My current research project deals with women in dystopian fiction (with some sci-fi crossover), and it’s been to my eternal shame that I’ve never read any Octavia E. Butler. Thankfully, crystalclear got me Kindred for the Cannonball exchange last Christmas, and I was more than eager to dig in. In February of 2016, I was on a conference panel with a professor who had read a paper on Kindred, which had piqued my interest in the first place. It was an intriguing historical time-travel novel, […]
A frustrating memoir that was billed to me as hilarious.
As I’ve alluded to before, I have a sibling with Asperger’s, formerly delineated separately from the autism spectrum. The idea of autism is not new to me, especially since the diagnosis of Asperger’s was relatively new when my brother was diagnosed. What I’m saying is, I’m familiar with this subject material. I was curious to see how David Finch would handle this memoir and illuminate his audience on his personal insights. As it turns out, the read was frustrating and often unfulfilling, but not for […]
Powerful Novel of War and Hope
Half of a Yellow Sun is a story of independence, war, betrayal and loss both for a nation and for a particular group of people swept up in it all. Set in the 1960s, it examines life in Nigeria on the eve of war and then during the chaos and violence of the Biafran war. While providing concise historical background on Nigeria and Biafra, Adichie, through her characters, shows how class division, race, culture, and gender fed into and were in turn influenced by conflict. […]
An important book about race and social awareness.
What Does It Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy by Robin DiAngelo
Lollygagger’s most excellent and comprehensive review of Robin DiAngelo’s What Does it Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy made me eager to read it for myself. I’m linking to the original review, which I will then build on. Back? Okay, let’s get started. DiAngelo builds on concepts of racism with which we are all familiar and then talks about how being white constructs a specific racial framework through which white people see race, racism, and other precepts of culture and context. Specifically, she […]
A satisfying conclusion to an interesting series
I’m sufficiently depressed that several of my favorite new series (Jennifer Donnelly’s Waterfire saga, Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories, now this) are coming to an end. I thought the aforementioned two ended on a great note, and I was really hoping that Marie Brennan would do the same. With the last volume, In the Labyrinth of Drakes, Brennan was great on the intrigue and very light on the dragons, which is what we came for. I was really, really hoping that she would give us […]
A depressing but necessary book about rent evictions
Because I’ve been reading about All The Cheerful Things apparently, I decided to pile on and read the Pulitzer-Prize winning Evicted about landlords and tenants in Milwaukee. I’ve tried to remain fairly secretive about my origins, but I do think it important to note that I lived 17 years of my life in Wisconsin, 12 of those specifically in the Milwaukee suburbs. I did my PhD in Milwaukee, as well, though I commuted out-of-state for that, and Marquette, my school, was right at the center […]
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