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Staff Pick
Uncanny Valley is the truest thing I’ve ever read. It’s such a precise picture of the last decade in the tech industry, told in matter-of-fact prose that made me gasp and cringe and laugh. Anna Wiener takes readers on her journey from barely-scraping-by publishing assistant to well-compensated tech worker, and how she grapples with the slow burn of false promises and the unforeseen consequences of the venture-backed playground of Silicon Valley. This is so prescient, so funny, so chilling, and required reading for anyone trying to make sense of the 21st century. Recommended By Michelle C., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2020.
Named one of the Best Books of 2020 by The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, ELLE, and Good Housekeeping. One of Amazon's Best 100 Books of 2020. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a January 2020 IndieNext Pick.
A definitive document of a world in transition: I won't be alone in returning to it for clarity and consolation for many years to come. —Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
The prescient, page-turning account of a journey in Silicon Valley: a defining memoir of our digital age
In her mid-twenties, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener — stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial — left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, progress.
Anna arrived amidst a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But amid the company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies, boyish camaraderie and ride-or-die corporate fealty, a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building.
Part coming-of-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener's memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power. With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry's shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment.
Unsparing and incisive, Uncanny Valley is a cautionary tale, and a revelatory interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning to understand.
Review
"Extraordinary....Wiener's storytelling mode is keen and dry, her sentences spare — perfectly suited to let a steady thrum of dread emerge." Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
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"[Uncanny Valley] defamiliarize[s] us with the Internet as we now know it, reminding us of the human desires and ambitions that have shaped its evolution....Wiener's book is studded with sharp assessments." Sophia Nguyen, The Washington Post
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"[A] hyper-detailed, thoroughly engrossing memoir....At the intersection of exploitative labor, entitled men, and ungodly amounts of money, Wiener bears witness to the fearsome future as it unfolds." Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire
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"Absorbing, unsettling, gimlet-eyed." Laura Collins-Hughes, Boston Globe
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"Wiener shines when she turns her incisive observations on the many entitled men running amok in Silicon Valley... an engaging summary of every terrible thing you've heard about start-ups." Ines Bellina, The A.V. Club
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"Eschewing the caffeinated, self-referential keenness that defined the decade's online writing, Wiener is cerebral and diagnostic in her observance of escalating corporate surveillance." Pete Tosiello, The Paris Review
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"Uncanny Valley is a generation-defining account of the amoral late-capitalist tech landscape we are fatally enmeshed in. With grace and humor, Anna Wiener shows us the misogyny, avarice, and optimistic self-delusion of our cultural moment, wrapped up in the gripping story of a young woman navigating the blurred boundaries of a seductive world. Insightful, compelling and urgent." Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter: A Novel
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"Like Joan Didion at a startup." Rebecca Solnit, author of Call Them By Their True Names
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"A rare mix of acute, funny, up-to-the-minute social observation, dead-serious contemplation of the tech industry's annexation of our lives, and a sincere first-person search for meaningful work and connection. How does an unworn pair of plain sneakers 'become a monument to the end of sensuousness'? Read on." William Finnegan, author of Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
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"Uncanny Valley is an addictive combination of coming-of-age story, journalistic memoir, and brilliant social critique. This is a stunningly good book. I loved it." Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
Review
"Alternately outrageous and outraging. What makes Uncanny Valley unforgettable is not just Wiener's unique take on tech, but the fun of being along on the journey with her. Her immense intelligence and facility with language make the pages fly." Katie Weed, Shelf Awareness
Review
"Uncanny Valley is a sentimental education for our accelerated times, a memoir so good it will make you slow down. Is it too much to say that every sculpted page will be studied by future generations? (No.) Anna Wiener is the Joan Didion of start-up culture and then some." Ed Park, author of Personal Days
About the Author
Anna Wiener is a contributing writer to The New Yorker online, where she writes about Silicon Valley, startup culture, and technology. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, New York, The New Republic, and n+1, as well as in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017. She lives in San Francisco. Uncanny Valley is her first book.