Sonia Connolly

“Tidy First?” by Kent Beck

February 18, 2026 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: A Personal Exercise in Empirical Software Design
Recommended to me by: Liking Kent Beck’s TDD book, and this one was free at a conference

Like Test-Driven Design by Example, this book is lucidly written and carefully thought through. The first half is a series of small software refactorings called “tidyings.” The second half is about the tradeoffs between creating value now (tidy later or never) and creating options for the future (tidy first or soon, but in moderation).

The book is under 100 pages, which means it was a quick, enjoyable read, and at the same time, I’m glad I didn’t pay $40 for it.

It looks like the next book in the series will be “Tidy Together.” I look forward to reading it from the library.

Author’s website. Sadly, Kent Beck is now exploring the use of “AI” for programming. He said at the conference that he’s had to give up the pleasure of crafting a function just right, which made me sad for him. I appreciate him bringing his thoughtful approach to “AI” coding, but I wish he would Just Say No and continue to take pleasure in his craft.

Available at bookshop.org.

“When You Had Power” and “You Knew the Price” by Susan Kaye Quinn

February 18, 2026 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Nothing Is Promised #1

Subtitle: Nothing Is Promised #2
Recommended to me by: Author e-book giveaway

This is a hopepunk climate fiction series, four short tightly interconnected novels that take climate disaster seriously and imagine positive ways to address it. The series also takes diversity seriously, with a Puerto Rican immigrant woman scientist narrator for the first book, and a Black woman administrator for the second book. There is a secondary character in a committed homosexual relationships, although the narrators are involved in heterosexual relationships.

I enjoyed the inventiveness of the first book and the focus on found family. The narrator has a lot of angst due to losing most of her family to a pandemic, and at the same time, she’s also a capable scientist and is taking steps to improve her life.

The second book’s narrator is immersed in grief a year after losing her sister. It was disappointing to lose contact with the first book’s narrator and jump to someone she saw as an authority – but who was emotionally frozen for a lot of the book. While it may be hopepunk to imagine that a woman’s husband, children, and employer will all wait while she emotionally withdraws for a year, I didn’t enjoy reading the ongoing angst and inability to take action. Trauma freeze reactions are real and understandable, and I don’t want to spend time there for fun.

Try them out! Just be aware that there’s a big shift in tone and focus from the first book to the second one, and an ongoing mystery that presumably gets resolved in the fourth book.

Author’s website

Book 1 available at bookshop.org.
Book 2 available at bookshop.org.

“Taproot” by Keezy Young

February 5, 2026 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: A Story About a Gardener and a Ghost
Recommended to me by: Anne

This is a delightful graphic novel about two young people who spend a lot of time together, one a gardener and the other a ghost. The art is colorful and expressive, and the two young people come across as ambiguously gendered to my eyes. The text eventually identifies them both as male. The story has its spooky moments, but the story ending is happy for them both.

The author’s note at the end talks about wanting LGBTQ+ stories that end happily, so they wrote and drew the story they wanted to see.

Highly recommended!

Author’s website

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Tower at Stony Wood” by Patricia A McKillip

February 4, 2026 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: a Yuletide story

I’m a longtime McKillip fan for the RiddleMaster of Hed series and Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and I thought I had read everything she wrote, including this one, but the characters didn’t sound familiar at all, so I got it from the library.

I vaguely recognized some of the scenes, and once I got to the ending I remember being disappointed by it before. I didn’t deeply engage with the characters or their motivations. I did read it all the way through – the writing is lovely.

I think part of the problem is that the main characters are young privileged heterosexual men in a monarchy, with women playing supporting roles. I’m not the target market for that anymore. A quick read that passes the time, but not one I need to return to.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Hospicing Modernity” by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira

February 4, 2026 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism
Recommended to me by: Amy Bennett

This book is a brilliantly written educational tool, including full transparency about the techniques it is using to bring the reader new ideas in the face of very sophisticated defenses. The first few chapters earnestly present the risks of reading the rest of the book, and offer practices to remain grounded and centered while reading stories that question basic assumptions about our reality.

Vanessa Machado de Oliviera uses stories from her own life as a mixed-race person in South America who now works in academia, in addition to deep political analysis to describe the twists and tricks of modernity, the way it consumes us and alters our thinking so that it seems inevitable and unquestionable. She uses metaphors and exercises to encourage new ideas to take root.

One of the exercises is to imagine oneself as a bus with varied passengers, and to pay attention to who is driving, who is giving suggestions to the driver, and who is in the back of the bus, not directly affecting the choice of direction, but still present. She asks, where is modernity on your bus, and what does it have to say.

I thought about that as I biked to an errand, and at first modernity seemed very distant. Then I realized it is standing by the driver and talking constantly about what I’ve done wrong and how I need to be productive and earn enough to deserve to live, etc. etc.

Modernity is tricky and slippery and we’ve all been steeped in it, so even when we think we have renounced and defeated it, we are engaging in battles and black & white thinking that are part of it. Thus we want to honor it both outside and inside ourselves as it goes through its death throes and makes way for something new that is hopefully more nourishing and healthy for us all.

I got this book from the library, but I think I need to buy a copy. It is a book to sit with and revisit and go back to. Highly recommended

Author’s website including videos of the author discussing her work.

Available at bookshop.org.

“How We Show Up” by Mia Birdsong

November 30, 2025 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community
Recommended to me by: Nora Samaran

This is a deeply hopeful book grounded in research and personal stories. The American Dream of individualism, resource extraction, and white supremacy creates separation and suffering. Mia Birdsong explores alternatives that people have created to value connection, cooperation, and community.

As a Black woman, Mia centers Black, queer women and other marginalized people such as people who have experienced homelessness. She appreciates the connections that people weave while surviving oppression, that can lead us all in a direction of ending oppression.

While the American Dream says that we should get our needs met in heterosexual nuclear families, this book celebrates all the different kinds of friendship that can also meet needs for intimacy, safety, and mutual support. Raising kids is easier and healthier for everyone with a larger circle of responsible and trusted adults. People who are ageing can support one another.

Whether in crisis, celebration, or everyday life, we can all weave more connections in our lives where we are seen and loved for who we are.

Highly recommended!

Author’s website. It turns out Mia Birdsong lives right here in Oakland!

Available at bookshop.org.