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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9737562" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Finally finished Bowling Alone, and had our second book club meeting on it yesterday.Overall it's very good, though the original final chapter of proposed agenda items and suggestions for a renewal of social capital and civic participation "by 2010 let us" now evokes a mix of laughter and tears.The 20 year anniversary afterword looking at what the 2000-2020 rise of social media has some decent insights.  The point about how the internet can be a multiplier for social capital, but how online relationships need to be "alloyed" with face to face interaction to be accountable and productive for actually getting things done, is well made.The book club has a shared agenda of us all being interested in improving our social networking and problem-solving to try to help (in our own small ways) offset some of the bad societal trends the book documents from the late 60s up to today, so it was very much germane.Today I think I'm going to crack Asimov's Foundation and Empire, as I read Foundation earlier this year and it was a nice quick one, so will be a palate cleanser before I dig into Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, our next book club selection.</blockquote>