en-US Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:37:29 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 42036538
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.]]> 448 Tamsyn Muir 1250313198 JK 5 4.19 2019
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: JK
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 37514015 WINNER, Lambda Literary Award; Firecracker Award for Fiction; $60,000 Amazon Canada First Novel Award

In this extraordinary debut novel by the author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning story collection A Safe Girl to Love, Wendy Reimer is a thirty-year-old trans woman who comes across evidence that her late grandfather—a devout Mennonite farmer—might have been transgender himself. At first she dismisses this revelation, having other problems at hand, but as she and her friends struggle to cope with the challenges of their increasingly volatile lives—from alcoholism, to sex work, to suicide—Wendy is drawn to the lost pieces of her grandfather’s life, becoming determined to unravel the mystery of his truth. Alternately warm-hearted and dark-spirited, desperate and mirthful, Little Fish explores the winter of discontent in the life of one transgender woman as her past and future become irrevocably entwined.]]> 320 Casey Plett 1551527200 JK 3 3.89 2018
author: Casey Plett
name: JK
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> 43352954 Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.]]> 209 Amal El-Mohtar JK 0 currently-reading 3.87 2019
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: JK
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 45306326 Debut author Tobly McSmith delivers a coming-of-age teen love story about a transgender boy who’s going stealth at his new Texas high school and a cisgender girl who is drawn to him, even as she’s counting down the days until graduation. Perfect for fans of David Levithan, Becky Albertalli, and Jenny Han.

Pony just wants to fly under the radar during senior year. Tired from all the attention he got at his old school after coming out as transgender, he’s looking for a fresh start at Hillcrest High. But it’s hard to live your best life when the threat of exposure lurks down every hallway and in every bathroom.

Georgia is beginning to think there’s more to life than cheerleading. She plans on keeping a low profile until graduation
which is why she promised herself that dating was officially a no-go this year.

Then, on the very first day of school, the new guy and the cheerleader lock eyes. How is Pony supposed to stay stealth when he wants to get close to a girl like Georgia? How is Georgia supposed to keep her promise when sparks start flying with a boy like Pony?

Funny and poignant, clear-eyed and hopeful, Stay Gold is a story about finding love—and finding yourself.]]> 361 Tobly McSmith 0062943197 JK 0 to-read 3.83 2020
author: Tobly McSmith
name: JK
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> 22050397
These stories, shiny with whiskey and prairie sunsets, rattling subways and neglected cats, show growing up as a trans girl can be charming, funny, frustrating, or sad, but never will it be predictable.

Other women
Twenty hot tips to shopping success
How old are you anyway?
How to stay friends
Lizzy & Annie
Real equality (a manifesto)
Portland, Oregon
Not bleak
A carried ocean breeze
Winning
Youth]]> 229 Casey Plett 1627290052 JK 0 to-read 4.08 2014
author: Casey Plett
name: JK
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> 46161306 200 Hazel Jane Plante 0994047193 JK 0 to-read 4.27 2019
author: Hazel Jane Plante
name: JK
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> 26156987 A new kind of big-hearted novel about being seen for who you really are.

Amanda Hardy is the new girl in school. Like anyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is keeping a secret, and she's determined not to get too close to anyone.

But when she meets sweet, easygoing Grant, Amanda can't help but start to let him into her life. As they spend more time together, she realizes just how much she is losing by guarding her heart. She finds herself yearning to share with Grant everything about herself, including her past. But Amanda's terrified that once she tells him the truth, he won't be able to see past it.

Because the secret that Amanda's been keeping? It's that at her old school, she used to be Andrew. Will the truth cost Amanda her new life, and her new love?

Meredith Russo's If I Was Your Girl is a universal story about feeling different and a love story that everyone will root for.]]> 280 Meredith Russo 1250078407 JK 0 to-read 3.97 2016
author: Meredith Russo
name: JK
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> 56179360
Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline. As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 372 Ryka Aoki 1250789060 JK 0 to-read 4.03 2021
author: Ryka Aoki
name: JK
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> 51931067 From Stonewall and Lambda Award-winning author Kacen Callender comes a revelatory YA novel about a transgender teen grappling with identity and self-discovery while falling in love for the first time.

Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.

When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle....

But as he navigates his complicated feelings, Felix begins a journey of questioning and self-discovery that helps redefine his most important relationship: how he feels about himself.

Felix Ever After is an honest and layered story about identity, falling in love, and recognizing the love you deserve.]]> 368 Kacen Callender 0062820257 JK 0 to-read 4.21 2020
author: Kacen Callender
name: JK
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> 41473872 An alternate cover edition for 9781338306125 can be found here.

When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they're thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents' rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school.

But Ben's attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan's friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life.

At turns heartbreaking and joyous, I Wish You All the Best is both a celebration of life, friendship, and love, and a shining example of hope in the face of adversity.]]> 329 Mason Deaver JK 0 to-read 4.15 2019
author: Mason Deaver
name: JK
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> 42123790
Meanwhile, Ron Lord, just divorced and living with Mum again, is set to make his fortune launching a new generation of sex dolls for lonely men everywhere.

Across the Atlantic, in Phoenix, Arizona, a cryogenics facility houses dozens of bodies of men and women who are medically and legally dead� but waiting to return to life.

But the scene is set in 1816, when nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley writes a story about creating a non-biological life-form. ‘Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful.'

What will happen when homo sapiens is no longer the smartest being on the planet? Jeanette Winterson shows us how much closer we are to that future than we realise. Funny and furious, bold and clear-sighted, Frankissstein is a love story about life itself.]]> 344 Jeanette Winterson 1473563259 JK 0 to-read 3.50 2019
author: Jeanette Winterson
name: JK
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> 58170822
The only person who truly missed Peter is Captain James Hook, who is delighted to have his old rival back. But when a new war ignites between the Lost Boys and Hook’s pirates, the ensuing bloodshed becomes all too real â€� and Peter’s rivalry with Hook starts to blur into something far more complicated, sensual, and deadly.]]> 310 Austin Chant 1087818192 JK 0 to-read 4.09 2017
author: Austin Chant
name: JK
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> 58837536 A beloved and blistering cult classic and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction finally back in print, Nevada follows a disaffected trans woman as she embarks on a cross-country road trip.

