The 9-2-3 JOBS BOOK CLUB

Ever-hopeful that summer will actually arrive, the 9-2-3 team have been giving some thought to what exciting novels they might pack in their suitcases this year… and we’ve concluded that a great starting point would be The Perfect Wife, by J P Delaney.

What is it that makes you unique - that differentiates you from everyone else?  Your likes and dislikes, your strengths and weaknesses?  Is it your memories, perhaps? Or is it the way you see the world?

 And what if those things could be controlled by someone else?Introduced to your brain? What if somebody else could select which memories were and were not available to you?

What if your talents - the things that you thought were specifically yours, nurtured and honed over a lifetime - could now be performed mechanically, according to the instructions of a third party?  What if your brain could be manipulated into loving another person? And most importantly, what if other people - the wider world- could have access to your neural activity?

These are the dilemmas faced by the new Abbie Cullen-Scott. Or at least, by an AI robot version of Abbie, recreated by Abbie’s husband. 

Tim creates “Abbie” to provide companionship, several years after the original Abbie Cullen- Scott goes missing, presumed dead. Abbie’s is a body that is beautifully engineered – strong, capable, and with a brain which is able to access all the information in the world, given the right permissions. And – crucially - it comes with sentience. The new Abbie is capable of thinking for herself and reaching her own conclusions. It’s an incredible thing – she is an incredible development – and the wider world watches via the media with mixed fascination and horror. But soon talk starts of commercialising Abbie.  A lawsuit isn’t far behind. Abbie realises that society doesn’t fully comprehend her sentience - doesn’t understand, if you like, that she has what might be described as a soul.  A personality, independent of the plastic and metal which lay beneath her rubber skin. She realises that she may soon be wiped - in effect, killing her. She is viewed only as property, rather than as a fully functioning human being.  And as the story unravels, it becomes increasingly clear that not all is as it seems.  Does anyone believe that Abbie has a right to self-determination, even those closest to her?

I read this book in a single sitting; it offered surprises up to the very end.  It does sometimes require the reader to suspend disbelief, and not every single detail knits together perfectly, but the desire for a resolution is by that point so strong that it manages to carry you over these minor blips.  It raises increasingly pertinent questions about what constitutes sentience. It asks whether re-creating new neural networks in AI machines would give rise to new moral or legal rights and indeed new, truly-independent beings.  It invites you to wonder whether AI individuals would be able to act in a random and unexpected way or whether, in the end, every step they take is planned out carefully.  It considers the difference between reality and illusion, and what those terms actually mean. 

There are darker themes also. The book addresses the inevitable possibility that AI “people” will be exploited by others for commercial gain in a way that would be unacceptable in solely human populations. It doesn’t shy away from difficult issues about nefarious control.  It deals with the thorny issue of whether AI machines will always fully embrace human empathy or whether they will sometimes make decisions, however unpalatable, based on their own self interest or survival. 

But it also portrays a world in which truly personal and independent responses - love and attachment - can arise out of a recreated neural network. A world in which an artificial human can feel genuine emotion and do the right thing, even at enormous personal cost. And to that extent, perhaps it does offer a partial response to the ultimate question:  what makes us human? 

"Failure is not an option."

In 1919, the US Federal government passed the 19th amendment to the US Constitution, granting women the right to vote across the nation.  As many of you will know, though, it wasn't quite that simple.  In order for the amendment to take effect in the US, it needed to be ratified by at least 36 states. 

Some states rushed to be the first to ratify, ablaze with excitement at the prospect of being at the forefront of progress. Others took their time and required some persuasion.  Some states refused point blank to countenance it.  Finally, 35 states had ratified.  One more was needed - Tennessee.  WWI was over and the political landscape was becoming more conservative; if Tennessee failed to come through, it seemed likely that such an opportunity would not come again.

In the summer of 1920, the fight for ratification - and for the future of nationwide women's suffrage in the US - came to Nashville, Tennessee.  This book is the story of that fight.  It tells of the decades of political campaigning that had led up to this moment, by famous names such as Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton.  It tells of the grinding years of door-knocking, local meetings, marches and petitions, as the suffragists attempted to reach potential supporters in a pre-radio era.   It details the times when the suffragists felt as though they were ridiculed by society and fobbed off and ignored.  But they didn't give up.  Tiny step by tiny step, they changed the political landscape, until by 1920 they were working to present female suffrage as inevitable, and resistant states as an embarrassment to America on a world stage that was changing rapidly in the wake of the war.

The truth is that in Nashville in 1920, ratification felt far from inevitable.  In fact, suffrage campaigners felt at some points that their fight might be almost hopeless. Yes, their efforts to gather local support and to lobby local legislators in Tennessee were impressive - they were well-connected and committed and organised.  But then, so were the "Antis" - the women who actively campaigned against female suffrage.  And, really, there were an astonishingly large number of them - larger, almost, than our modern minds can quite comprehend. Yes, the suffragists officially had the support of the President, Woodrow Wilson, and presidential candidates of both parties, but politics was a precarious sport, and the support given by politicians wasn't always as robust as it might first appear.  They had to contend with local vested interests - such as railways and liquor companies - who opposed female suffrage, and with the egos and re-election plans of local officials.  They had to fight the opposition of those incensed by a perceived affront to Tennessee's "state's rights" - that is, the question of whether the federal government should be able to dictate how individual states should conduct their affairs.  They had to negotiate their way through racist attacks that opening the door to female voters would also enfranchise black women - considered to be a controversial concept in the American South in that era.  

