Tubes, Andrew Blum
Rating: ★★★½☆
Disclaimer: I am a bit of a nerd deep down (or maybe not so deep?) so books like this are likely going to appeal to me a little more than the average citizen. Regardless, it was a fun journey with Blum as he traversed the globe visiting the major exchanges, submarine fibers and data center powerhouses behind was is such a ubiquitous part of our lives these days: the internet. The book was even more close to home for me because when I was an engineer working on the equipment powering some of these exchanges I visited some of them myself.
From the back cover: Tubes looks behind the scenes of our digital lives at the physical heart of the internet itself. This is a book about real places on the map: their sounds and smells, their storied pasts, their physical details, and the people who live there. Sharing tales of his on-the-ground reporting, along with lucid explanations about how the internet works, Blum’s eye-opening travelogue offers a unique perspective on the role of technology in our lives.