I loved this book; lots of feelings of leaving and returning home for me
Reviews and Comments
I know how to read, probably
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christa rated This Country: 4 stars
christa finished reading This Country by Navied Mahdavian
christa started reading Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
The author shows that before there was money, there was debt. For 5,000 years humans …
had this loaded up on my ereader during a daylong tattoo session, so guess we’re starting it
christa reviewed Strong Female Character by Fern Brady
processing
3 stars
To me this feels like a book written by someone who is processing her own life and fairly late diagnosis with autism and sharing with us in real time. It's interesting to process it with her, although I might have enjoyed reading a more reflective work that comes later more. Maybe that will come later! There's also a lot of overlap in content with her standup, which makes sense—we have but one life to draw from.
Some specifics about why it didn't fully land for me: - Memoirs where people give a lot of detail to childhood events that are hard to believe anyone remembering in such detail always rub me the wrong way. - It felt like each story in the book was forced to tie into to her late autism diagnosis from a narrative standpoint, and I wish there was more space to just learn about her and …
To me this feels like a book written by someone who is processing her own life and fairly late diagnosis with autism and sharing with us in real time. It's interesting to process it with her, although I might have enjoyed reading a more reflective work that comes later more. Maybe that will come later! There's also a lot of overlap in content with her standup, which makes sense—we have but one life to draw from.
Some specifics about why it didn't fully land for me: - Memoirs where people give a lot of detail to childhood events that are hard to believe anyone remembering in such detail always rub me the wrong way. - It felt like each story in the book was forced to tie into to her late autism diagnosis from a narrative standpoint, and I wish there was more space to just learn about her and her experience without the heavy hand.
I'd recommend if you like her comedy work or are interested in the book description, though!
christa wants to read The Operating System by Eric Laursen
One of the most unique aspects of anarchism as a political philosophy is that it …
picked this up from Bound Together on a whim on a lunch break because I was curious about how he constructs the metaphor and whether it discusses modern social welfare programs (like Covid-19 response) in the context of anarchist alternatives, though this blurb is making me wonder how if it'll be anarchism 101:
Much of the ground Laursen covers in this book is already familiar to most anarchists. He does an adequate job, or better, at all of it. His treatment of the ideological hegemony of the state is exceptional, and deserves to be read alongside thinkers like Chomsky and Hermann
christa started reading The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, …
Audiobook time! SFPL has 68 copies l o l
christa finished reading Monica by Daniel Clowes
I love dark Daniel
christa started reading Our Strangers by Lydia Davis
a book of Lydia Davis short stories put out by Bookshop's new publishing imprint. frontmatter says it will only be distributed through Bookshop.org and independent bookstores - no Amazon
christa started reading Life with Picasso by Carlton Lake
the pablo that started @elisabeth's all
Karl Ove Knausgård: Autumn (2017)
Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgård
The first entry in a planned four-part autobiographical series presents sensory letters written to the author's unborn daughter that describe …
christa stopped reading Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgård
The first entry in a planned four-part autobiographical series presents sensory letters written to the …
little one page passages about things in the world, ostensibly written for his baby daughter. picked up because we had around the house and I do like knausgard's longform writing, but I had no use for this because I'm not a sentimental and self-important dad, who I assume must be the audience.
christa reviewed Fight Night by Miriam Toews
a parallel AMPS universe
4 stars
reading this right after all my puny sorrows was kind of weird, honestly. kind of a hall of mirrors. it felt like the warmup novel to AMPS, but was actually written a number of years after—the author is turning the same events over into different stories to different ends. this work is more lighthearted, an easy read. I like getting to see authors work through their own shit.
christa reviewed All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
Elfrieda, a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily married: she wants to die. Yolandi, divorced, broke, …
lol fuck
5 stars
Content warning mention of suicide
I started reading this at the recommendation of @roadbeard@void.holdings after finishing women talking, without reading anything about it. I wasn't really ready for it, and I'm not sure if I ever really could have been. I don't know how you prepare to read a whole book about suicide, suicidal ideation often in deep detail, and loving, often hilarious family that grapples with waves all of that without flinching, and go on about your day. it was beautiful and funny and fun and relatable, and also often absolutely devastating to the point of being near unreadable. so, read it for sure, but if these topics are sensitive for you, maybe tread carefully
christa finished reading Heavy : An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son …
picked this up after reading a quoted sentence of a quoted sentence from ingrid's really great Perfect Sentences newsletter: buttondown.email/perfectsentences. it was, indeed, heavy