A bunch of books I read (or at least started)
Books I read before I started doing book reviews or that I just forgot to cover or that I didn't finish but still want to provide an honorable mention to
I previously posted A bunch of books I've read which covers a lot of other books that I read, most of them before i started on Bear Blog, many over the several years prior.
Also see Book Reviews, which is where I usually post books I read.
posts like this are to catalogue a bunch of books at once with minimal effort.
Books I definitely recommend
- Life as no one knows it: the physics of life's emergence by Sara Imari Walker - She's developing a concrete system for determining if something is "alive" or not. It is pretty heady. It is a new way of thinking about life, creating a system that depends on an object's complexity, rather than basing the question on a person's intuition of what life is. It's very interesting. I think it is more meant for shaking up thought within her field of study than among laypeople, but I'm still a big fan.
- The lifespan of a fact by John D'Agata and Jim Fingal - An Essayist is writing a story about a boy who killed himself in Las Vegas. Being an essayist, not a journalist, he takes many creative liberties both with story-telling and with facts. The book contains the essay as-drafted, and in the margins are the notes from the fact-checker of the essay (working for the magazine which wishes to publish it) and his conversations with the Essayist. I did not finish this book, but I still highly recommend it. Seeing the process of fact checking is just so freaking interesting, as this is a part of writing which is generally behind-the-scenes. You should read it, or at least part of it.
- Cure: a journey into the science of mind over body by Jo Marchant - talks about the placebo effect. When medicines are tested in controlled trials, one group gets a placebo, and the other group gets actual medicine. This is to see how effective the actual medicine is. But there is a lot of evidence that placebos ALSO have meaningful impacts in many cases. Also in many cases, placebos have NO meaningful impact. So this books looks into that question: When are placebos themselves actually effective? It's super interesting, but I did not finish the book. It is long and I was getting burnt out on non-fiction around the time I read this.
- Move: how the new science of body movement can set your mind free by Caroline Williams - Movement is really good for you, and this book looks into the science of that. Two really striking stories from this book. 1) The theory that our cognitive capacity evolved because of movement: gorillas swinging through trees required a lot of cognitive capacity for route planning and such, and this led to a lot of mental development. 2) A sea creature that has a nervous system. It finds a rock to attach itself to, then it never moves again and its nervous system dies. I didn't finish this book (I got bored during the dancing portion of the book, and was also burning out on non-fiction at this time). But it was hella interesting.
- Antiracism as daily practice by Jennifer Harvey - this book is for white people. She writes about white supremacy and how we are involved in the white supremacist systems and what we can do about it. But what was truly striking to me was the discussion of how white supremacy is ALSO harmful for white people. White Supremacy is not JUST about skin color (though it is a dominant component), but also includes strict ideas about what kind of life anybody should be living. White Supremacy is anti-queer. White Supremacy is also anti-difference. White Supremacy wants straight white protestant christian households with strong nuclear families and submissive women and to stray from this concept is bad (she actually does a poor job of explaining this IMO, but she introduces the idea). (In The Second Coming of the KKK, I learned that Catholics were hated by the KKK in the 1920s for various reasons.)
- Complaint by Sara Ahmed - Talks about how universities fail to support those who are the victims of bullying, sexual harassment, and racial harassment. Talks about how difficult and exhausting the process of complaint is. Very focused on the experience of women dealing with complaint processes. It is repetitive and uses too many words to explain basically every part of the book. It's a hard read, it is poorly written IMO. Do NOT read the introduction or ONLY read the introduction. I recommend it, I think what it discusses is good to read about and understand, and very validating as a person who has been discriminated against and struggled with the process of complaint. But it is a hard read, so beware of that. I did actually finish this one.
- The Soviet Union by Mark Edele - I still need to finish this. My library only has it on Hoopla and I hate reading on my phone. I'm REALLY hoping they order it in the new year so I can read it in print. It's a pretty short book that covers about 1900 through 1970 Russia iirc. Seems very fact-focused, though I am quite sure the author is a Socialist.
Books I might recommend
- Every Night I Dream of Hell by Malcolm Mackay - Gangster shit in the U.K. Good, but didn't finish
- Consider the lobster and other essays by David Foster Wallace - This covered the porn industry and it was incredibly interesting, buuuut I also got bored of it and didn't finish it. I believe other essays in the book cover other topics.
- Plagues in the nation: how epidemics shaped America by Polly J Price - Did I even start this book? I think I read a litttleeeee bit idk. It sounds interesting and I kinda wanna pick it back up sometime, but I need to become a much more avid non-fiction reader before I do that.
- The Communist International and US Communism 1919-1929 by Jacob Zumoff - History of the U.S. Communists party and communist-adjacent and communist-sympathetic unions in the U.S. Discusses relations with the Russian Socialists which had a role in directing socialist movements across the world. I did not finish this book, but what I did read was interesting. It's very niche, a very small pocket of history, and a lot more detail than I'm interested in as a general curiosity about American Communism. I'd like this whole book to be condensed to a single chapter in a book that covers, perhaps, the entirety of the history of U.S. Communism and Socialism.
Books I care little about
- Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee - Recommendation from a friend, follows a truck driver? Didn't spark my interest
- Are the rich necessary? by Lewis Hunter - it's an okay book. IIRC, it features essays from various writers in both the PRO and NAY perspectives. i believe I did finish the book. I remember feeling that many of the arguments were insubstantial, insufficient. It's short. Definitely not a bad book, but I don't think it was honestly to my level - I'm a bit of a political enthusiast who has already thought deeply about these issues and heard many of these arguments before, so the essays here didn't really expand much on my perspective and understanding
- A conversation with an atheist: An ancient, reasoned and aradical approach to knowing God by Daniel McKenzie - An exploration of spirituality that does not depend on a deity figure. I didn't finish it. It was fine. It felt a bit esoteric and definitely helped inform some of my current (atheist) spirituality, but I lost interest even though it was a pretty short book.
- Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray - I don't remember, I don't think I read much of it. Clearly wasn't very compelling
- Free to love, free to heal by Simon David - It's stupid. Self-help crap about how all our problems stem from being unable to love ourselves. I think there is some value and the actual book contains more nuance than some of his quips, but it just really didn't resonate with me.
- Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie - Not my taste. The main character is an artificially intelligent system that is currently inhabiting only one body. The setting of the book is on a cold, desolate planet. The main character feels cold and desolate. I just don't care for the feeling this book elicits in me, even though I think it is well told. I did not finish it. I do actually think it is a good book. I just do not think it is my taste. You might like it.