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  • Uncanny Valley

  • A Memoir
  • Written by: Anna Wiener
  • Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar
  • Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (43 ratings)

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Uncanny Valley

Written by: Anna Wiener
Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar
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Publisher's Summary

A New York Times Best Seller

"Narrator Suehyla El-Attar has a strong voice for this memoir of a woman's journey into the mostly male world of tech start-ups in Silicon Valley. She is energetic, funny, and swift while telling the story of Anna Wiener's acculturation from book publishing in Manhattan to the dot-com boom in San Francisco." (AudioFile Magazine)

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a January 2020 IndieNext Pick. An Amazon Best Book of January. One of Vogue's 22 Books to Read this Winter, The Washington Post's 10 Books to Read in January, Elle's 12 Best Books to Read in 2020, The New York Times' 12 Books to Read in January, Esquire's 15 Best Winter Books, Paste's 10 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2020, and Entertainment Weekly's 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2020.

"A definitive document of a world in transition: I won't be alone in returning to Uncanny Valley for clarity and consolation for many years to come." (Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion)

The prescient account of a journey in Silicon Valley: A defining memoir of our digital age.

In her mid-20s, 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-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.

A Macmillan Audio production from MCD

©2020 Anna Wiener (P)2020 Macmillan Audio
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What the critics say

New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2020

Chicago Tribune Best Books of the Year, 2020

Los Angeles Times Holiday Books Guide, 2020

Esquire Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2020

Amazon.com Best Books of the Year, 2020

Vogue Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2020

"Narrator Suehyla El-Attar has a strong voice for this memoir of a woman's journey into the mostly male world of tech start-ups in Silicon Valley. She is energetic, funny, and swift while telling the story of Anna Wiener's acculturation from book publishing in Manhattan to the dot-com boom in San Francisco.... El-Attar's easy narrative style keeps us listening." (AudioFile Magazine)

What listeners say about Uncanny Valley

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Well written and clever

I liked guessing the landmarks and companies and people. Interesting stories from a wild time in the tech industry. Thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed it

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Amazing narration!

Most of the story was not very interesting to me but I am not in the tech world.

Even so, the narration was completely outstanding and kept me gripped to the book. This is the first time I listened to an audiobook and really thought I got more out of the audio then I would of if I were to read it. So many emotions, sarcasm and subtleties were brought to life by the narrator!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Fascinating!

A very interesting insider's look at the tech industry and its young denizens. The implications of this book are vast and mostly uncomfortable.

Great narration by Suehyla El-Attar.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

If you have ever even heard about Silicon Valley just skip

As a woman who has fairly similar life experience to this author, this book (and reading) was excruciating. This may have been interesting at the time of publishing but my god! If you want to hear lengths and lengths of what people might put in a google search bar while the author attempts to be profound then go for it! The closest thing this writer can do to expressing an opinion is being mildly uncomfortable (see the suggestive tone of the reader). Blegch.

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