April was a good reading month for me. As the news was once again dominated by authoritarianism and genocide, I took refuge in the ability to enter other worlds. In these books, I travelled from London to Utah and from ancient myths to artificial intelligence, with a detour through the US civil rights movement.

This month, as I read, I found myself thinking again of that Alice Walker quote: “When I was a child, I read books for entertainment and information; I now think of books as lifeboats.” Here are this month’s lifeboats.

Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan

This is a huge, 650-page doorstop of a novel with an enormous cast of characters, but it was a surprisingly easy read. It encapsulates the massive inequalities of life in London, with dukes and Russian oligarchs living only a few blocks away from crumbling council estates. The novel brings together street gangs and aristocrats, people traffickers and eco-activists, all through the central figure of Campbell Flynn, a celebrity intellectual who is clearly due for a fall. A real “state of the nation” novel, and it was well worth the reading time. Despite the dizzying number of characters and storylines, it was never hard to follow, and the massive page count felt justified by the sheer scope of the novel.

No Name in the Street by James Baldwin

This is a very interesting kind of book, and quite hard to classify. I suppose you could call it a memoir since it covers a large part of James Baldwin’s life, but the structure is quite unusual—it proceeds more by association than by chronology or theme. In this way, it mimics the way memory functions. We learn a lot about both Baldwin and life in the USA in the mid-twentieth century, with especially interesting insights into major events in the Civil Rights movement such as the March on Washington and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X.

Moral AI: And How We Get There

We are so far from “moral AI” right now that the title may make you laugh, but the authors are not naive. They know all the problems with the way AI is constructed right now, and they know that the tech bros have no interest in the ethical considerations of what they do. But they do make a good case for artificial intelligence based on a much better framework, and how it could be brought into existence if enough people fight for it.

Parallel Lines by Edward St Aubyn

Like Caledonian Road, this is another London novel involving disparate characters being brought together. It’s beautifully written and explores some big themes. I wrote a full review here.

Into the Woods: A Five Act Journey Into Story by John Yorke

This is a fairly standard summary of the “hero’s journey” concept of story structure, which will be familiar to people who’ve read about this before. But sometimes the way things are presented makes them stick more, and I got more from this book than I have from similar books in the past. It’s written by a TV producer so is geared mostly to screenplays, but the lessons work for all kinds of stories.

The Dark Within Them by Isabelle Kenyon

Finally, at the end of the month I read a thriller set in a tight-knit Mormon community in the USA. Things start out romantic and get very dark, very fast. It’s a compelling story about an abusive relationship, toxic masculinity, religious fervour, and the bad things that can happen when damaged people project their own darkness onto others while putting appearances and reputation ahead of morality.

What Did You Read This Month?

I always enjoy reading your thoughts in the comments, either on these books or on your own favourite or not-so-favourite reads of the month. So scroll down and enter your thoughts in the comment box.