Searches

Searches is as discomfiting as it is entertaining, with Vara exercising playful technique as a writer while also laying down dire warnings about a tech-dominated future. It's also a clear reminder that, at least for now, nothing can make language sing like a gifted human mind * San Francisco Chronicle * A thought-provoking investigation into personal history, creativity, and technology, elements that make us all * Alta * Vara is an appealing narrator - smart, funny, honest and a little neurotic. She harbours ambivalence about her reliance on technology products, but she doesn't beat herself up about it. She is thoughtful but not too heady; principled but not preachy -- Anna Wiener * New Yorker * Thought-provoking, accessible and compelling . . . Will have you questioning what you thought you knew about technology in the 21st century * Ms. Magazine * A must-read for anyone interested in technology and artificial intelligence; will also be engaging for memoir lovers * Library Journal (starred review) * Readers will be profoundly moved by this remarkable meditation. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) * Beautifully written and profoundly researched * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) * Provocative, challenging and concerning, Vara's clever, eye-opening approach brings home the often uneasy confluence of individual desire, social benefits and corporate ambition * Booklist (starred review) * I cannot imagine a better guide through the infuriating, labyrinthine underworld of technology than Vauhini Vara. Searches is so many things - heart-stoppingly sad, a formal high-wire act, a wise and funny and thoughtful encyclopedia of our modern age - but most of all it is a book about human relationships: how imperfectly we made this thing that connects us, and how we might use this thing to re-meet ourselves and each other -- Carmen Maria Machado, author of IN THE DREAM HOUSE Searches is that rare thing: a genuinely thrilling book that breaks open existing forms and structures - not only the essay but the google search, the Amazon review, the pitch deck, the Chat GPT dialogue box, the AI-generated image - to give us something entirely new...This book will leave you changed, and stay with you for good -- Leslie Jamison, author of SPLINTERS A riveting, provocative and deeply personal exploration of our ambivalent relationship with technology that spans from our earliest history to the advent of the internet to the race to dominate artificial intelligence -- Cecilia Kang, co-author of AN UGLY TRUTH