely loaded with meaning.

This new edition, with a fresh preface, is a fitting tribute to Austen’s longevity. Rather than framing her novels as relics to admire, Mullan treats them as living texts full of sly codes and sharp decisions.

It offers fans of Austen’s work something they crave: evidence. A deep dive into the text itself.

By the end, the title becomes clear, not just because Mullan asked the right questions but because, through his close reading and sharp observations, we begin to get answers.

To Austen, who died in 1817, everything mattered: names, clothes, weather, silence. And more than two centuries later, her world — precise, constrained, emotionally charged — still has plenty to show and tell.