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A very interesting look at of slave revolt in the Americas, told from an often overlooked corner of the continent. It helpfully examines the complexities and contradictions of the uprising in a way that doesn't downplay or excuse the violence and horror of slavery, colonialism, European criminal "justice", or global capitalism, unfortunately a rarity these days in popular understanding of these issues (slavery itself seems to be growing increasingly blamed on Africans!).

A thorough and interesting look at the business side of the gaming business. The book assumes some knowledge about the history of D&D as a game on the part of the reader - if you don't have a basic familiarity with, say, Blackmoor, you're not going to learn it here. But things like that have already been written about extensively elsewhere, and this book breaks new ground by documenting the game's evolution as a business up to the ouster of Gary Gygax in the mid-1980s, and does so in a lively way in spite of the book's focus on corporate minutia.

On Twitter @steve_asbell remarked "I just want to hand UNMASKING AUTISM to everyone in my life and say 'Read up. Your book report is due next Friday.'", and that's a pretty accurate take. A great book for undiagnosed or late diagnosed autistic people, or just people interested in learning more about autism and how to better support the autistic people in your life. Learning about masking was one of the key insights in figuring out I'm autistic, and is poorly understood by those still informed by a conventional wisdom on autism based on outdated stereotypes and hostile ableist assumptions. If you made it to adulthood without being identified as autistic (especially likely if you depart from the stereotypes based on observing white boys from middle-class backgrounds and/or have a marginalized identity likely to be failed by our medical and mental health establishments), you very likely learned to hide or compensate for your autistic traits, whether or not you realized it. But doing so takes a heavy emotional and even physical toll, and others will still likely find you "off" in a variety of ways. Before I learned about autism, I spent nearly 4 decades thinking I was just a defective person unworthy of love and respect, a space alien desperately trying to pass for human. This book can help you come to terms with your mask and start to learn to live authentically. Further, the author identifies the systemic causes of the oppression of neurodiverse community as well intersections between that and other forms of oppression. Creating a society that values differences in neurotype will ultimately benefit everyone, but also requires us to create a more just society in a variety of ways. It's fair, however, to note that the advice in this book mainly applies to: 1) autistics with relatively low support needs (and thus who have the option of masking); 2) autistics in relatively high status professions or who have the ability to be self-employed, who have a greater ability to insist on accommodations; and 3) white autistics who don't face nearly as much risk in unmasking as others (many of our black and brown comrades explain that unmasking is essentially never safe for them). The author doesn't ignore these issues, but one can't help but feel them to be a little glossed over.

I didn't finish the book but I'm giving up on it. An interesting premise that started strong, but it seems all the author does is talk about the deficiencies in current explanations of the origins of capitalism, without much context to go on, and with little to say in the alternative as far as I can tell. Really disappointing.