Typically I read two books simultaneously: one fiction, one non fiction. I love audiobooks, and usually follow the same pattern. So two books in text, two books in audio simultaneously. Sometimes, when I want to get through a book quick, I'll do both audio and text.
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The opening chapter in an epic fantasy masterpiece....Bled dry by interminable warfare, infighting and bloody …
Okay, it has been 8 years since the last time I attempted Malazan. This time I bought a paper copy which I hope will be easier to handle than the audio of my previous attempt.
When the Rain King comes, the floodwaters rise.
On the banks of Lake Tilehat lies …
Wonderful world-building saturated with details like a vivid Ghibli movie, soaked in themes of obligation: the debt, oaths, contracts, and duty that we have towards our communities and the land, and when we need to break those constraints in order to heal.
Rounded up my rating since this is such a great showing for a first novel. Looking forward to more.
Right Effort is a sadly neglected factor of the Noble Eightfold Path. There are endless …
This book ended on such a high note that I am biased and putting it at 5 stars. Amazing. I read it over a very long time—it was my “late night can’t get to sleep” reading, which is normally the Dhammapada for me. But as soon as finishing I thought “I can’t wait to read this again”. So many highlights and annotations!
Ethan Mollick, professeur à Wharton et auteur de la populaire newsletter One Useful Thing Substack, …
Solid basic intro book. I should have read this when it first came out. I probably would have given it more stars then. It is very short, and touches on a lot of very deep issues, which can be useful for the complete novice, but will be unsatisfying for anyone looking for real answers.
Stopped at the end of The Summer Tree. Struggled. This book is dated… that is the kindest thing I can say. Not going to continue.
They burned her home. They stole her brother and sister. But vengeance is following.
Shy …
Best western I ever read
(I need some time to process this, so will rate at a later date)
Epilogue: Lotta right wing ethno-nationalism going around these days. But future is undeniably pluralist under threat of climate change. Gaza has had a big impact on the minds of the young: the vexed issue of bystanding, failure to assist victims, failure of elders. But they see more clearly “never again for anyone”
Decolonization, destruction of white supremecy, and battling ethnic-nationalism should be enough to bring together most of the work. Alas, no. Compares Zionism with White supremacism and Hindu supremacism, showing how the influences entangle. So many literary references! So righteous! The “colour line” undergirds this. We are all victims of modernity — clashing narratives of the Shoah, slavery, and colonialism.
Black- and African-Jewish relations. The premier event of the 20th C was not WW2, or the end of the Cold War, but decolonization. ”US war-making abroad, and race-making at home” adds to the strife between east and west.
From 1970s US unhealthy consumption of the Holocaust, then became primary producer of Shoah memory, which pulled it Right. Jewish replacement theory on the one hand, but pro-Israel on the other. Paradox? Hypocrisy? Israel as a leader in “civilization vs barbarism” which Christian Right follows. Decolonization is still happening today, and is a threat to Western powers and Israel.
Writes the terrible stuff Jews endured during the war, about attitudes towards Jews at the time and how they flipped. Holocaust remembrance became entry ticket to EU. German “phylosemitisim” lead to “a special preferential relationship without Israel seeing itself as obligated to reciprocate” same for US et al. Points out no war guilt towards the 100s of thousands of Africans that died in German colonies.
Part 1: PM examines the Shoah and Israeli identity, how it changed to a sort of muscular victim. He talks about the sway of Zionism in pre-/post-colonial Asia, when nationalism flared. Like PM’s other books, he comes down hard on the hypocrisy of the West and its racial double standard. The danger is racist Ethno-nationalism, which reminds me of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s argument in The Message.
They say Black Dow's killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the …
Really enjoyed this one. The challenge he set up for himself in writing about this battle, with all the intertwined stories and characters, and the execution were bang on.
