What Non-Fiction Are You Reading?

[viscousmemories]

This will be a very short-lived thread if anyone says "we already have a thread for that", so I will keep it brief. (The What are you reading? thread seems to be mostly about fiction).

I started a new practice of reading for at least 30 minutes every morning and as a result I have begun moving ever so slowly through the mountain of books (~150) I have purchased over the past couple years.

These are the books I read in May:

• Talking To My Daughter About the Economy, by Yanis Varoufakis
• Unlearning Marx: Why the Soviet Failure was a Triumph for Marx, by Steve Paxton
• Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative, by Mark Fisher
• American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, by Chris Hedges
• The Socialist Challenge Today: Syriza/Corbyn/Sanders, by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin
• The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives, by Adolph Reed Jr.
• Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, by Tricia Rose

I took extensive notes while reading each of these and may write reviews at some point, but I also may not! Suffice to say (for now) that I learned a lot from each of them and would recommend.

That said, Black Noise was the only real page-turner for me because I was a big fan of rap in the late 80's, early 90's and since she wrote this book in 1994 it covers a lot of music I'm familiar with. It is also the first really in-depth, serious appreciation of the cultural impact of rap music I have ever read. I found out about the book because Dr. Rose co-hosted a podcast called The Tightrope with Cornel West, and I was a subscriber. A must read for anyone who appreciates hip hop culture.

[vremya]

I'm jumping around between a bunch of books - if I hear about a book on a podcast, I'll probably buy it.

The ones at the top of my pile are:

• An Inheritance for Our Times: Principles and Politics of Democratic Socialism - ed. by Gregory Smulewicz-Zucker
• Debt: The First 5,000 Years - David Graeber
• The Enchantments of Mammon - Eugene McCarraher

The first one is a compilation of essays and it's great. Different points of view, not overly scholarly. I totally recommend it.

The other two are good, but, to be honest, kind of a slog.

[viscousmemories]

I just got Debt a few days ago and I got Graeber's The Dawn of Everything a while back. I love the stuff I've seen from him on YouTube but I'm definitely not putting them in the queue any time soon.

[fragment]

Debt was fascinating. I should re-read it.

I haven't been big on reading for a while, other than professional botany/ecology and the usual online news and opinions.

[Qingdai]

Fight Like Hell, by Kim Kelly.
Teen Vogue's hardest hitting labor reporter!
Seriously Teen Vogue has changed a lot!

[viscousmemories]

I've been a fan of the few articles I've read. I'll check out that book, thanks!

[vremya]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

Fight Like Hell, by Kim Kelly.
Teen Vogue's hardest hitting labor reporter!
Seriously Teen Vogue has changed a lot!

I bought this after I heard the author on the radio, talking about the book.

Teen Vogue is great - they've had some amazing reporting.

[Miss Shelby]

I am not reading it now, but twice I’ve read In Cold Blood by legendary Truman Capite

[Miss Shelby]

I am not reading it now, but twice I’ve read In Cold Blood by legendary Truman Capote

[Miss Shelby]

And I’m quick posting but Left to Tell is an AMAZING book by Imaculre Illagabezia. . She sir the genocide in Rwanda early 90s. And as a matter of fact, right now as we speak and argue on line, Ethiopia is suffering the same sort of genocide. We are not hearing about it mainstream because The Who feed is the kool aid do not want us to knowk

[Miss Shelby]

Mother fucka don’t post me twice on purpose

[Miss Shelby]

And I’m quick posting but Left to Tell is an AMAZING book by Imaculre Illagabezia. . She survived the genocide in Rwanda early 90s. And as a matter of fact, right now as we speak and argue on line, Ethiopia is suffering the same sort of genocide. We are not hearing about it mainstream because those Who feed ius the kool aid do not want us to know

[LarsMac]

I just finished The Three Body Problem.
Very interesting, and pretty weird.

[LarsMac]

I just finished Wild Tomorrows, by David Brin
now reading Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

[ShottleBop]

Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson

[ceptimus]

I recently finished The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. A good book, though rather long. It won the Pulitzer Prize.

[viscousmemories]

Books I read in June:

• Cancelling Comedians While The World Burns: A Critique Of The Contemporary Left, by Ben Burgis
• Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer To The New Right, by Michael Brooks (re-read, actually)
• Pivotal Decade: How The United States Traded Factories For Finance In The Seventies, by Judith Stein
• Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right, by Angela Nagel
• Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against The Professional Managerial Class, by Catherine Liu
• Class Notes: Posing As Politics And Other Thoughts On The American Scene, by Adolph Reed Jr.

Class Notes was probably the best of the bunch. I would have said Pivotal Decade but it was SO DENSE (full of stats/dates/names) that I found it extremely difficult to get through. It was only 300 pages but took me about two weeks. All the other books I read are pretty small and easier to grok.

[Pan Narrans]

Avoiding colons in book titles: fighting a losing battle for sanity

[vremya]

I'm still jumping around between a bunch of books at the same time. We're carless right now so I'm doing a lot of reading on the bus. That was how studied for the bar too.

Right now Fight Like Hell and Left Behind: The Democrats' Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality are at the top of the stack (no, not THAT Left Behind - though I did read it and threw it in the trash when i was done)

Both are really good and very readable, and the second one is really making me mad at the Democratic party. Which I already was.

[Crumb]

I guess I should post here because I happen to be reading non-fiction right now.

I am reading The Taking of K-129: How the CIA Used Howard Hughes to Steal a Russian Sub in the Most Daring Covert Operation in History. It isn't relevant to anything going on in the world right now or my life. So I guess even me non-fiction reading is escapist.

[viscousmemories]

Books I read in July.

• The Class Matrix: Social Theory After the Cultural Turn, by Vivek Chibber
• Identity: The Demand for Dignity and The Politics of Resentment, by Francis Fukuyama
• Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, by Walter C. Willett, MD
• The Wellness Syndrome, by Carl Cederstrom and Andre Spicer
• Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, by Michael Parenti
• How to be an Anticapitalist in the 21st Century, by Erik Olin Wright

All interesting, but my favorites were the first and last. Erik Olin Wright was Vivek Chibber's PhD advisor so not surprising that I like them both. Wright died of leukemia in 2019 but managed to finish this book just in time. I really admire his conviction. Lord knows if that happened to me the temptation to just throw in the towel and party my last 10 months away would be strong.

[viscousmemories]

I just realized I originally put this thread in The Atrium for no apparent reason, so I have moved it here where it makes a lot more sense.

I read the following books in August:

• Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning From Movements For Socialism, by Vijay Prashad
• The Socialist Manifesto: The Case For Radical Politics In An Era Of Extreme Inequality, by Bhaskar Sunkara
• Introducing Barthes, by Philip Thody and Ann Course
• Manufacturing Hate: How Africa Was Demonized In Western Media, by Milton Allimadi
• Speech Police: The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet, by David Kaye
• The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of US Power, by Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad
• Automation and the Future of Work, by Aaron Benanav
• Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, by Frederick Douglass

[Miss Shelby]

12 Seconds in the Dark

[ceptimus]

Threaded Interpretive Languages by R. G. Loeliger (1981).

[LarsMac]

Profiles in Ignorance, by Andy Borowitz

Traces the trending loss of intellectual integrity in the Theater of American Politics over the last half century.

If you want to know how we got here, Andy provides some frightening answers.