Maria Griffiths is almost thirty and works at a used bookstore in New York City while trying to stay true to her punk values. She's in love with her bike but not with her girlfriend, Steph. She takes random pills and drinks more than is good for her, but doesn't inject anything except, when she remembers, estrogen, because she's trans. Everything is mostly fine until Maria and Steph break up, sending Maria into a tailspin, and then onto a cross-country trek in the car she steals from Steph. She ends up in the backwater town of Star City, Nevada, where she meets James, who is probably but not certainly trans, and who reminds Maria of her younger self. As Maria finds herself in the awkward position of trans role model, she realizes that she could become James's savior—or his downfall.

One of the most beloved cult novels of our time and a landmark of trans literature, Imogen Binnie's Nevada is a blistering, heartfelt, and evergreen coming-of-age story, and a punk-smeared excavation of marginalized life under capitalism. Guided by an instantly memorable, terminally self-aware protagonist—and back in print featuring a new afterword by the authorâ€�Nevada is the great American road novel flipped on its head for a new generation.]]> 290 Imogen Binnie 0374606617 JK 0 to-read 3.93 2013
author: Imogen Binnie
name: JK
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> 256566 276 Jonathan Safran Foer 0060529709 JK 0 to-read 3.91 2002
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: JK
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 4588
The key belonged to his father, he's sure of that. But which of New York's 162 million locks does it open?

So begins a quest that takes Oskar - inventor, letter-writer and amateur detective - across New York's five boroughs and into the jumbled lives of friends, relatives, and complete strangers. He gets heavy boots, he gives himself little bruises and he inches ever nearer to the heart of a family mystery that stretches back fifty years. But will it take him any closer to, or further from, his lost father?]]> 326 Jonathan Safran Foer 0618711651 JK 0 to-read 3.98 2005
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: JK
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 6604712 Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his life oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian. Once he started a family, the moral dimensions of food became increasingly important.


Faced with the prospect of being unable to explain why we eat some animals and not others, Foer set out to explore the origins of many eating traditions and the fictions involved with creating them. Traveling to the darkest corners of our dining habits, Foer raises the unspoken question behind every fish we eat, every chicken we fry, and every burger we grill.


Part memoir and part investigative report, Eating Animals is a book that, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, places Jonathan Safran Foer "at the table with our greatest philosophers."
]]> 341 Jonathan Safran Foer 0316069906 JK 0 to-read 4.20 2009
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: JK
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 48890225 A whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.]]> 337 Torrey Peters 0593133374 JK 3 3.94 2021
author: Torrey Peters
name: JK
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/09/19
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Started off very strong. Really had potential.
]]> 205900042 Both a forceful polemic and a practical guide, Abolish Rent takes aim at one of the foremost engines of inequality and injustice.

Rent is a wealth transfer from the poorest to the richest, the most vulnerable to the least, a monthly tribute that drives millions to debt, despair, and into the streets. In the context of a permanent housing crisis and governments in the pocket of real estate interests, Abolish Rent reorients the politics of housing around tenants political actors who can, through organizing, direct action, and collective bargaining, bring about a housing system that meets their needs.Ìę

Abolish Rent is the first book-length engagement with the resurgent tenant movement. Authors Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis—cofounders of Los Angles’s many thousand member tenant union—offer a deeply-reported account centering poor and working class tenants who are fighting back, staying put, and remaking the city in the process. They take us to trilingual strategy meetings, raucous marches against gentrification, and daring eviction defenses where immigrants put their lives on the line.Ìę

If rent abolition is our aim, tenant power must be the means—built through everyday resistance in our buildings and on our blocks. This is the revolutionary project we need to make our housing, our cities, and the world our home.]]> 200 Tracy Rosenthal JK 0 to-read 4.55
author: Tracy Rosenthal
name: JK
average rating: 4.55
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date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> 43972931 Legal Writing and Analysis, Fifth Edition by Linda Edwards, leads students logically through reading and analyzing the law, writing the discussion of a legal question, and writing office memos, letters, and briefs. The text includes chapters on citation form, writing style, professionalism, and oral argument.

The book features special focus on forms of legal reasoning (rules, analogies, policies, principles, customs, inferences, and narrative) complete with examples and exercises. It teaches students to recognize rule structures and use them to organize their document.

New to the Fifth

Streamlined chapters and exercises Updated citation materials covering current editions of both citation manuals Product page featuring more material on professional letters and accessible coverage and use of legal theory Professors and students will benefit

Contextual learning, including important legal method material Superior treatment of how to organize a legal discussion Clear, ample coverage of legal reasoning Practice-oriented approach Numerous examples and short exercises for formative assessment Strong coverage of professional responsibility]]> 352 Linda H. Edwards 1543806880 JK 0 2.75 2011
author: Linda H. Edwards
name: JK
average rating: 2.75
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> 43908917 An intimate, clever, and ultimately gut-wrenching graphic memoir about the daily decision women must make between being sexualized or being invisible

In Commute, we follow author and illustrator Erin Williams on her daily commute to and from work, punctuated by recollections of sexual encounters as well as memories of her battle with alcoholism, addiction, and recovery. As she moves through the world navigating banal, familiar, and sometimes uncomfortable interactions with the familiar-faced strangers she sees daily, Williams weaves together a riveting collection of flashbacks.

Williams's recollections highlight the indefinable moments when lines are crossed and a woman must ask herself whether the only way to avoid being objectified is to simply cease drawing any attention to her physical being. She delves into the gray space that lives between consent and assault and tenderly explores the complexity of the shame, guilt, vulnerability, and responsibility attached to both.]]> 293 Erin Williams 1419736744 JK 0 3.72 2019
author: Erin Williams
name: JK
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/23
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]]> 55878529
With empathy and humor, debut author Jackie Ess crafts a kaleidoscopic meditation on marriage, manhood, dreams, basketball, sobriety, and the secret lives of Oregonians.]]> 182 Jackie Ess 1944866841 JK 0 to-read 4.05 2021
author: Jackie Ess
name: JK
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> 58536046 Drawing on years of experience as a clinical psychologist, online sensation Dr Julie Smith provides the skills you need to navigate common life challenges and take charge of your emotional and mental health in her debut book.

Filled with secrets from a therapist's toolkit, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? teaches you how to fortify and maintain your mental health, even in the most trying of times. Dr Julie Smith's expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient, whether you want to manage anxiety, deal with criticism, cope with depression, build self-confidence, find motivation, or learn to forgive yourself. The book tackles everyday issues and offers practical solutions in bite-sized, easy-to-digest entries which make it easy to quickly find specific information and guidance.

Your mental well-being is just as important as your physical well-being. Packed with proven strategies, Dr Smith's empathetic guide offers a deeper understanding of how your mind works and gives you the insights and help you need to nurture your mental health every day. Wise and practical, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? might just change your life.]]> 368 Julie Smith 0063227932 JK 0 to-read 3.85 2022
author: Julie Smith
name: JK
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 50269327
Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?]]> 247 Sayaka Murata 1783785675 JK 4 3.59 2018
author: Sayaka Murata
name: JK
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/06/14
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]]> 138505710
Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience―she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo?

Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us―and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror.

Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now―and an intellectual adventure story for our times.]]> 416 Naomi Klein 0374610320 JK 2 4.21 2023
author: Naomi Klein
name: JK
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/06/03
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]]> 12881
In this book (which may or may not be fiction), Philip Roth meets a man who may or may not be Philip Roth. Because someone with that name has been touring Israel, promoting a bizarre reverse exodus of the Jews. Roth is intent on stopping him, even if that means impersonating his own impersonator.

With excruciating suspense, unfettered philosophical speculation, and a wild cast of characters, Operation Shylock barrels across the frontier between fact and fiction, seriousness and high comedy, history and nightmare.]]> 400 Philip Roth JK 0 to-read 3.79 1993
author: Philip Roth
name: JK
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn JK 2 3.98 1962
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: JK
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/03/15
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]]> 862311 The Star Rover, in the UK published as The Jacket, is a collection of short stories revolves around the concept of reincarnation. It tells the story of San Quentin death-row inmate Darrell Standing, who escapes the horror of prison life —and long stretches in a straitjacketâ€� by withdrawing into vivid dreams of past lives, including incarnations as a French nobleman and an Englishman in medieval Korea. Based on the life and imprisonment of Jack London’s friend Ed Morrell, this is one of the author’s most complex and original works.]]> 266 Jack London 0812970047 JK 0 to-read 4.27 1914
author: Jack London
name: JK
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1914
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> 7905092
But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz—outrĂ© rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become "a very different kind of neighbor," an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.
(jacket)]]> 562 Jonathan Franzen 0374158460 JK 3
I won’t pretend that I know what the great American novel means. But unless it means what it’s like to be male, middle-class, and white* in 2010 â€� I don’t think so.

* Yes, that’s Ben Folds rockinâ€� the suburbs (2001) (Apostrophe included)]]> 3.78 2010
author: Jonathan Franzen
name: JK
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/02/29
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I wonder if I would’ve liked this book more if someone hadn’t decided to call it the great American novel.

I won’t pretend that I know what the great American novel means. But unless it means what it’s like to be male, middle-class, and white* in 2010 â€� I don’t think so.

* Yes, that’s Ben Folds rockinâ€� the suburbs (2001) (Apostrophe included)
]]> 355862 We's Lives in Da Ghetto, the exploitative debut novel of a young, middle-class black woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Hailed as an authentic representation of the African American experience, the book is a national bestseller and its author feted on the Kenya Dunston television show. The book's success rankles all the more as Monk's own most recent novel has just notched its seventh rejection.

Even as his career as a writer appears to have stalled, Monk finds himself coping with changes in his personal life. In need of distraction from old memories, new responsibilities, and his professional stagnation, Monk composes, in a heat of inspiration and energy, a fierce parody of the sort of exploitative, ghetto wanna-be lit represented by We's Lives in Da Ghetto.

But when his agent sends this literary indictment (included here in its entirety) out to publishers, it is greeted as an authentic new voice of black America. Monk -- or his pseudonymous alter ego, Stagg R. Leigh -- is offered money, fame, success beyond anything he has known. And as demand begins to build for meetings with and appearances by Leigh, Monk is faced with a whole new set of problems.]]> 280 Percival Everett 0786888156 JK 0 to-read 4.17 2001
author: Percival Everett
name: JK
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> 158875813
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.

Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and Eilish can only watch helplessly as the world she knew disappears. When first her husband and then her eldest son vanish, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society.

How far will she go to save her family? And what � or who � is she willing to leave behind?

Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality, offering a devastating vision of a country at war and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.]]> 259 Paul Lynch JK 0 to-read 4.03 2023
author: Paul Lynch
name: JK
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/01
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]]> 61642053
Tracing conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution, Robin argues that the right is fundamentally inspired by a hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market, others oppose it. Some criticize the state, others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality.

Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society--one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention has been critical to their success.

Written by a keen, highly regarded observer of the contemporary political scene, The Reactionary Mind ranges widely, from Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia, from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand. It advances the notion that all rightwing ideologies, from the eighteenth century through today, are historical improvisations on a theme: the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.]]> 1 Corey Robin JK 0 to-read 4.11 2011
author: Corey Robin
name: JK
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 114230 Moby-Dick�Bartleby the Scrivener is simply one of the most absorbing and moving novellas ever. Set in the mid-19th century on New York City's Wall Street, it was also, perhaps, Herman Melville's most prescient story: what if a young man caught up in the rat race of commerce finally just said, "I would prefer not to"?

The tale is one of the final works of fiction published by Melville before, slipping into despair over the continuing critical dismissal of his work after Moby-Dick, he abandoned publishing fiction. The work is presented here exactly as it was originally published in Putnam's magazine—to, sadly, critical disdain.]]> 64 Herman Melville 0974607800 JK 0 to-read 3.91 1853
author: Herman Melville
name: JK
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1853
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 75293505
“The dystopian future portrayed in some science-fiction movies is already uponÌęus. Kashmir Hill’s fascinating book brings home the scary implications of this new reality.”—John Carreyrou, author of Bad Blood

Longlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award

New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan aÌęfaceÌęand, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person’s online their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true?

In this riveting account, Hill tracks the improbable rise of Clearview AI, helmed by Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer engineer, and Richard Schwartz, a former Rudy Giuliani advisor, and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. The company was boosted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles C. Johnson and billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel—who all seemed eager to release this society-altering technology on the public.ÌęGoogle and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, andÌęoffering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around theÌęworld.
 â¶Ä‚â¶Ä‚â¶Ä‚â¶Ä‚â¶Ä�
Facial recognition technology has been quietly growing more powerful for decades. This technology has already been used in wrongful arrests in the United States. Unregulated, it could expand the reach of policing, as it has in China and Russia, to a terrifying, dystopian level.
 â¶Ä‚â¶Ä‚â¶Ä‚â¶Ä�
Your Face Belongs to Us is a gripping true story about the rise of a technological superpower and an urgent warning that, in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, Clearview AI is one of many new technologies that challenge what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called “the right to be let alone.”]]> 352 Kashmir Hill 0593448561 JK 0 to-read 4.13 2023
author: Kashmir Hill
name: JK
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> 36336078 Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.

The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman's frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by Your Name is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.]]> 248 André Aciman 1786495252 JK 0 to-read 4.08 2007
author: André Aciman
name: JK
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 44318414
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.]]> 337 Ann Patchett 0062963678 JK 2 4.08 2019
author: Ann Patchett
name: JK
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/08/26
shelves:
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If live, laugh, love was a novel
]]> 50275 Last Exit to Brooklyn, and this Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting.

Described by various reviewers as hellish and obscene, Last Exit to Brooklyn tells the stories of New Yorkers who at every turn confront the worst excesses in human nature. Yet there are moments of exquisite tenderness in these troubled lives. Georgette, the transvestite who falls in love with a callous hoodlum; Tralala, the conniving prostitute who plumbs the depths of sexual degradation; and Harry, the strike leader who hides his true desires behind a boorish masculinity, are unforgettable creations. Last Exit to Brooklyn was banned by British courts in 1967, a decision that was reversed the following year with the help of a number of writers and critics including Anthony Burgess and Frank Kermode.

Hubert Selby, Jr. (1928-2004) was born in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of 15, he dropped out of school and went to sea with the merchant marines. While at sea he was diagnosed with lung disease. With no other way to make a living, he decided to try writing: 'I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer.' In 1964 he completed his first book, Last Exit to Brooklyn, which has since become a cult classic. In 1966, it was the subject of an obscenity trial in the UK. His other books include The Room, The Demon, Requiem for a Dream, The Willow Tree and Waiting Period. In 2000, Requiem for a Dream was adapted into a film starring Jared Leto and Ellen Burstyn, and directed by Darren Aronofsky.

'Last Exit to Brooklyn will explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America, and still be eagerly read in 100 years'
Allen Ginsberg

'An urgent tickertape from hell'
Spectator]]> 290 Hubert Selby Jr. 0747549923 JK 0 to-read 3.94 1964
author: Hubert Selby Jr.
name: JK
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1964
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 63033
The explosive first long work by “the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long timeâ€� (Ilan Stavans, Los Angeles Times), The Savage Detectives follows Belano and Lima through the eyes of the people whose paths they cross in Central America, Europe, Israel, and West Africa. This chorus includes the muses of visceral realism, the beautiful Font sisters; their father, an architect interned in a Mexico City asylum; a sensitive young follower of Octavio Paz; a foul-mouthed American graduate student; a French girl with a taste for the Marquis de Sade; the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky; a Chilean stowaway with a mystical gift for numbers; the anorexic heiress to a Mexican underwear empire; an Argentinian photojournalist in Angola; and assorted hangers-on, detractors, critics, lovers, employers, vagabonds, real-life literary figures, and random acquaintances.

A polymathic descendant of Borges and Pynchon, Roberto Bolaño traces the hidden connection between literature and violence in a world where national boundaries are fluid and death lurks in the shadow of the avant-garde. The Savage Detectives is a dazzling original, the first great Latin American novel of the twenty-first century.]]> 577 Roberto Bolaño 0374191484 JK 0 to-read 4.12 1998
author: Roberto Bolaño
name: JK
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 34747209
Comunidad explora los ecos que este encuentro fortuito despierta a lo largo de cinco décadas en la vida de los cuatro progenitores y los seis hijos involucrados. Los niños Keating y Cousins pasan los veranos juntos en Virginia, donde forjan un vínculo duradero basado en la desilusión respecto a sus padres y el afecto extraño y sincero que crece entre ellos. Cuando Franny, a los veinte años de edad, comienza una relación con el legendario autor Leon Posen y le habla de su familia, la historia de sus hermanos deja de pertenecerle. La infancia de Franny se convierte en la base de un libro de gran éxito de Posen, lo que termina por llevarlos a aceptar sus pérdidas, sus sentimientos de culpa y el vínculo profundamente leal que sienten entre sí.

Contada con tanto humor como desgarro, Comunidad es una reflexiĂłn sobre la inspiraciĂłn, la interpretaciĂłn y la propiedad de las historias. Es un relato tierno y brillante basado en los grandes lazos del amor y la responsabilidad que nos unen.]]> 352 Ann Patchett 8491047492 JK 3 3.76 2016
author: Ann Patchett
name: JK
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/08/04
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review:
The individual stories, themselves, were quite unremarkable. But together, it’s a good example of the sum being greater than it’s parts. (I’m a sucker for postmodern and non-linear storytelling) The stories wove together into a single cohesive narrative on mid-20th century family life â€� and it just worked
]]> 21794950 118 Robert Bolt JK 0 to-read 4.08 1960
author: Robert Bolt
name: JK
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123985999 384 Elizabeth Anderson 1009275437 JK 0 to-read 3.87 2023
author: Elizabeth Anderson
name: JK
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> 86655
Two cousins, irreversibly damaged by a childhood prank, reunite twenty years later to renovate a medieval castle in Eastern Europe. In an environment of extreme paranoia, cut off from the outside world, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a prisoner, in jail for an unnamed crime, recounts an unforgettable story that seamlessly brings the crimes of the past and present into piercing relation.]]> 240 Jennifer Egan 1400043921 JK 4 3.47 2006
author: Jennifer Egan
name: JK
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/15
shelves:
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]]> 13503109
In prose that is endlessly energetic, inventive, tender, and funny, the stories in This Is How You Lose Her lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weakness of the human heart. They remind us that passion always triumphs over experience, and that “the half-life of love is forever.”]]> 217 Junot Díaz 1594487367 JK 4 3.74 2010
author: Junot DĂ­az
name: JK
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 21313839 30 Isaac Puente 1873976119 JK 0 to-read 4.44 2003
author: Isaac Puente
name: JK
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2262048 127 Diego Abad de SantillĂĄn JK 0 to-read 4.00
author: Diego Abad de SantillĂĄn
name: JK
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3279951 64 Grigori Petrovitch Maximoff JK 0 to-read 4.25 1952
author: Grigori Petrovitch Maximoff
name: JK
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40721165 James Guillaume JK 0 to-read 3.00
author: James Guillaume
name: JK
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> 52042
Capturing the spirit of those heady days of excitement and idealism, Reed's true-to-life account follows many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders, as well as vividly capturing the mood of the masses. Verbatim reports of speeches by leaders, and comments of bystanders—set against an idealized backdrop of the proletariat united with soldiers, sailors, and peasants—are balanced by passionate narratives describing the fall of the provisional government, the assault on the Winter Palace, and Lenin's seizure of power.

Accompanied by contemporaneous photographs, this gripping record by a western journalist has been acclaimed worldwide since its first publication in 1919. Endorsed by Lenin as a "truthful and most vivid exposition," the work was the basis for the Academy Award-winning 1981 film Reds.]]> 400 John Reed 0486452409 JK 0 to-read 3.98 1919
author: John Reed
name: JK
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1919
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 774465 Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.—Eugene Debs in 1918

Orator, organizer, self-taught scholar, presidential candidate, and prisoner, Eugene Debs� lifelong commitment to the fight for a better world is chronicled in this unparalleled biography by historian Ray Ginger. This moving story presents the definitive account of the life and legacy of the most eloquent spokesperson and leader of the U.S. labor and socialist movements.

With a new introduction by Mike Davis.]]> 540 Ray Ginger 193185940X JK 0 to-read 4.39 1949
author: Ray Ginger
name: JK
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1949
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43721059
Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipationâ€� bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “terminationâ€� that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers runâ€�?

Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.

Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.

In the Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure.]]> 464 Louise Erdrich 0062671200 JK 2
- the afterward

The afterward is actually the best part of this book. It talks about the turtle mountain jewel bearing plant workers failed attempt to unionize (that would have been a cool plot), it talks about the big picture endgame of termination, and it talks about how missing native women was the basis for Vera’s story.

The story got to be pretty good for a short amount of time about 3/4ths of the way in. The numerous characters were developed enough that Turtle Mountain was like a 1950’s Twin Peaks: An interconnected web of human interaction. I wish there was more of this.

But the big individual stories, in isolation, weren’t interesting. They were simplistic. And although I could tell where they were going, they didn’t tell me anything about the plight of being Native American more than I already know, and I don’t know that much.

It’s cool that there was a real Thomas who staved off termination. But I hope he didn’t achieve it by “buttering upâ€� a senator. Vera’s take was haunting, but outside the specific horrors, it is bland. It doesn’t help that Erdrich writes in a matter of fact way. Pixie’s, I mean Patrice, epic is a little too epic for my taste, but I did enjoy how her story ended.

I can’t say I understand why this got a Pulitzer, but if it helps proliferate the horrors we have done to Native Americans, it’s worth it.]]> 4.05 2020
author: Louise Erdrich
name: JK
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves:
review:
Disturbingly, the memory of termination has faded even among American Indian people, and it was my sister� who encouraged me to write this book to keep the knowledge alive.

- the afterward

The afterward is actually the best part of this book. It talks about the turtle mountain jewel bearing plant workers failed attempt to unionize (that would have been a cool plot), it talks about the big picture endgame of termination, and it talks about how missing native women was the basis for Vera’s story.

The story got to be pretty good for a short amount of time about 3/4ths of the way in. The numerous characters were developed enough that Turtle Mountain was like a 1950’s Twin Peaks: An interconnected web of human interaction. I wish there was more of this.

But the big individual stories, in isolation, weren’t interesting. They were simplistic. And although I could tell where they were going, they didn’t tell me anything about the plight of being Native American more than I already know, and I don’t know that much.

It’s cool that there was a real Thomas who staved off termination. But I hope he didn’t achieve it by “buttering upâ€� a senator. Vera’s take was haunting, but outside the specific horrors, it is bland. It doesn’t help that Erdrich writes in a matter of fact way. Pixie’s, I mean Patrice, epic is a little too epic for my taste, but I did enjoy how her story ended.

I can’t say I understand why this got a Pulitzer, but if it helps proliferate the horrors we have done to Native Americans, it’s worth it.
]]> 45732923
This stirring memoir is the story of Ada Deer, the first woman to serve as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Deer begins, “I was born a Menominee Indian. That is who I was born and how I have lived.â€� She proceeds to narrate the first eighty-three years of her life, which are characterized by her tireless campaigns to reverse the forced termination of the Menominee tribe and to ensure sovereignty and self-determination for all tribes.

Deer grew up in poverty on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, but with the encouragement of her mother and teachers, she earned degrees in social work from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Columbia University. Armed with a first-rate education, an iron will, and a commitment to justice, she went from being a social worker in Minneapolis to leading the struggle for the restoration of the Menomineesâ€� tribal status and trust lands.

Having accomplished that goal, she moved on to teach American Indian Studies at UW–Madison, to hold a fellowship at Harvard, to work for the Native American Rights Fund, to run unsuccessfully for Congress, and to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs in the Clinton administration.

Now in her eighties, Deer remains as committed as ever to human rights, especially the rights of American Indians. A deeply personal story, written with humor and honesty, this book is a testimony to the ability of one individual to change the course of history through hard work, perseverance, and an unwavering commitment to social justice.]]> 232 Ada Deer 0806164271 JK 0 to-read 4.19
author: Ada Deer
name: JK
average rating: 4.19
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 34848862 From a prize-winning historian, a new portrait of an extraordinary activist and the turbulent age in which she lived

Goddess of Anarchy recounts the formidable life of the militant writer, orator, and agitator Lucy Parsons. Born to an enslaved woman in Virginia in 1851 and raised in Texas-where she met her husband, the Haymarket "martyr" Albert Parsons-Lucy was a fearless advocate of First Amendment rights, a champion of the working classes, and one of the most prominent figures of African descent of her era. And yet, her life was riddled with contradictions-she advocated violence without apology, concocted a Hispanic-Indian identity for herself, and ignored the plight of African Americans.

Drawing on a wealth of new sources, Jacqueline Jones presents not only the exceptional life of the famous American-born anarchist but also an authoritative account of her times-from slavery through the Great Depression.]]> 480 Jacqueline A. Jones 0465078990 JK 0 to-read 3.78 2017
author: Jacqueline A. Jones
name: JK
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 38826241 Charles Tilly JK 0 to-read 4.21
author: Charles Tilly
name: JK
average rating: 4.21
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 3711 White Teeth revels in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, confounding expectations, and embracing the comedy of daily existence.]]> 448 Zadie Smith 0375703861 JK 5 3.80 2000
author: Zadie Smith
name: JK
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2018/01/21
date added: 2023/07/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 58437521 From one of the most dazzling and iconic writers of our time and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity, privacy, and meaning in a world where our memories are no longer our own—featuring characters from A Visit from the Goon Squad.

It’s 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He’s forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizingâ€� memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, Own Your Unconscious—that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

In spellbinding linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of styles—from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter, and a chapter of tweets. In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “countersâ€� who track and exploit desires and there are “eluders,â€� those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.

Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. With a focus on social media, gaming, and alternate worlds, you can almost experience moving among dimensions in a role-playing game.� Egan delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption.]]> 352 Jennifer Egan 1476716765 JK 3
Tor, you may notice, says virtually nothing. He has a story too, but I can’t tell itâ€� I’ve witnessed this silent period from every available consciousnesses in the collective, and I have glints of what ran through each mindâ€� But my problem is the same one had by everyone who gathers information: What to do with it? How to sort and shape it and use it? How to keep from drowning in it? Not every story needs to be told.

According to Mom� happy endings are purely a matter of framing. She emphasized this last point at the end of every fairy tale she read to us.

It is tempting to build a version of Ame’s life in which that hit was a “turning point,â€� empowerment at a crucial moment (stockblock 3miis), but that would be phony, as 9 yo Alfred likes to say.

Ames felt a step nearer to absolution And maybe here is where we should end â€� Ames renewedâ€� why follow him all the way to his final years in an upstate nursing home, the last of the Hollander brothers to survive?... We have these facts â€� thanks to Bix Bouton, that genius, all of this is in our reach. Even so there are holes left by eluding separatistsâ€� Only Gregory Bouton’s machine â€� this one, fiction â€� lets us roam with absolute freedom through the human collective. But knowing everything is too much like knowing nothing; without a story, it’s all just information. So let us return to the story we began: Ames rounding the bases

--

Candy House completes Goon Squad, something that did not need completion.

I read Goon Squad earlier this year. I figured that out because when I sparingly use hashtags in tweets, I use them for occasions just like this. Here was my tweet when I finished Goon Squad:

@yelleknitsuj 17:07 3/2/22 Twitter for iPhone: The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn’t really over, so you’re relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously, and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL.
]]> 3.62 2022
author: Jennifer Egan
name: JK
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/07/02
shelves:
review:
In what may be my laziest review to date, I think these 4 quotes encapsulate the book:

Tor, you may notice, says virtually nothing. He has a story too, but I can’t tell itâ€� I’ve witnessed this silent period from every available consciousnesses in the collective, and I have glints of what ran through each mindâ€� But my problem is the same one had by everyone who gathers information: What to do with it? How to sort and shape it and use it? How to keep from drowning in it? Not every story needs to be told.

According to Mom� happy endings are purely a matter of framing. She emphasized this last point at the end of every fairy tale she read to us.

It is tempting to build a version of Ame’s life in which that hit was a “turning point,â€� empowerment at a crucial moment (stockblock 3miis), but that would be phony, as 9 yo Alfred likes to say.

Ames felt a step nearer to absolution And maybe here is where we should end â€� Ames renewedâ€� why follow him all the way to his final years in an upstate nursing home, the last of the Hollander brothers to survive?... We have these facts â€� thanks to Bix Bouton, that genius, all of this is in our reach. Even so there are holes left by eluding separatistsâ€� Only Gregory Bouton’s machine â€� this one, fiction â€� lets us roam with absolute freedom through the human collective. But knowing everything is too much like knowing nothing; without a story, it’s all just information. So let us return to the story we began: Ames rounding the bases

--

Candy House completes Goon Squad, something that did not need completion.

I read Goon Squad earlier this year. I figured that out because when I sparingly use hashtags in tweets, I use them for occasions just like this. Here was my tweet when I finished Goon Squad:

@yelleknitsuj 17:07 3/2/22 Twitter for iPhone: The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn’t really over, so you’re relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously, and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL.

]]> 7331435
We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city’s demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life—divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house—and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang—who thrived and who faltered—and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.]]> 274 Jennifer Egan 0307592839 JK 5
What is this book about? I don’t know.

And after 2 days, struggling to write this review: I still don’t know. Because “what’s it about?â€� means “what’s the plot?â€� But sometimes the plot isn’t clear when you first start the book, so they’ll settle for “just tell me the setting, or something.â€� When you can’t even answer that â€� “what’s it about?â€� means “why are you reading it?”â€� oof.

Well, not only is there no plot, but there isn’t a protagonist, no setting, or even a central character (there’s 13 chapters, with 13 distinct events, each with a unique narrator).

In my first draft of this review, I struggled to pick a resounding, unifying theme. I settled on “the book is about getting from A to B.â€� But I should have known I was in trouble, when I followed it up with something along the lines of “while the quickest way between two points is a line, this story is anything but.â€� Because I do not know even what / where is A or B [1].

(And more importantly, when you rearrange the contents of the book to be a chronology, it seems to tell a different, much less interesting story; any meaning � lost.)

Ok. So, no plot. No central character. And if there isn’t a discernible theme [2]â€� then what?

I think this book illustrates that substantive story need not be tethered to the grand narrative. That a larger story can be told by a collection of mini stories, with seemingly no singular person, plot, or theme woven through it [3]. And I think that captures something about life that I’m not sure I’ve seen depicted in literature. And while my review certainly can’t capture how or why that’s great â€� isn’t that why we have novels? To explain things that descriptions like reviews or philosophy textbooks are incapable of explaining in a direct manner.

---
Footnotes
---

[1] A to B.

It’s not the theme; but it’s certainly a motif.

The book is divided into 2 parts, A and B; In the chapter “A to B,â€� Bosco writes an album called “A to B,â€� while he is trying to figure out how he went from being a celebrated rock star to a “fat fuck that no one cares about.â€� And certainly, my favorite iterant is from Scotty:

“No, [the stinky fish Scotty pulled from the polluted river] was a gift. I came here for a reason. I want to know what happened between A and Bâ€�. Bennie seemed to be waiting for more. “A is when we were both in the band, chasing the same girl. B is now.â€� I knew instantly that it had been the right moveâ€� I’d said something literally, yes, but underneath that I’d said something else: we were both a couple of asswipes, and now only I’m an asswipe: why?â€�

I think the problem with forcing “A to Bâ€� to be the theme is it is reductionist.

For example, Sasha: What is her A, and what is her B? Sasha appears as an active character in about half of the book. But she narrates chapter 1 in the present day. Is that her point A? Because the last time she is an active character is the earliest point in the timeline. Is that her point B, or is that her point A?

Worst of all would be it makes chapters like Rob/Bobby’s (which is my favorite) impossible to place on a line, and possibly wholly irrelevant. Making A to B the theme destroys what I find makes the book beautiful: the indirect story telling. How something like learning about Bobby, can be learning about Sasha, too.

---

[2] (Not) Themes

I was wrong about A to B. And while, I try to keep myself insulated from all other reviews before I write my own, I read the Ć·±ŠÓéÀÖ synopsis when I checked read/4-stars. It seemed to identify the theme as something like time (and being crushed for it) juxtaposed against redemption.

I do most of my reading from LAPL e-books on my kindle. So, when I read, I see “popular highlights.â€� The most popular was the first of two quotes with “goonâ€� in it. Bosco says, “time’s a goon, right?â€� to which the immediate reply is something like “that’s not an expressionâ€�

I get it. Goon is in the title, and there is no union busting in the book, so people are going to gravitate towards it having some meaning. Funny enough, “goonâ€� surfaces again the ultimate chapter, and had less than half the highlights as its first appearance. Scotty is asked if he is “gonna let that goon [time] push you around?â€� to which he replies, “the goon won.â€�

While this may seem to support the theme of the inevitability of time crushing everyone. Scotty gets on the stage, defies the “goon,â€� and seemingly crushes it, instead.

Which may raise the question of redemption being a theme, but I think redemption is a corollary to the A and B, which I already exhausted in footnote 1. I just don’t think it works here. And while I think both time and redemption fail as the themes. They are clearly important, but they are important in every story, right?

I’d say that this book is about “selfâ€� and “relatingâ€� and how connect and disconnect. But again, isn’t that every story?

---

[3] Weave this into one cohesive narrative:

Just some of my favorite quotes. Things that I found of substance, what I found to be “important, that I want to remember, and that I think defy any sort of theme:


- There was a pause, during which Sasha was keenly aware of Coz [therapist] behind her, waiting. She wanted badly to please him; to say something like it was. A turning point; everything feels different now, or I called Lizzie and we made up finally, or I’ve picked up the harp again, or just I’m changing I’m changing I’m changing I’ve changed! Redemption, transformation â€� God how she wanted these things. Every day, every minute. Didn’t everyone? “Please,â€� she told Coz. Don’t ask me how I feel.

- We stand there, quiet. My questions all seem wrong: How did you get so old? Was it all at once, in a day, or did you peter out bit by bit? When did you stop having parties? Did everyone else get old too, or was it just you? Are other people still here, hiding in the palm trees or holding their breath underwater? When did you last swim your laps? Do your bones hurt? Did you know this was coming and hide that you knew, or did it ambush you from behind? Instead, I say, “hi Lou,â€� and at the very same time, Rhea says “wow everything is just the same!â€�

- I felt no shame whatsoever in these activities, because I understood what almost no one else seemed to grasp: that there was only an infinitesimal difference, a difference so small that it barely existed except as a figment of the human imagination, between working in a tall green glass building on Park Avenue and collecting litter in a park. In fact, there may have been no difference at all.

- One key ingredient of so-called experience is the delusional faith that it is unique and special, that those included in it are privileged and those excluded from it are missing out.

- A very human mistake â€� she’d thought that because she could do something very, very wellâ€� she could do other things well, too

- “There are so many ways to go wrong,â€� Lulu said. “All we’ve got are metaphors, and they’re never exactly right. You can’t ever just Say. The. Thing.â€�

- Word casings, a term [Rebecca] invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words: friend, real, story, change, words that had been sucked of their meanings and reduced to husksâ€� others the reasons were more complex; how had “Americanâ€� become an ironic term? How had “democracyâ€� come to be used in an arch, mocking way.]]> 3.70 2010
author: Jennifer Egan
name: JK
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/02
shelves:
review:
I’ve never been in a book club, so I haven’t the slightest idea how book-club-people talk about books. But whenever I mention that I’m reading a book, usually the topic is exhausted with one question and one answer. The question is always the same, “what’s it about?â€� (Even though I can anticipate the question, I still botch the answer almost every time. However, when I’m somewhat capable of articulating a cogent response, usually the questioner is placated, they say “interesting,â€� and the topic of conversation changes.)

