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Jeff Bell

jeffbell@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years, 1 month ago

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Jeff Bell's books

To Read (View all 188)

Togzhan Kassenova: Atomic Steppe (Hardcover, 2022, Stanford University Press)
Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth (2004, Grove Press)
Eduardo Galeano: Open veins of Latin America (1974, Monthly Review Press)

Currently Reading

Samit Basu: The City Inside (Hardcover, 2022, Tordotcom)
No cover

Casey Michel: Foreign Agents (2024, St. Martin's Press)

Read (View all 92)

Annalee Newitz: Automatic Noodle (2025, Tor Publishing Group)
No cover

John Heathershaw, Tena Prelec, Tom Mayne: Indulging Kleptocracy (2024, Oxford University Press, Incorporated)
William Gibson, William F. Gibson (duplicate): Neuromancer (2017, Orion Publishing Group, Limited)

2026 Reading Goal

16% complete! Jeff Bell has read 2 of 12 books.

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finished reading Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Annalee Newitz: Automatic Noodle (2025, Tor Publishing Group)

From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella …

This was so cute and so cozy. I'm not sure if this qualifies as solarpunk, but the vibes are there. I look forward to checking out some of Newitz's other writing.

Be prepared to crave biang biang noodles for the entire book.

reviewed Chokepoint Capitalism by Rebecca Giblin

Rebecca Giblin, Cory Doctorow: Chokepoint Capitalism (Hardcover, 2022, Beacon Press)

A call to action for the creative class and labor movement to rally against the …

Plenty to think about

I really enjoyed this book. I was a bit skeptical at first, because the plight of people in the creative industry hasn't previously caught my attention. However, Doctorow and Giblin do a good job of using creatives to illustrate a larger problem of how corporations use anti-competitive measures to build chokepoints accrue dominant status in almost any given market, at the expense of both labor and the consumer. This book has given me a lot to think about.

reviewed Foundation by Isaac Asimov (The Foundation Novels, #1)

Isaac Asimov: Foundation (Paperback, 1991, Spectra)

One of the great masterworks of science fiction, the Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are …

Disappointed

I expected to like this more than I did. It blandly assumes "empire" is a good thing and equates imperialism with civilization, while simultaneously equating the old Empire with decay. This is an unsophisticated approach that should have been apparent even in Asimov's time.