Excavating ground-state human experience

An annotated reading of the books I finished in July 2026.

Books Read in July 2026

1. The Remains of the Day
2. Extremely Online
3. Us
4. How Emotions are Made

Examining the life of a butler

The Remains of the Day, adapted into an Academy Award-winning movie, echoes the fictional contemplations of Stevens, an English butler reflecting on his time serving Lord Darlington, a figure whom Stevens comes to simultaneously revere and question. The book centers on Stevens’ trip away from Darlington Hall, where he served Lord Darlington and Mr. Farraday, the new owner of the estate. On his (rare) journey outside the establishment, Stevens begins to unpack the historical context of his time at Darlington Hall during the Second World War, with nuance and candor. This book offers readers a glimpse into the thought process of a man striving to understand and honor the legacy of an employer with a charming yet checkered reputation.

Setting the digital scene

Curious how we got to today’s sphere of online content creators? What did it take for online video platforms to achieve mass adoption and drive social change along the way? Extremely Online documents the history of this technology’s development, outlining the predecessors of YouTube and TikTok along the trajectory from nascent digital communication to ubiquitous social dialogue. Given how much culture and history is now being shaped by these platforms, it’s worth knowing how they came to prominence.

Vulnerability (or its lack) accumulates

What is a simple word that takes one out of their individualistic context and helps refocus energy on their relationship to others? Us. That is, “us” is a word (and a book by Terrence Real) that restructures how we think about our place in the world. It reminds one that their actions often echo relational patterns carried down generational lines and that these patterns can be reshaped to pave the way for connecting more meaningfully with others. As such, “us” should be used prescriptively to dial down one’s inward focus and dial up one’s capacity for connection.

The atoms of human experience

How Emotions are Made is an instruction manual-and field guide-for how human experience is crafted moment-to-moment. From the neuronal to sociological level, the author Lisa Feldman Barrett carefully walks readers through what makes humans tick, how we make decisions (via emotional cues), the role of emotions in general cognition, and the implications of emotion research showing that emotions are not universally perceived the same way across cultures. All of this carries important caveats for how we can conceptualize our “inner landscapes”, the consequences of these conceptualizations, and how we might view the development of “artificial intelligences” in the wild.

Alex