Welcome to Litsy!

While there are sections that get lost in the weeds, overall this is a fascinating look at what really happens during crises; not the chaos and looting we expect and often see in movies and even news, but people supporting people. I think the Katrina section could/should have been its own book, really, but I learned a lot. Goes well with Hope in the Dark.

Do you write notes in your books?

I got this copy used and have been enjoying all the marginalia from the previous owner 😆

Look up from my book to find that I'm under observation

“He (Frederick Funston) may have served his country best by dropping dead on the eve of his appointment as commander of the US Forces in the First World War.”

Sick burn by Rebecca Solnit. 🔥

Contrary to depictions of chaos, the anarchy that arrives in disaster is the kind that feeds and shelters neighbors. Most crucially, this historical, philosophical, and journalistic investigation examines how our beliefs impact the disasters around us. While dense in places, it ends in a crescendo with New Orleans, the lives cruelly lost there due to government mismanagement and the inspiring community efforts that rebuilt in the wake of Katrina.

The single most elucidating and hopeful thing I've read in ages. The subtitle, "The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster," really shows how people come together in crisis, even when the government tries to stop it.

Yeah for real European males and your male descendants what's UP WITH THAT???? It's causing...problems. 🙃

I'm not really at "rejoice" yet but this book feels verrrrrrrry timely with that shitgibbon in the White House. Also, not related to this book, here are some amazing insults in the unlikely event that you get tired of using shitgibbon: bunglecunt, shitehawk, pissweasel, wankpuffin, cockwomble. Okay. Rejoicing just a *smidge.*

My favorite nonfiction book about the redemptive qualities of humans. Solnit makes a compelling case that disasters bring out the best in us, but that's not what the world's elite want us to believe.