Reading for fun, threads over the years of scifi, history, social movements and justice, farming, philosophy. I actively work to balance out the white male default in what I read, but have a long way to go.
He/they for the praxis.
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The sequel to Howl's Moving CastleWhen Charmain Baker agreed to look after her great-uncle's house, …
Firmly middle-grade enjoyment - exploration and unexpected encounters in a mixed-up magical wizards house and realm. The plot races in at the end thick and rapidly dispatched.
'Groundbreaking ... [provides] a deep history of the invention of the 'normal' mind as one …
Framing the history of psychiatric definitions of normality in their origins of eugenics, racism, and capitalist to neoliberal emphasis on individual ranking and pathologizing of the ab-normal. Rounds it out with a broad view of the neurodiversity movement in response to the mass-disabling of round-the-clock capitalist consumerist desires and inequalities.
The interwoven destinies of the people of Meridian will finally be determined in this stunning …
Satisfyingly grim and consequential build-up to a cataclysmic conflict between gods-reborn wraps up these threads nicely.
"Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary …
Written after Occupy and before 2016 with deep appreciation for the economic inequality and carceral injustice pushing the US towards internal conflict, this reflects a non-violent realism about rebellion, repression, and vigilante-fascist state outcomes with historical analysis interviews - many from prison - with Black Panther, ANC, Nazi resistance, US whistleblowers, and Occupy activists.
Clear thesis that medicine by opinion and reputation-driven dogma harms us rather than saying "we don't know" and seeking evidence in basic research. Chapter case studies of past opinion-driven tragedies - infant peanut allergy guidelines, discouraging hormone replacement therapy, low-fat low cholesterol diet for heart health, blood bank testing for HIV - are presented with institutional context and evidence, while other case studies may be less supported. However, rather than solid advice for evaluating evidence or identifying opinion, or cases of time-tested evidence in scientific medicine, Makarty tragically switches to offering his own declared opinions about what may or may not be "dogma" to be overturned ahead, all with a nod to the "do your own research" crowd he's adopted, including fluoride, gender-affirming care, and covid immunity. What to do about trust in medical consensus and basic research is set aside, leaving us scared and blind towards the future, though …
Clear thesis that medicine by opinion and reputation-driven dogma harms us rather than saying "we don't know" and seeking evidence in basic research. Chapter case studies of past opinion-driven tragedies - infant peanut allergy guidelines, discouraging hormone replacement therapy, low-fat low cholesterol diet for heart health, blood bank testing for HIV - are presented with institutional context and evidence, while other case studies may be less supported. However, rather than solid advice for evaluating evidence or identifying opinion, or cases of time-tested evidence in scientific medicine, Makarty tragically switches to offering his own declared opinions about what may or may not be "dogma" to be overturned ahead, all with a nod to the "do your own research" crowd he's adopted, including fluoride, gender-affirming care, and covid immunity. What to do about trust in medical consensus and basic research is set aside, leaving us scared and blind towards the future, though plausibly still evidence-based and science-promoting.
A tightly wound, consuming tale about a 1950s American housewife who goes for a swim …
Beautifully constructed and revealing back and forth on 1950s family roles, though with the limits to its depth that implies.
Facing difficulty, in meditative practice and in our relationships with ourselves and beyond. Turning towards and embracing feelings of insecurity, hopelessness, and pain as reminders of the "commitment to sanity" that groundless ego-less reality presents to us.
Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, …
An unsteady book, wherever you may stumble in reading it I can at least say it was about to turn a corner to something else quirky unexpected and real, and the bulk of the story is true enough and heartfelt as far as I can recall and relate, a 2020 Covid & George Floyd indigenous bookstore memoir for Minneapolis.
"Award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin was lauded by millions for her groundbreaking science fiction …
LeGuin, especially in her second half (or here in her last tenth) feels so appropriately introspective, personal, grounded, succinct. Reflection and clear nearness of cessation.
Four lives are drawn together in a sweeping, panoramic new novel from Richard Powers, showcasing …
While full of a sense of wonder (of other-than-human and human capacities) and social inequality (wealth and the access and control that exerts over the world and our relationships), this turned out to be a story I deeply do not care about, narratively driven by what I'll call in mild spoiler a Thiel-inflected AI.
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun …
Eagerly giving this a re-read by audiobook for the first time, which is the fullest-cast full-cast production.
Save one world. Doom her own.
From the acclaimed author of The Deep Sky comes …
A delightful heist buddy crew against the odds space marines aliens in all configurations inscrutable galactic menace histories of oppression misunderstanding and hope. Also, a bit light and scattered.
Personally revealing comic essays, uninhibited philosophical reflection and genitalia and cat butts, with a sophisticated depth of introspection on perception, action, and the complexity of the modern world.
Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted to begin with.
A house embedded with an artificial intelligence …
Each element is pristine and sun-baked here, like the setting: reluctant detective on the murder case, wealthy aesthetic recluse, mundanely dystopian AI. And as spare translucent noir, I enjoyed it.
One young woman’s voice―intense and poetic―grapples with universal ideas as it chronicles a personal journey …
tears up anyways thoughts to come.