Subtle feeling mystery unraveling in a slight and mythical magic of historical China setting that meditates on friendship, vengeance, and moral obligation. Quite wonderful.
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Interests: climate, science, sci-fi, fantasy, LGBTQIA+, history, anarchism, anti-racism, labor politics
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loppear reviewed The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

loppear reviewed Laozi's Dao de Jing by Laozi
spare translation
4 stars
Nicely elucidated clear translation, compared to others there's nothing florid and mostly less poetic (reading alongside LeGuin's equally spare version in particular here), interspersed with short essays on commentary, lived experience, and the translator's challenges for a text so embedded in culture and so dismissive of language as a way to approach Dao.

Micah finished reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch, #1)
Content warning Anaander Mianaai
Light speed lag preventing complete hive mind synchronization as a limiting factor for the size of a stellar empire ruled by a multi-body collective is DELICIOUS. Breq is pretty badass too.

Micah reviewed Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch, #1)
Sally Strange wants to read Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
Sally Strange replied to Another Hopeful Fool's status
@BEZORP@books.theunseen.city Read it! It's so good.

Points out the obvious that no one is noticing
5 stars
( em português: sol2070.in/2025/04/livro-david-graeber-ultimate-hidden-truth/ )
”The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World...” (2024, 384 pgs) brings together articles and interviews by anarchist anthropologist David Graeber.
Anyone who enjoys his thought-provoking work will be delighted. With his characteristic perspicacity, which points out the obvious that no one is noticing, he touches on diverse topics — such as the economy, inequality, the cultural landscape, altruism, the politics of hatred, etc — in which each article could be the starting point to an entire book.
On the other hand, some articles condense central themes from his most influential works, such as “The Dawn of Everything”, “Debt” and “Bullshit Jobs”. Some were the germs that gave rise to the books; others are developments with recapitulation.
The title of the collection, “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World”, refers to the theme that runs through some of the articles and is also at the heart …
( em português: sol2070.in/2025/04/livro-david-graeber-ultimate-hidden-truth/ )
”The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World...” (2024, 384 pgs) brings together articles and interviews by anarchist anthropologist David Graeber.
Anyone who enjoys his thought-provoking work will be delighted. With his characteristic perspicacity, which points out the obvious that no one is noticing, he touches on diverse topics — such as the economy, inequality, the cultural landscape, altruism, the politics of hatred, etc — in which each article could be the starting point to an entire book.
On the other hand, some articles condense central themes from his most influential works, such as “The Dawn of Everything”, “Debt” and “Bullshit Jobs”. Some were the germs that gave rise to the books; others are developments with recapitulation.
The title of the collection, “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World”, refers to the theme that runs through some of the articles and is also at the heart of “The Dawn of Everything”. This “ultimate hidden truth” is that we are free to build better societies and lives. There is no compulsory socio-political-economic direction that is not cultural, that was not created by humans. We are not bound by any oppressive fixed destiny. In the same way that the evils that plague humanity, such as inequality, were manufactured, we can manufacture and adapt beneficial and liberating cultures, at the individual and collective levels.
The following is a translation of one of the best articles in the book, in which Graeber speculates — among other topics, such as natural theories about selfishness and altruism, and even the “hard problem” of consciousness — about panpsychism, the idea that all things have at least some cognition. This doesn't mean that every material particle has a soul or intelligence, but rather that, for example, for a molecule to be able to self-organize in the way it does, it needs to “sense” its exterior in some way, and this amounts to a minimum level of cognition.
He goes on to argue that a sense of play, of playing and having fun, being an inseparable expression of a fundamental freedom, is a central aspect of consciousness or subjectivity. And if it is in everything, it would also be in the essence of all reality. Of course, his liberating and anarchically inquisitive spirit could not be missing from this investigation.
The title (“What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?“) seems to refer to the famous phrase by anarchist feminist Emma Goldman: “If I can't dance, it's not my revolution.”

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Sally Strange started reading The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
From a star theoretical physicist, a journey into the world of particle physics and the cosmos — and a call …
Sally Strange reviewed The Arrest by Jonathan Lethem
Scifi novel about the production and consumption of scifi stories
5 stars
It was both fascinating and frustrating in parts. In the end, the fascination came out ahead.
Fascinating: thinking about how a small town self-governs without a formal government. There was a mayor in East Tinderwick Maine, where all the action takes place, before technology stopped working (in an event called "the Arrest," hence the name of the book), but she just stopped being the mayor and started making baskets (or something, I forget) instead. The town is on a peninsula, and they have an uneasy bargain with a group of semi-nomadic folks who accept their food in return for keeping outsiders from invading.
Frustrating: the main character, Journeyman. He's in Maine because he was visiting his sister when the Arrest happened. Before that, he was living in LA working as a writer, but only ever on other people's scripts and ideas. He is perpetually ignorant, indecisive, drifting and weightless. He …
It was both fascinating and frustrating in parts. In the end, the fascination came out ahead.
Fascinating: thinking about how a small town self-governs without a formal government. There was a mayor in East Tinderwick Maine, where all the action takes place, before technology stopped working (in an event called "the Arrest," hence the name of the book), but she just stopped being the mayor and started making baskets (or something, I forget) instead. The town is on a peninsula, and they have an uneasy bargain with a group of semi-nomadic folks who accept their food in return for keeping outsiders from invading.
Frustrating: the main character, Journeyman. He's in Maine because he was visiting his sister when the Arrest happened. Before that, he was living in LA working as a writer, but only ever on other people's scripts and ideas. He is perpetually ignorant, indecisive, drifting and weightless. He has no idea what's happening around him most of the time.
The arrival of the giant nuclear car shakes him forces him to have to make choices and take actions, and he seems to hate that. But his relationship with the car's driver is what gives the novel its meatiest sections. The driver is his old college buddy who made it big as a Hollywood producer. The old buddy is obsessed with an old idea for a sci-fi movie they had 30 years prior. The author uses their relationship to meditate on how we use scifi stories to not just escape from this world but also to create new ones.
The final confrontation is really quite satisfying, though.
Definitely worth reading. I'll be thinking about it for some time.
Sally Strange finished reading The Arrest by Jonathan Lethem

Jim Brown reviewed The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
The politics of deleting and disappearing
The concept of this book was probably more interesting to me than the narrative itself, but the way it deals with the policing of memory is interesting, especially when that process leads to its logical end.
Sally Strange wants to read The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
FAR BENEATH the surface of the earth, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of …
Sally Strange wants to read Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer

Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer
The Renaissance is one of the most studied and celebrated eras of history. Spanning the end of the Middle Ages …