I missed the release of this. I will never not read a new Murakami.
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Just giving this a try because Goodread sucks.
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Harald reads started reading The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
Looking forward to November when this will be released!
Harald reads wants to read The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
Looking forward to November when this will be released!
Harald reads reviewed How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our …
Just didn't do it for me
3 stars
The title and premise of the book seemed appealing. The attention economy has seen a lot of, uh, attention lately, and so a book about possible escapes from it seemed promising. But I came away non-plussed. The book puts together little pieces of philosophy from a large variety of writers, ranging from Greek cynics, Aldo Leopold, Walter Benjamin, to contemporary thinkers like Donna Haraway of danah boyd. But it all seemed pretty piecemeal and non-cohesive to me. I found myself skimming many passages. Ah well, it was a quick read and I did appreciate some of the discussions of how artists define and redefine attention and perception.
Harald reads finished reading How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our …
Rather disappointed in the book. Ah well.
Harald reads started reading How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our …
Harald reads reviewed Weapons of the Weak by James C. Scott
A good book for these times
5 stars
It's no coincidence that I felt motivated to read "Weapons of the Week" in 2025. James C. Scott uses his ethnographic fieldwork from a small village in Malaysia to develop a notion of resistance that goes beyond Marxist conceptions of open acts of revolutionary resistance. He points out that those are rare occurrences in history, but that one would be mistaken to ignore more subtle acts of resistance that characterize the everyday life of peasants, workers in their struggle to get by. He also effectively questions ideas of hegemony or materialist determinism by showing how the upkeep of the current order is an intricate play between local elites, peasants, and their rituals, beliefs, and traditions.
Scott published his book in 1985, and 40 years later at times feels a bit dated. Ideas that Scott develops in the book nowadays have become widely accepted. But for me that does not take …
It's no coincidence that I felt motivated to read "Weapons of the Week" in 2025. James C. Scott uses his ethnographic fieldwork from a small village in Malaysia to develop a notion of resistance that goes beyond Marxist conceptions of open acts of revolutionary resistance. He points out that those are rare occurrences in history, but that one would be mistaken to ignore more subtle acts of resistance that characterize the everyday life of peasants, workers in their struggle to get by. He also effectively questions ideas of hegemony or materialist determinism by showing how the upkeep of the current order is an intricate play between local elites, peasants, and their rituals, beliefs, and traditions.
Scott published his book in 1985, and 40 years later at times feels a bit dated. Ideas that Scott develops in the book nowadays have become widely accepted. But for me that does not take away from enjoying his writing and the careful, ethnographically grounded development of those ideas.
Harald reads finished reading Weapons of the Weak by James C. Scott
Harald reads started reading Weapons of the Weak by James C. Scott
I'm very excited to read this! It seems like a fitting book for the times we live in.
Harald reads rated Rejection: 5 stars
Harald reads finished reading Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
Quite a ride. Simultaneously funny and deeply painful to read!
Harald reads wants to read Weapons of the Weak by James C. Scott
Harald reads wants to read How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our …
Harald reads wants to read Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
Harald reads finished reading Dr. Calhoun's Mousery by Lee Alan Dugatkin
The holidays finally gave me some quiet to finish Lee Dugatkin's "Dr. Calhoun's Mousery." It's a very readable account of the the life and work of a fascinating figure in rat and mouse research after World War II. John Calhoun used his research on crowding and population dynamics in experimental mouse/rat colonies to muse about the human condition. What do rat experiments tell us about the design of cities? about "the population bomb" in humans? Calhoun himself and those who receive his work swing back and forth between wild extrapolations from mouse to human and careful framing of the research about being only about animals. Today, Calhoun's work is all but forgotten.