Right now I'm reading:

Bullshit Jobs (2018) by David Graeber - I loved Debt but had low expectations for this one and was reluctant to read it (I expected it would just be an extremely padded out version of the essay, which I liked). I'm enjoying it a lot more than I expected, and I'm reminded how skillful graeber was at gently taking a reader along and path that is unambiguously radical, yet each individual step on the path seems casual and reasonable.

Western Marxism (2017) by Domenico Losurdo - it's good. It's Losurdo, if you've read him before this is about the same - very rigorous and orderly arguments that lead to some very powerful insights. I'm only 100 pages in so far but liking it and feel that this new English text might become a vital text once it gets read more widely

Exhalation (2019) by Ted Chiang. Science fiction short stories by one of the best to do it rn. I'm about halfway through, so far I enjoyed his first collection more (Story of Your Life and Others). I liked the first story quite a lot (The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate) but most of the rest of what I've read so has been dominated by one 100 page novella that felt kind of weak for the amount of real estate it takes up. I've heard a few of the later stories are real bangers though so maybe it will balance out.

As for what I'm excited to read next, I'm kind of spinning my wheels a bit. Might do Washington Bullets by Vijay Prishad, or maybe some Strugatsky Brothers. Open to suggestions!

  • TomBombadil [he/him, she/her]
    ·
    1 month ago

    Just finished Left Hand of Darkness which is a banger all around. Absolutely beautiful and worthy of classic status next to the Dispossessed and The Lathe of Heaven

    • Bureaucrat
      ·
      1 month ago

      We need to get around to Left Hand of Darkness. We listened to the Dispossessed and Lathe of Heaven audiobooks and actually got chills with the first one

      Dispossessed spoilers

      The scene with the children playing 'jail' and the fear they expressed was delivered so well that it really elevated the experience

      • TomBombadil [he/him, she/her]
        ·
        1 month ago

        Le Guin is incredible at expressing difficult to express feelings. Children do of course love scaring themselves and each other. Her ability to so perfectly capture that in a almost at once alien and relatable way is awesome.

        Left hand fully worth the read. Similarly explores a world that is like ours but twisted just so. Full of phrases that describe a feeling or relationship you've had but never been able to express.

        The complete removal of gender yet not the removal of sexuality is something you very seldom see. And certainly not so amazingly well done.

        Anyway ya read it before I write a whole essay here because I could keep going.

      • ReadFanon [any, any]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        I'm pretty sure I've got a LeGuin audiobook collection ready to go up to TankieTube but the files themselves are a huge goddamn mess so it's been lower priority by virtue of the fact that that it's not theory and it's gonna take me a good while to sort through the files and make sense out of them.

        It's on my radar though.

        Omelas is also good reading, if you haven't read that one you'd probably like it as well.

    • MF_COOM [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      1 month ago

      Nice. I just read The Lathe of Heaven last month, my first from Leguin. She can really write! I was impressed by her prose.

      • TomBombadil [he/him, she/her]
        ·
        1 month ago

        Finished lathe myself only a month or two ago. She's incredible. Every book of hers has atleast a few things I can't stop quoting afterwards.