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Sally Strange

SallyStrange@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 8 months ago

Interests: climate, science, sci-fi, fantasy, LGBTQIA+, history, anarchism, anti-racism, labor politics

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Sally Strange's books

Currently Reading

Kim Stanley Robinson: New York 2140 (2017) 4 stars

New York 2140 is a 2017 climate fiction novel by American science fiction author Kim …

Content warning Polar bear/Amelia spoiler

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Katrin Tiidenberg, Crystal Abidin, Natalie Ann Hendry: Tumblr (2021, Polity Press, Polity) No rating

Silosociality

No rating

I was not a big tumblr user - tinkered here and there. This book is a great account of tumblr's technical affordances as well as its cultural significance. It's written by insiders, which I think brings a lot to the analysis. I read it for research on federated/decentralized networks, and that meant I was most drawn to their concept of "silosociality."

The authors argue that tumblr has a shared sensibility, oriented toward social justice and creating "safe space." They describe that sensibility in terms of silosociality, which involved the maintenance of boundaries that is not always creating cozy, happy places. There's a toxic side to it. Still, even with that toxicity, silosociality need not always be demonized - it's a different way of thinking about how we gather (online or offline).

"Tumblr users experience tumblr in silos that are defined by people's shared interests, but sustained through inward-facing shared vernacular …

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Deb Chachra: How Infrastructure Works (Hardcover, 2023, Penguin Publishing Group) 5 stars

A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, …

If infrastructural systems are a physical manifestation of social cooperation, that also means they're a physical manifestation of the values and norms for the group. So as part of the transition from a service to a utility, this idea of what's "normal" also undergoes a transition.

How Infrastructure Works by  (Page 125)

Tochi Onyebuchi: Riot Baby (AudiobookFormat, 2020, Blackstone Publishing) 4 stars

Selected at random based on what was available - I'm impressed. The author is also the narrator, which gives it a truly authentic feel. Choppy scenes strung together to create an impressionistic overview of racist violence and discrimination in the USA, with the freedom of the natural world and supernatural abilities as counterpoint.

Kim Stanley Robinson: New York 2140 (2017) 4 stars

New York 2140 is a 2017 climate fiction novel by American science fiction author Kim …

I feel like this is a good complement to "Blackfish City" in that they are both concerned with the drowning of New York. While Qaanaaq is thousands of miles away from New York, and in that book it's considered dead while here it's half-drowned but still thriving, Qaanaaq, it turns out, was built by and influenced by lots of New Yorkers.

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Kawai Strong Washburn: Sharks in the Time of Saviors (2021, Picador) 4 stars

An intimate connection to a whole family's struggle

5 stars

Poetic descriptions usually put me off in a novel because the act puts importance on something that usually doesn't need it. It pulls me out of the story. Strong Washburn uses poetics instead to show the inner feelings of the character. And she does it well. You viscerally feel the turmoil or the disgust or the peace. It totally worked for me.

This was done in a magical-realism type of plot (though the grittiness is not like the wispy distance of the genre at all), so the dream-like connections to the earth had the same feeling as the prose.

And the final speech was brutally beautiful. I cried.