Since my last post...
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. We're chatting about this over in the
New Leaf Book Club.
Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil. The book highlights how some computer algorithms (neatly described as an "an opinion formalized in code") are opaque and applied so widely, and without sufficient regard for monitoring their effects, especially from unexpected feedback loops, that they can produce damaging results - the sorts of prejudicial and unfair results that some were explicitly intended to avoid but that they now magnify at a worrying scale. (Reminiscent of that old adage: humans make mistakes but it takes a computer to really stuff up.)
There is a lot in this book, it's been well researched (although very U.S. centric), but I think it could have been structured better to make the situation clearer. The writing, like the title, is a bit over-sensationalist, but the topic is real - and important - enough warrant some effort to gain attention. The book has its good aspects (shows how so many algorithms cause or exacerbate problems), and some less good aspects (never really acknowledges that good and bad are often the same thing from different perspectives and resolving them becomes a matter of prevailing social policy rather than programming tweaks). Still, it does make for an interesting read. 3/5.