Anarchist educator who can be found at nerdteacher.com where I muse about school and education-related things, and all my links are here. My non-book posts are mostly at @whatanerd@todon.eu, occasionally I hide on @whatanerd@eldritch.cafe, or you can email me at n@nerdteacher.com. [they/them]
I was a secondary literature and humanities teacher who has swapped to being a tutor, so it's best to expect a ridiculously huge range of books.
And yes, I do spend a lot of time making sure book entries are as complete as I can make them. Please send help.
This link opens in a pop-up window
92% complete! nerd teacher [books] has read 37 of 40 books.
Shamans possess mysterious powers that allow them to commune with gods, spirits, and even the dead…and Manta Oyamada's about to …
A good chunk of this book feels like it requires a lot of knowledge about the media being discussed, even with the explanations. There are whole points where I feel like, had I seen or read the texts mentioned, I'd... have a better grasp of the conversation.
"After being run out of Boneville, the three Bone cousins - Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone - are …
This captivating story of Hiroshima was one of the original Japanese manga series. New and unabridged, this is an all-new …
"All the world's a stage . . . but what happens behind the curtain is pure magic--literally! When Jory transfers …
Abigail is a nine-year-old with a huge imagination but when she and her dad move to a small town, that …
"What if we found a cure for death? Years after the discovery of a genetic cure for mortality, one man …
@ansate If... I remember correctly? She disavowed 'Survivor' and didn't want to reprint it. The other four books are put together in Seed to Harvest, though. I also think I have an ebook copy of Survivor?
Based on the New York Times bestselling novel by Marie Lu, this graphic novel adaptation …
I haven't read the novel, though I might end up doing so later. However, this is a much better interpretation than many of the previous ones that went grim-dark and decided to be entirely right-wing in their interpretations.
It still has issues, like the perpetual annoyance of not knowing what an anarchist is (unless these are ancaps, who... aren't anarchist). The conflation is even more frustrating when the symbol that the Nightwalkers leave behind literally looks like a Bitcoin logo. Honestly, more people need to stop using anarchism, anarchists, and anarchy as bad guys and realise how much propaganda they've ingested.
This version of Bruce is, at least, a character. He has a personality beyond his parents, he has friendships. But he's still what he's always going to be: A billionaire philanthropist who chooses how to save the city.
The last thing the wizard Drum Billet did, before Death laid a bony hand on …
I always adore stories of this nature, particularly because I love to see the kinds of journeys that take place among the characters and how that develops them.
While I know Esk was meant to be the primary main character, Granny Weatherwax really takes on a whole chunk of the story. She's someone with whom I very much find myself identifying, and it's because of the constant "Well, it's got to happen one way or the other, so we may as well do it" personality she exudes. She's very stubborn but incredibly caring for the people around her, even if it seems otherwise.
Also, she has a thing for old fabric.
The renowned activist and public intellectual David Graeber teams up with the professor of comparative …
This book suffers from two things in terms of its writing and structure. First, there's Graeber's desire to compress as much information into one space as humanly possible, even to the detriment of his own argument and the discussion he wants to push people to have. The second is that it seems, if I'm reading into both authors' writing styles correctly, Wengrow's desire to flesh out those concepts with more detail to further support them. (I say that because I've checked a few of his articles, and he has a tendency to develop even more focused detail than Graeber.)
I could be wrong about who was doing what, but regardless? The end result is a book that is a slog to get through and frequently leaves me forgetting half of what I've read, going back to skim it and remind myself about what they were discussing, and then trying to …
This book suffers from two things in terms of its writing and structure. First, there's Graeber's desire to compress as much information into one space as humanly possible, even to the detriment of his own argument and the discussion he wants to push people to have. The second is that it seems, if I'm reading into both authors' writing styles correctly, Wengrow's desire to flesh out those concepts with more detail to further support them. (I say that because I've checked a few of his articles, and he has a tendency to develop even more focused detail than Graeber.)
I could be wrong about who was doing what, but regardless? The end result is a book that is a slog to get through and frequently leaves me forgetting half of what I've read, going back to skim it and remind myself about what they were discussing, and then trying to figure out what most of it has to do with the point being made. Which, yeah, the topics discussed do relate. But it's such a winding detour through excruciating detail that it makes it hard to focus on the overall picture that they're trying to get us to see.
So much of this would've benefitted from focused case studies rather than intertwining and switching between each of them. It also would've dealt better with more clear (instead of verbose and annoyingly lengthy) section titles that could serve as functional reminders rather than quippy sayings.
Overwhelmingly, I wasn't amused with most of this. Despite the obvious amount of time this had to have taken in order to gather all the resources and research, the writing feels rushed and confused. It doesn't feel nearly as solid as it really could've been.
For a book that is touted as a "powerful guide," it's written in the same fluffy self-help style of other books it's likely to be surrounded by. It's not awful, but it's just painfully obvious.
Which, I guess if that's what you need someone to recognise with regards to toxic positivity, it's fine. But for someone who is already very much in agreement with the harms of toxic positivity and has seen and experienced the ways in which it impacts your own marginalised identities? It's like having someone telling you things you already know.
There's not a lot of information; it is definitely more focused on reflections of different elements of toxic positivity. I was expecting it to be one part guide book and one part history (or at least some obvious integration of studies). Though there are notes with references at the back, it's also not clear while reading …
For a book that is touted as a "powerful guide," it's written in the same fluffy self-help style of other books it's likely to be surrounded by. It's not awful, but it's just painfully obvious.
Which, I guess if that's what you need someone to recognise with regards to toxic positivity, it's fine. But for someone who is already very much in agreement with the harms of toxic positivity and has seen and experienced the ways in which it impacts your own marginalised identities? It's like having someone telling you things you already know.
There's not a lot of information; it is definitely more focused on reflections of different elements of toxic positivity. I was expecting it to be one part guide book and one part history (or at least some obvious integration of studies). Though there are notes with references at the back, it's also not clear while reading the chapters themselves. You have to piece them back together yourself, and it's kind of nonsensical.
