What We Are Reading Today: Tracers in the Dark

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Updated 26 November 2022
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What We Are Reading Today: Tracers in the Dark

Author: Andy Greenberg

This is a great book from an amazing technology journalist — specifically covering the tools and procedures used to trace cryptocurrency transactions (e.g. bitcoin) for law enforcement purposes.
With unprecedented access to the major players in federal law enforcement and private industry, veteran cybersecurity reporter Andy Greenberg tells an astonishing saga of criminal empires built and destroyed.
Greenberg is an award-winning senior writer for Wired, covering security, privacy, information freedom, and hacker culture.
While there are countless cryptocurrencies, the book focuses on the most famous one, bitcoin. The book focuses on the mechanics of crypto, and while it has revolutionized financial services, it has spawned a massive opportunity for illicit activities.
“His previous book Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers, reads like this one. Stories that sound like they are out
of a Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum novel, but are very nonfiction, and reflect a more significant problem facing society,” said a review on goodreads.com.

The story Greenberg tells so well encompasses a mixture of technology, international law enforcement, financial forensics, greed, and more.

 


What We Are Reading Today: Michelangelo and Titian

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Updated 06 February 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: Michelangelo and Titian

Author: William E. Wallace

In 1529, Michelangelo was in Venice when he first met Titian, Venice’s famed painter of princes, gods, and goddesses. Coming face-to-face with Titian’s drama-infused, richly colored works, the creator of David and the Sistine Chapel ceiling realized he had met a worthy opponent. Twenty-five years later, Titian came to Rome to paint the pope, and the two met again. Painting in the Vatican, Titian experienced the full power of Michelangelo’s work and vowed to surpass the achievements of his older contemporary.

Michelangelo and Titian is the untold story of history’s greatest artistic rivalry, a competition between two monumental figures more admiring of one another than either would ever admit. William Wallace brings the world of the 16th century to life, and in particular its culture of gossip and intrigue.

Wallace challenges the established narrative of this relationship as mostly one-sided, with the younger artist in competition with the reigning master.