I got a preprint of this wonderful novel from the author, and I finally got around to reading it. I enjoyed the book immensely: it is hopeful and imaginative and will appeal to anyone interested in alternative visions of our climate crisis future. I was especially a fan of the co-housing developments that appear throughout.
Summer Reading: Either/Or
I like The Idiot much better, but this book was still insightful and funny.
2023 Reading Challenge: Ann Patchett's What Now?
Okay so this is technically cheating because this is a short essay rather than an actual book. But Patchett and her publisher cheated by publishing this as a book in the first place. It’s a graduation day speech, and it’s not a bad one, but it should not really be a book. I guess it is something to buy for your college grad when you can’t think of anything else.
2023 Reading Challenge: The Patriarchs
Such a great read from the amazing science journalist Angela Saini. I devoured this one in almost one sitting. An essential guide to understanding the origins and persistence of patriarchal power in the world today.
2023 Reading Challenge: Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
A wonderful salvo by the incomparable David Graeber! This was the last book I taught for my anarchism class, and I wish we had had at least three class periods for discussion.
2023 Reading Challenge: The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin
I have dipped in and out of this book for decades, but I finally sat down and read it cover-to-cover. There’s so much to process in this book, and so much that is still very relevant to the present day.
“A revolution is more than the destruction of a political system. It implies the awakening of human intelligence, the increasing of the inventive spirit tenfold, a hundredfold... It is a revolution in the minds of men, more than in their institutions”
2023 Reading Challenge: Wide Sargasso Sea
I had to read this for one of my book clubs, but it was a real disappointment. It provides a back story to Jane Eyre, and boasts a weird and sometimes confusing shift in perspective that has a sort of Rashomon effect. I hated the stereotypes and essentializing, and even the prose, though sometimes beautiful, felt self-indulgent. Not a fan.
2023 Reading Challenge: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
One of my favorite books of all time, I just reread it for my class on Anarchism and I can see the influence of Godwin, Goldman, Bakunin, and Kropotkin everywhere. So much to discuss with this book, and I am so excited for teaching my class today. There are days where I just really love my job.
2023 Reading Challenge: God and the State
Okay, so I am technically rereading this one, but the last time I read it all the way through was back in 2004, so this definitely feels new. And I am reading it for my class, but I think it still counts toward my reading challenge because I did reread the whole book. It’s scattered and bombastic, like Bakunin was scattered and bombastic, but there’s a lot to chew on in this short tract. I’m actually looking forward to my lecture tomorrow.
2023 Reading Challenge: The Overstory by Richard Powers
So I need to limit the number of 500-page books that I read if I am ever going to make my reading goal for the year, but I’ve been meaning to get through this one for a while.
Trees. Trees. Tress. All I can see now is trees.
2023 Reading Challenge: Klara and the Sun
Such a beautifully-written and thoughtful book.
2023 Reading Challenge: Left is Not Woke
This is an advanced galley of a book that is coming out in March. It’s a slim little volume, but it packs a powerful punch. Here’s the full blurb I wrote for it:
“Susan Neiman’s provocative book is an impassioned and accessible defense against the corrosive particularisms that have eroded solidarity and cooperation on the left. To face the many challenges of the 21st century, she argues that we must reclaim those strategic universalisms that historically helped to forge diverse coalitions of activists in shared struggles for social progress. To build a more just, equitable, and sustainable world, we need to acknowledge the victories of our past, recognize the contingent malleability of our present, and embrace a radical politics of hope for our future.”
2023 Reading Challenge: Red Star
I wasn’t sure if I was going to include books that I am reading for my class this semester or books that I am rereading, but I so much enjoyed revisiting Bogdanov’s Red Star that I am going to count it toward my reading goals anyway. This amazing novella was written in 1908 and offers a fascinating perspective on what socialism might have looked like in the 20th century had Bolsheviks like Bogdanov prevailed. I particularly love the discussion of Martian love and marriage included in this text since Bogdanov and Alexandra Kollontai were comrades and friends.
2023 Reading Challenge: Four Thousand Weeks: Times Management for Mortals
Absolutely loved this book, and basically read it cover to cover in less than a day. Lots of food for thought and great advice on the value of not being productive and the “right to be lazy.” I have a complex relationship to time and am what the author calls a “productivity geek,” but since becoming the chair of my department, I have come to realize that there will always be more tasks than I can ever actually accomplish. What’s worse, the more efficient I get at doing tasks, the more people give me new tasks to complete. Burkeman advises “strategic underachievement.” I have lots of great quotes underlined, but I am not going to type them up because Burkeman has convinced me to take the rest of the evening off.
2023 reading challenge
I’m not usually a big fan of new year’s resolutions, but this year I have one that I am really going to stick to. I’ve decided that I need my brain to focus on one thing for long periods of time, and so I am committing to reading 25 fiction and 25 non-fiction books in 2023. That’s about a book a week and I am very excited to delve into the ever growing pile on my nightstand. This week I finished Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts, a dystopian vision of a possible near-future USA. This book was chosen for one of the two book clubs I’ve joined to help keep me on track with my reading.
