Reading
Books: on balance, I'm for them. These are most of the ones I've read since 2007 or so. The star ratings correspond more closely to "how worth my time this felt" than "how good this is." 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007
Beloved
Morrison Toni
Beloved is every bit as heart-rending, beautiful, and erudite as I expected. It’s incredibly brilliant from a technical, writerly standpoint. I also appreciated its weaponization of the gothic novel genre for racial justice and black feminist purposes. In the gothic novel of the 18th/19th centuries, we often see captured women...
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Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene
Haraway Donna
Haraway is someone I turn to to remind me what reality is like. In this book she continues her journey from feminist cyborg to Significant Otherness to compost-human ecologies, and it does not disappoint!
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A History of Bangladesh
William van Schendel
I appreciated the thoughtful and de-colonizing approach the author took to Bangladesh’s complex cultural and geopolitical histories.
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The Issue At Hand: Essays On Buddhist Mindfulness Practice
Gil Fronsdal
A thoughtful and practical guide to American Buddhist mindfulness and meditation practices
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What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir
Haruki Murakami
I don’t often re-read books, but this was a good choice. Murakami’s “running novelist” memoir turns out to also be a meditation on aging. This is not something I picked up on when I first read it, even though it wasn’t all that long ago. Murakami discusses his simultaneous growth...
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Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way
Lao Tzu,
Ursula K. Le Guin
As a foundational text of human spirituality, philosophy, and politics, The Tao Te Ching is obviously worth reading on its own merits. Let alone that it’s beautiful and succinct. One thing I found especially interesting in reading this translation by noted badass Ursula K. Le Guin is that, as she...
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Made me think about:
- The Meditations: A New Translation (Revised)
- Emergency: Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis
- Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Jenny Odell
Made me think about:
- How to Be Idle
- When Species Meet
- Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto
- The Terraformers

The People's Republic of Walmart: How the World's Biggest Corporations Are Laying the Foundation for Socialism
Leigh Phillips,
Michal Rozworski
Made me think about:
- Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work

The Terraformers
Annalee Newitz
Made me think about:
- How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
Albert Camus,
Justin O'Brien (trans.)
Made me think about:
- The Meditations: A New Translation (Revised)

The Meditations: A New Translation (Revised)
Marcus Aurelius,
Gregory Hays (trans.)
Made me think about:
- The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
- Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way

Reinventing Europe: The History of the European Union, 1945 to Present
Brigitte Leucht (ed.),
Katja Seidel (ed.),
Laurent Warlouzet (ed.)

Rogue Protocol
Martha Wells

Artificial Condition
Martha Wells

All Systems Red
Martha Wells

My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Ottessa Moshfegh

The Satanic Verses
Salman Rushdie

Martial Aesthetics: How War Became an Art Form
Anders Engberg-Pedersen

How to Rig an Election
Nic Cheeseman,
Brian Klaas

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot

True Biz
Sarah Nović

The Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country 30th Anniversary Edition
Neil Gaiman,
Kelley Jones

The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House 30th Anniversary Edition
Neil Gaiman,
Mike Dringenberg

The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes 30th Anniversary Edition
Neil Gaiman,
Sam Keith

His Excellency Eugène Rougon
Émile Zola,
Brian Nelson (trans.)

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
Hannah Arendt

Underdogs: Social Deviance and Queer Theory
Heather Love