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chrisamaphone@bookwyrm.social

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reviewed Albert Camus' The plague by Thomas Merton (Religious dimensions in literature -- 7)

Thomas Merton: Albert Camus' The plague (1968, Seabury Press) 4 stars

Review of "Albert Camus' The plague" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Deeply moving and relatable to read during COVID. I found it spiritually nourishing, not in the sense of offering comfort, but in the sense of ringing true to me, confronting uncomfortable truths and articulating their social and emotional implications.

Also, Rieux/Tarrou are lovers in my headcanon.

Julie Zhuo: Making of a Manager (2019, Penguin Random House) 4 stars

Review of 'Making of a Manager' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This book is basically what I was hoping and expecting it to be: a first-person perspective on management at a modern-day tech company, with accompanying insights on how to do this job in a successful and rewarding way. I frequently had to suspend by annoyance at the general "Lean In"-feminism style of complicity with the dysfunctional and abusive power structures that underlie tech companies like Facebook, so I can't really recommend it uncynically, but it definitely gave me a lot to think about. I especially liked the concrete examples of questions to ask reports during 1:1s and blueprints for successful meetings and interviews.

David Graeber: Bullshit Jobs (Hardcover, 2018, Allen Lane) 4 stars

Be honest: if your job didn't exist, would anybody miss it? Have you ever wondered …

Review of 'Bullshit jobs : a theory' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

My first intro to Graeber. The book is poignant, funny, and well-argued, tying together anthropological, economic, and political theory into a satisfying web of connected ideas about labor, value, and human happiness. I'm not surprised that a lot of readers got mad because they were expecting a libertarian lambasting of government regulation of markets; I, for one, was pleasantly surprised at how well-situated his argument was in anarchism, marxism, and feminism.

adrienne maree brown: Emergent Strategy (Paperback, 2017, AK Press) 4 stars

In the tradition of Octavia Butler, radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures …

Review of 'Emergent strategy' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I am giving this book 5 stars because of how it spoke to my heart, even though I don't think I would unilaterally recommend it to everyone, and it has plenty of flaws from an analytical perspective. But the way it put certain intuitions into words, speaking so powerfully to my desire to be a whole and happy person while also contending with the bleak dystopian present and trying to contribute to meaningful solutions... I needed this book. Maybe you need it, too.

You might especially like this book if:
- You are a leader or active member of any organization, whether doing activism, political work, community service, community organizing, or just plain working for a company or institution;
- You're an activist who's tired of feeling depressed and burnt out all the time;
- You are interested in process and people, and in understanding more clearly how people function …

Jaclyn Paul: Order from Chaos (Paperback, 2019, Summit to Sea, LLC) 4 stars

Review of 'Order from Chaos' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

As someone who wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until age 34 (and even then as a "borderline" case for medication), I found this book very validating and insightful. The experiences ring true to me while also emphasizing the diversity of experiences of people with this condition, and the need for carefully observing and adapting to each of our specific realities.

I was shocked by how similar the author's task-organization system is to mine that I've developed over the last decade or so -- also based on a combination of GTD, bullet journaling, and other philosophies, adapted to the specific quirks of my brain.

Where I learned the most was in physical-space organization. Some of those things still feel way to daunting to me, like keeping everything in files. Others seem like good ideas to try, like a personal physical "inbox" for each family member.

This would be 5 stars, but the …