About half way through blackshirts and reds. Really compelling narrative, enjoying the footnotes just as much as the actual text though.
Passages from antiquities to feudalism :very-smart: it’s super neat tbh
Also caught up to Dresden files, still weird vibes from woman characters though :meow-cactus:
Finished
Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon, which I recommended here. An eight hundred page epic and I was smitten by the characters and their struggles. The lesbian romance is also pretty sweet.
Reading
Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom - Norman Fnklestein | I would be a terrible book-club host if I was not trying to finish Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom. I'm on part three, and you can see how after the Goldstein report, the Palestinians start to shift tactics and conditions on the ground start shifting away from the Israeli narrative. That said, the fact Israel can drop a ton of explosive is a goddamn crime.
Iranians in Texas - a Professor gifted me his book and he even signed the front for me in Farsi. An anthropological, sociological and ethnographic study of the Iranian diaspora in Texas analyzed not just through the most basic immigration theory of assimilation, but through the political turmoil that has roiled the two countries' political relationships and therefore affected Iranian integration in American life.
TBR
- GRAD SCHOOL started yesterday, so I don't know what my TBR is gonna be like from now on.
I haven't gotten that far in but he also includes his own autobiographical experience, so that might illuminate things.
Just finished The Art of Communicating - Thich Nhat Hanh
Starting Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon
I found Wretched of the Earth really tough to read. I muscled through On Violence but eventually had to make peace with the idea that I'm not a bad leftist if I don't read every primary text.
I hope your experience differs, Fanon is cool as hell.
Also, as a companion I highly recommend Concerning Violence: 9 Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defence, it's by the guys who made the Black Power Mixtape. They find really interesting footage of movements in different stages of decolonization in 70s/80s Africa while Lauryn Hill reads choice bits from On Violence. Very watchable and you can stream it for free from Kanopy if you have a library card.
@WhatAnOddUsername @PrincessCharlotte @Phillipkdink @QuickEveryonePanic @snott_morrison @milamber @bubbalu good morning, what are you reading?
I thought the last third of the book was really where it all came together, I really didn't see where it was going after the first six or seven chapters but by the time I finished I really thought it was a work of genius.
I'm not all in on Graeber, but I really think this project is incredibly clever the way he sells very subversive ideas without ever seeming to raise his voice above mild suggestion. His tone is perfect for an educated lib to read, but the conclusions you're lead to if you take him seriously are quite powerful.
How are you enjoying it overall?
I'm back to the Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins after some interruptions with Lenin, Murakami and Ottessa Moshfegh.
Finished Neither Vertical Nor Horizontal by Rodrigo Nunes, shoutout to whoever here posted about it a few weeks ago. Thought it was fantastic, it's really given me a lot to think about in terms of organising. He kind of rightfully skweres the false promises of the horizontal movements of the last few decades like Occupy, but still shows how aspects of them can still be really critical in building movements, which I took a lot out of. His criticisms of vertical movements were also very measured. Honestly hard to sum up in a short post but would be happy to chat more if anyone else has read it. Draws heavily on Freire I feel, which I loved.
Also, have just started Vol 1 of Capital!
One of my more liberal friends was talking about The Forever War as being a book he liked about Afghanistan, so I'm reading that. I'm not a big fan of when journalists write about real events like novels, and I'm not impressed so far, because it seems like so far it's just a series of vignettes whose point is "Wow, being in Afghanistan sure is a bummer, y'all."
I'm also reading *The Man Who Couldn't Stop", a memoir/popular science book about obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Our upcoming selections for the book club are going to be about Climate Change.
Would love to recommend something by Andreas Malm. Fossil Capital is a masterpiece, might be a bit long for the bookclub though. Maybe How to Blow up a Pipeline?
you are in absolute luck cause @RedCloud has Andreas Malm in the selection.
Yeah I think we're going to include Fossil Capital and we thought about also including How to Blow up a Pipeline but wasn't sure on doubling up on Malm, we might include it as an optional extra though. The poll with the choices should be up by next weekend.
Energy Humanities: An Anthology -Edited by Imre Szeman and Dominic Boyer
But theres a section of fiction so i got a normal book until i feel like reading made up shit:
White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism - Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective
