Today‘s #bookmail from BN (bottom left) and Bookshop.org for the rest. I may have had to sneak the boxes into the house so hubby didn‘t see them, as this may have been the third and fourth book packages this week… The bottom two are for kiddo, and the top two (the skinny ones) are mine.

I may also have several preorders filtering in over the rest of the year. And a sizable order from Book Outlet shipping soon. I really shouldn‘t be unsupervised.

Continuing my political/current events self-education with a slight pivot. Starting this one while hubby and kiddo battle it out on the chess board.

This book was amazing! You have to read it. Ressa is a Philippine American dual citizen, journalist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Her story is incredible. She describes her work to preserve the integrity of journalism and democracy in the Philippines, the global south, and the world. What she‘s been through under Duterte and his successor, her fight against Facebook/social media misinformation…it‘s all so relevant. Just take my word and read it.

Like many compilations, this is a mixed bag. It suffers from being already outdated, although many of the contributors‘ predictions were spot-on for this disastrous second term. I found a lot to be rambling and unhelpful. The highlight was the penultimate essay, “The Right Type of Citizenship” by Jefferson Cowie. It focuses on the Left needing a solid action plan and vision to combat the Right‘s American exceptionalism and 👇🏻

Recent #bookmail - two kinda different vibes here…

Starting this while kiddo has her violin lesson. This is Mr. Weasley, who tolerates my presence in his home once a week.

Gardening metaphor? Carpentry? Yes, these both work. I can get behind this imagery for treating cancer. They‘re both much better than the kitchen metaphor.

BUT, these are about treatment. Earlier she discussed RESEARCH, and I stand by the “front lines” idea for that. Treatment and research are different aspects and deserve different approaches.

So Lesser lost her younger sister to cancer, but she still has some…views…on cancer that don‘t make sense to me. Apparently it was the sister‘s fault?

The kitchen of cancer research? I guess I‘m just not seeing how this is better than “front lines.”

Maybe it‘s my perspective. I‘m a military brat. My paternal grandparents, father, at least three uncles, cousin, brother, and sister-in-law all served. I served. My husband still serves. To me, military service is a legacy, and while it has areas of concern, it‘s not shameful. Maybe that‘s why I‘m not getting Lesser‘s point here.

Today‘s #bookmail courtesy of Haymarket Books: two of the last Solnit books I didn‘t already have (and part of her “Haymarket rainbow”), plus this book on AI that looks very interesting but wasn‘t released as an ebook (ironic, I think).

Starting this one while #DannyBoy whaps me with his tail.

For the next two days (I think, it may just be today and tomorrow), Barnes & Noble members can use PREORDER25 to get 25% off preorders. It‘s not valid on signed copies, though. But Rebecca Solnit, Joyce Vance, Ali Hazelwood (one just announced today as well as the companion to Bride), Frederik Backman, and so many others have new books coming out. I may have indulged a little…a lot…

Who, but the French, would look at snails oozing across a rain-dampened path and think, “I‘ll bet if I sautéed those in garlic butter, they‘d be delicious”?

#DannyBoy missed me while I was working today. And now he must wash my face because he‘s a much better and cleaner cat than I am.

“Just to be entirely clear on this point: The Sound of Music fans were so rowdy, they were bothering Austrian drunks chugging one-liter mugs of beer.”

I don‘t know why, but this is cracking me up, and I could use a good laugh.

Meh, I wanted this to be better. Mack has a few decent observations from growing up in Hitler‘s Germany, but it‘s all very slapdash. It feels too casual and anecdotal and I wanted so badly for there to be some depth of understanding. I think he had good intentions, seeing where we were heading, but it didn‘t come together well enough. And after reading Ruth Ben-Ghiat‘s Strongmen, this just doesn‘t get it done.

My recent #bookmail has a visual theme, even if one is very, very different from the others! Thanks to The Ripped Bodice for the signed Jasmine Guillory books, and to Haymarket Books for a club that exposes me to books I would probably never otherwise encounter.

Despite #DannyBoy‘s best efforts, and the weight of the real-world insanity, I finally finished this amazing book. Highly recommend for anyone wanting to understand what is happening and how we got here, although be cautioned that Russell Vought and Co seem to be using this as a how-to guide.

#DannyBoy has opinions about me reading, even when he chooses not to be on my lap. Apparently I‘m not getting this book back anytime soon.
#catsofLitsy

Another low pick, this continues Gigi and Pike‘s story. One plot thread gets resolved annoyingly quickly, and I kept expecting more from it, but it gets abandoned for the more dangerous one. This felt even less plausible than the first, and I feel like I‘d need to read some of the first-gen Gallo stories to understand the full dynamic here. Still, it‘s a pleasant-enough read when I‘m preoccupied with the state of the world.

Low pick. MMC is a biker with a past, FMC is a good girl from a close-knit family. They‘re both tattoo artists, but when Pike walks into his first day at Inked he‘s surprised to find his spring-break fling is the boss‘s daughter AND his new colleague. Danger appears from Pike‘s past, and he and Gigi turn to his MC for protection.

Turns out Bliss has a massive set of connected series and I‘ve fallen right into the middle. Ends on a cliffhanger.

KA‘s first rom-com, and it‘s great! Daphne‘s a rugged outdoorswoman trying to get her novel published, and Chris becomes the face of her pseudonym. What could go wrong? I loved it.

I‘ve only gotten into audiobooks in the last two years or so, but the past few months they‘ve been big for me. I‘m surprised by this perfect balance, though.

As with any collection, some of these essays are better than others. A few of them didn‘t age particularly well, but most are spot on. I did the audio version, narrated by Banhi Turpin, and it was mostly well done but with a handful of words she mispronounced so wildly that I lost the whole sentence trying to parse it. I‘m glad I finally read it, and I‘ll probably read more of Gay‘s work at some point, but I‘m not racing to do so.

Another “dark romance,” this one features a motorcycle club theme. Morris stumbles across a woman on the run, and takes both her and her child under his wing. They‘re stalked by her abusive husband, but with a band of unlikely friends Alice starts to have hope for the future. Another one I‘m glad is on Hoopla, but it was pretty good.

I needed a change of pace and a distraction from reality. I think this is “dark romance” and my first foray into mob stories. This is Chicago Bratva, or Russian mafia, and the start of a 9-book series. Adbuction/seduction, but the MCs have already had one encounter that resulted in a pregnancy, which she concealed. Glad it was on Hoopla, but an enjoyable enough read.

From one of my least favorites to one of my fave favorites. Lukas may be my top hero, and I liked that the conflict seemed more natural than some. Also the stuff between Scarlett and Pen worked out in a believable way. Scarlett‘s running away was a tad extreme, but sure. I was surprised I liked this as much, given the MCs were college-age, but this worked for me in a way that Check & Mate didn‘t.

This book was very good, if a bit beyond my depth, and also felt like an intro rather than a deep dive. It‘s largely about how the few can co-opt the direction of organizations, deliberately or not, and why that doesn‘t often serve the greater good. Dovetails nicely with Angela Y. Davis‘ book I read around the same time. Recommended.

The first AH book I haven‘t loved, but I did like it. It feels more New Adult than Young Adult, I think, which wasn‘t my favorite. Mallory felt VERY young, which I guess makes sense, as she‘s a young woman forced very early into an adult role, and throughout the book she deals with the consequences of that. It was fine, but one of the few I don‘t see myself rereading. It was fun to read this while kiddo and hubby played endless rounds of chess.

I struggled some with this collection, partly (I think) because it‘s an ebook and a little harder to keep track of sections. There were some fantastic parts, and others that were less so. Davis, as always, does a great job finding connections between struggles: class/race/sex; domestic/international; and so on. Definitely a worthwhile read, but maybe in pieces.

While good, there are definitely some caveats. As said before, Arendt had her share of both brilliance and prejudice, and as she‘s a mixed bag so is her biography. I‘m intrigued enough to read some of her work (my first attempt was a spectacular failure, but I‘ll try again), but I‘ll keep my expectations moderate in many ways.