The book doesn't pretend that they were unblemished heroines.  It's quite open about the compromises that were made by the American suffragists to push forward female suffrage into the light - sometimes at the expense of their friends campaigning for civil rights for black Americans in a post-slavery nation.  It's frank about the divisions within the suffrage movement between the more moderate campaigners and those who favoured more militant tactics.  It doesn't shy away from describing the big personalities involved.  It's honest about what it cost the often-pacifist suffragists to swing their support behind the WWI effort. The suffragists were human, rather than divine. But it never loses sight of what these women did for the cause of female enfranchisement and democracy, sometimes at significant personal cost. 

It's important that we're upfront with our 9-2-3 Book Club; this isn't necessarily a book that grabs you from the first page. In all honesty, it's too complex a subject, and there are too many individuals discussed along the way, to be one we'd pack in our suitcases for some light holiday reading. But for a fairly detailed historical account of a major political turning point, it's surprisingly accessible;  it feels like a human story, rather than an academic volume, and once we had pushed through the first few chapters, we were hooked!  It's a book that might light a fire inside you and give you a new appreciation of the journey which women in the US have taken towards political freedom.  It's an inspiring story of the importance of holding fast to what you know is the right thing to do, even when the world around you laughs.  It's a useful reminder that the path to equality isn't self-evident to everyone; and that change requires us to be brave enough to put our heads above the parapet.  History shows that, if we do, others will follow. 

Michelle Obama didn’t set out to be the First Lady of the United States of America. In fact, as she explains, she had very different aspirations. She wanted a dog and "a house that had stairs in it".  After all, that was by no means a given if you grew up on the South Side of Chicago, as she did.   We all know her as FLOTUS.  The affable, smiling powerhouse, with an enviable intellect, an enviable approach to life (and, incidentally, enviable style).  Someone with whom you'd really like to share a coffee.  Someone you'd quite like to join your book club, perhaps.  Michelle Obama's greatest strength, you might say, is that she's just so, well, normal.  This book's a whistle-stop tour through all the things that made, and make, her normal.  It's brutally honest.  It talks about the need for IVF.  It talks about the stress of being a working parent of small children.  It covers the resentment which bubbles up when your spouse works away, pursuing their dream, and your career and hopes are in the firing line.  Michelle is candid about the fact that, even with family support, there were times when she felt that her career would need to be put on pause.  That she just couldn't keep all the balls in the air any longer.  As we say, she's just so... normal.  

But it's also a story of hope.  An account of changing the circumstances into which she was born.  Of changing the expectations of underrepresented and underprivileged communities - in her home city of Chicago and across America. Of the huge difference which engaged female mentors can make to your professional trajectory, and of what can happen when we support each other's ambitions, and become the cheerleaders of other women in the workplace. Of sometimes being one of only a handful of women of colour in a sea of white men, and of continuing to put one foot in front of the other. Because after all, how else can you change the world, except by doing exactly that? Michelle talks of the times when she couldn't see the woods for the trees.  Of not knowing who she wanted to be, professionally and personally.  Of the fear that her identity and her intelligence, once so clear and purposeful, would be consumed by her marriage to a spouse who was famous across America. She talks of her anxiety in walking away from a career towards which she's worked relentlessly her whole adult life - a career which has provided her with status and financial security in a community where both are sadly sometimes in short supply.  She talks about taking her infant daughter along to an interview, to show her potential new bosses exactly who she is. She discusses screwing her courage to the sticking point and entering into testing negotiations for the professional flexibility she needs to continue in her work, and the success that arises when she obtains it.  She covers the times when things just seem too hard.  And what happens when you lift up your head and keep on walking. 

She also knows that to ask a child what they want to be when they grow up is a fairly useless question. Michelle Obama has in her time been a lawyer, the vice president of a hospital, the director of a charity and, well, y’know, The First Lady of the United States of America. There are many who think or hope that she has even grander roles to come.  She knows that "when you grow up" is not a fixed moment in time. That it’s never too late to change direction, if that’s what you want and if that’s where life takes you.

Let’s be realistic.  Most of us won't end our days having been the First Lady of the United States.  But we're not sure that that matters.   The themes running through this book are so relatable that we loved it, despite the rather aspirational geographical setting. Yes, it will be difficult to carve out that personal and professional space for yourself as a parent.  Sometimes it will feel almost impossible.   And yet, that doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn’t do it.

You see, sometimes, when you can’t tell which direction to turn, you just need one person to place their finger on Middle C for you - to let you fly, to play your song.

It's something of a cliche, isn't it, to talk about our literary heroines as being brave.  Fearless. Determined.  But it's been a long time since we've come across a protagonist like Elizabeth Zott.  An utterly deadpan trailblazer, Elizabeth is punished for the cardinal sin of being herself in the face of society's attempts to turn her into someone else.  For being an intelligent and capable woman, and for refusing to accept the professional crumbs that 1950s society deems to be her lot.

Lessons in Chemistry opens in 1961, and casts a brutally honest light on all the indignities and irrationality faced by women of the mid twentieth century.  Elizabeth, a research chemist with an exceptional talent, wipes the intellectual floor with the - male and female - misogynists around her.  Her battle to achieve professional and scientific equality, and to carve out a place in the world for her family, in the face of sexual assault, casual and cruel discrimination and society's disapproval may be set in the  '50s and '60s, but her story of frustration is one that many today will still recognise.  

Fired for the dual sins of being a woman who knows her own abilities and becoming pregnant out of wedlock, and subject to sexual harassment because of her single mother status, she is unapologetic to the last.  Even nationwide fame and a successful TV show don't dampen her desire to have a moment for herself - a space for herself - or her drive to inspire other women to be who they were always meant to be.

We really want to hear what you think of it too!  Let us know!

Louise@923jobs.com

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