Wants to read Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York
book
Rated The Elements of Style 10/10
Not my first read, and my copy is so old that the bookmark in it is a Blockbuster Video rent-6-get-one-free card. Some of the advice here is dated and all of it is opinionated in a charming-but-cranky way but it’s a delight to read and a good reminder that writing is communication. In an age when so much of the the “written” “content” you come across was not written but “generated,” a stern but encouraging voice telling you to structure, write, to rewrite, and to think about the reader’s experience is refreshing.
Rated Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care 10/10
Thought-provoking and important. Deliberately and smartly doesn’t grind your face in the problems activists are working to solve or the badness of their enemies; this is taken as a given. Instead, it’s about how organizers and activists can live their values in the work they do and how that actually improves the work.
Rated Sleepless Nights 6/10
Not really my thing, I guess - a sort of flown lyrical amalgamation of remembrances that don’t really hang together.
Rated Velvet Was the Night 8/10
A clever and compelling thriller set against the backdrop of political repression in 1970s Mexico.
Rated Epidemia ultra 10/10
Edited 31d ago
Rated Flash Forward: An Illustrated Guide to Possible (and Not So Possible) Tomorrows 8/10
cleverly executed and thought-provoking.
Rated A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History 10/10
An important book; an excellent and scathing look at the fable version of US civil rights history and a reality check about the real version - a story of radical vision, long-ranging organizing, incomplete victories, brutal nationwide opposition, youth mobilization, true disruption, and, critically, hope. An extension of Theoharis’ terrific Rosa Parks biography. If I had one critique it’s that it can be a little rhetorically repetitive, but the point is so vital that it’s worth restating: the civil rights movement is not an inevitable and complete victory by a few noble heroes, it’s an unfinished mass movement. Would love to see an update someday that adds a chapter on the George Floyd protests and the “anti-woke” racist backlash.
Rated World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music 8/10
This is fun - breezy and modest, building on Tweedy’s skill as a storyteller and passionate fandom about music. Like a conversation with a friend in a bar when a good one comes on the radio.
Rated T. rex and the Crater of Doom 8/10
A brief and fun work of popular science that’s partly about its subject matter - the discovery of the impact that killed the dinosaurs - and partly about the process of science generally, showing the long, unsteady process of collaboration across countries and disciplines that led to the solution of one of the great mysteries. I very much remember “what happened to the dinosaurs?” as a live and possibly unsolvable problem when I was a kid and it’s remarkable that we learned the answer during my lifetime.
Reading Katabasis
Rated Automatic Noodle 8/10
Very SF SF, and fun. I had a problem keeping the cast of robots in my head (which one is the octopus and how does that work again?) but that might just be because my head is really old.
Wants to read Parable of the Talents
Rated Corvus 10/10
So great to get back to this series and what a terrific character Kloos has given us in Alex Archer. White knuckles indeed, as she ends up in a serious pickle.
Rated The Interestings 8/10
the third book I’ve read this year in the “intense friends formed in childhood between sensitive creative people, played out over decades” genre, and a solid example - well done shifts in perspective, decisions and their impacts seen from different angles, conflicts planted early and revealing themselves over time. A very quick read.
Wants to read Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon
Wants to read X-Men: Days of Future Past
Wants to read A Reason to See You Again