A lot of this seems overly simplistic, even reductionist. However, there are some truly great insights into what makes someone join a mass movement. It helps make sense of why people fall/fell for MAGA BS and similar. Highly recommend.

I read this back when there seemed to be hope, and now it seems wasted. The big takeaway that ISN‘T wasted: the GOP has been united for decades, working toward their fascistic goals, while Dems have been trying to compromise and play the bipartisan game. That time is long gone, and we need a new generation of liberal leaders who can leave the old playbook behind. Fight the battle we‘re in, not the one you studied in history.

For being dated, this book is still absolutely on point. All the arguments are as valid as ever. Definitely worth reading if you haven‘t. It was hard going, reading about so many dead animals and sick people, but we need to keep books like this in regular rotation.

Warning: review dump coming! I‘ve been mired in the chaos recently, and struggling to find the space to keep sane. I did take a quick trip with a friend to see the Gin Blossoms in concert (I‘ve wanted to see them for 30 years!), so that helped. Here‘s #DannyBoy for tax.

This was a slightly spicy romance with surprising depth. Kat has severe anxiety and frequent panic attacks, Silas has PTSD from combat in the Marines/post-service trauma from a comrade‘s suicide. Twelve years after their disastrous first encounter leaves them bitter enemies, Kat and Silas end up in a fake romance to piss off her ex-fiancé (whom they both detest). I loved the hidden complexity of both characters and the way they came together.

Thanks to kiddo‘s extra (waste of time) ballet rehearsal, I finished this. I agree with other reviews that there‘s a lot of name-dropping that doesn‘t tell me much. At least, not much good. I‘m not impressed that AA used to hang with Laura Ingraham, for instance. This wasn‘t what I expected or wanted, but there are some useful observations scattered around, and it‘s fairly short. Maybe Autocracy, Inc. is better?

From a figure of the Spanish far-right nationalist movement, modeled on Trump 1.0. Our world in a nutshell. 🙁

A good description of philosophy, if a bit counterintuitive.
#adventuresinphilosophy #OtherMinds #DeadPhilosophersSociety @GingerAntics @AlaSkaat @TheBookHippie @JaclynW @RavenLovelyReads @Chrissyreadit @kspenmoll @bnp

Meh. I thought this was going to be sociology, current events, something I could learn from. Instead, it‘s memoir sprinkled with informational tidbits. Aside from the disappointment (it‘s not just me, I first heard about this on the radio ages ago and it was billed as this insightful study of care work in the pandemic era), it‘s not successful as memoir IMO. Garbes constantly stops short of actual insight. And a lot of it feels 👇🏻

Today‘s #bookmail is from Haymarket Books‘ book club. The one I wanted this month wasn‘t on the club choices, so I left it at the default.

My Barnes&Noble #bookmail just arrived and it‘s gorgeous! BRB, gotta go shuffle my TBR…

“‘-nication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such. (EJ 49)‘

His words were empty because his mind was without resonance. Eichmann was thoughtless to the point that he no longer inhabited the real world—which was partly why he could wreak such terror upon it.”

Sounds familiar.

“What is being claimed is the right to have rights.”

Boy, isn‘t that just the nail on the head today.

#HannahArendt #adventuresinphilosophy #WeAreFreetoChangetheWorld

Having recently finished Silent Spring, and now dipping my toes into the deep waters of Arendt, it looks like it‘s the time to give Baldwin a try. Finally.

😤🙁

#HannahArendt #adventuresinphilosophy #WeAreFreetoChangetheWorld

Empathy. Being able to understand, to care about other people. What happened to it?

#HannahArendt #adventuresinphilosophy #WeAreFreetoChangetheWorld

“…we have to recognize that democracy is not a permanent good.”

Wow, so much of this is hitting hard today. Absolutely, and unfortunately, prescient.

And then there was today‘s #bookmail - a hard copy of the Hoffer for my personal library project, and the Arendt inspired by (in addition to, well, everything) reading We Are Free to Change the World.

Seriously, I have a problem. And it‘s not enough bookcases.