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!

  • ReadFanon [any, any]
    ·
    22 hours ago

    I've been in here slinging TankieTube audiobooks and nobody's gonna stop me but can I recommend you a book? It's a history book, what they call microhistory, and it's a real gem. It's a historical, anthropological, economic, political and culinary examination of salt - arguably the most important commodity to human survival, at least for the longest time. It's not explicitly materialist in work but this kind of historical effort cannot help but be implicitly materialist, at least in a broad sense.

    Sounds boring as hell but if you're interested in history, society, or cooking then this book kinda slaps - Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky. Did you think you'd get away without a TankieTube audiobook link though? That's where you're wrong, bucko!

    Anyway, I hope you like it. This might change things up a little bit and get you feeling enthusiastic about reading again. At least I hope so anyway.