What is this book about? I don’t know.

And after 2 days, struggling to write this review: I still don’t know. Because “what’s it about?â€� means “what’s the plot?â€� But sometimes the plot isn’t clear when you first start the book, so they’ll settle for “just tell me the setting, or something.â€� When you can’t even answer that â€� “what’s it about?â€� means “why are you reading it?”â€� oof.

Well, not only is there no plot, but there isn’t a protagonist, no setting, or even a central character (there’s 13 chapters, with 13 distinct events, each with a unique narrator).

In my first draft of this review, I struggled to pick a resounding, unifying theme. I settled on “the book is about getting from A to B.â€� But I should have known I was in trouble, when I followed it up with something along the lines of “while the quickest way between two points is a line, this story is anything but.â€� Because I do not know even what / where is A or B [1].

(And more importantly, when you rearrange the contents of the book to be a chronology, it seems to tell a different, much less interesting story; any meaning � lost.)

Ok. So, no plot. No central character. And if there isn’t a discernible theme [2]â€� then what?

I think this book illustrates that substantive story need not be tethered to the grand narrative. That a larger story can be told by a collection of mini stories, with seemingly no singular person, plot, or theme woven through it [3]. And I think that captures something about life that I’m not sure I’ve seen depicted in literature. And while my review certainly can’t capture how or why that’s great â€� isn’t that why we have novels? To explain things that descriptions like reviews or philosophy textbooks are incapable of explaining in a direct manner.

---
Footnotes
---

[1] A to B.

It’s not the theme; but it’s certainly a motif.

The book is divided into 2 parts, A and B; In the chapter “A to B,â€� Bosco writes an album called “A to B,â€� while he is trying to figure out how he went from being a celebrated rock star to a “fat fuck that no one cares about.â€� And certainly, my favorite iterant is from Scotty:

“No, [the stinky fish Scotty pulled from the polluted river] was a gift. I came here for a reason. I want to know what happened between A and Bâ€�. Bennie seemed to be waiting for more. “A is when we were both in the band, chasing the same girl. B is now.â€� I knew instantly that it had been the right moveâ€� I’d said something literally, yes, but underneath that I’d said something else: we were both a couple of asswipes, and now only I’m an asswipe: why?â€�

I think the problem with forcing “A to Bâ€� to be the theme is it is reductionist.

For example, Sasha: What is her A, and what is her B? Sasha appears as an active character in about half of the book. But she narrates chapter 1 in the present day. Is that her point A? Because the last time she is an active character is the earliest point in the timeline. Is that her point B, or is that her point A?

Worst of all would be it makes chapters like Rob/Bobby’s (which is my favorite) impossible to place on a line, and possibly wholly irrelevant. Making A to B the theme destroys what I find makes the book beautiful: the indirect story telling. How something like learning about Bobby, can be learning about Sasha, too.

---

[2] (Not) Themes

I was wrong about A to B. And while, I try to keep myself insulated from all other reviews before I write my own, I read the Ć·±ŠÓéÀÖ synopsis when I checked read/4-stars. It seemed to identify the theme as something like time (and being crushed for it) juxtaposed against redemption.

I do most of my reading from LAPL e-books on my kindle. So, when I read, I see “popular highlights.â€� The most popular was the first of two quotes with “goonâ€� in it. Bosco says, “time’s a goon, right?â€� to which the immediate reply is something like “that’s not an expressionâ€�

I get it. Goon is in the title, and there is no union busting in the book, so people are going to gravitate towards it having some meaning. Funny enough, “goonâ€� surfaces again the ultimate chapter, and had less than half the highlights as its first appearance. Scotty is asked if he is “gonna let that goon [time] push you around?â€� to which he replies, “the goon won.â€�

While this may seem to support the theme of the inevitability of time crushing everyone. Scotty gets on the stage, defies the “goon,â€� and seemingly crushes it, instead.

Which may raise the question of redemption being a theme, but I think redemption is a corollary to the A and B, which I already exhausted in footnote 1. I just don’t think it works here. And while I think both time and redemption fail as the themes. They are clearly important, but they are important in every story, right?

I’d say that this book is about “selfâ€� and “relatingâ€� and how connect and disconnect. But again, isn’t that every story?

---

[3] Weave this into one cohesive narrative:

Just some of my favorite quotes. Things that I found of substance, what I found to be “important, that I want to remember, and that I think defy any sort of theme:


- There was a pause, during which Sasha was keenly aware of Coz [therapist] behind her, waiting. She wanted badly to please him; to say something like it was. A turning point; everything feels different now, or I called Lizzie and we made up finally, or I’ve picked up the harp again, or just I’m changing I’m changing I’m changing I’ve changed! Redemption, transformation â€� God how she wanted these things. Every day, every minute. Didn’t everyone? “Please,â€� she told Coz. Don’t ask me how I feel.

- We stand there, quiet. My questions all seem wrong: How did you get so old? Was it all at once, in a day, or did you peter out bit by bit? When did you stop having parties? Did everyone else get old too, or was it just you? Are other people still here, hiding in the palm trees or holding their breath underwater? When did you last swim your laps? Do your bones hurt? Did you know this was coming and hide that you knew, or did it ambush you from behind? Instead, I say, “hi Lou,â€� and at the very same time, Rhea says “wow everything is just the same!â€�

- I felt no shame whatsoever in these activities, because I understood what almost no one else seemed to grasp: that there was only an infinitesimal difference, a difference so small that it barely existed except as a figment of the human imagination, between working in a tall green glass building on Park Avenue and collecting litter in a park. In fact, there may have been no difference at all.

- One key ingredient of so-called experience is the delusional faith that it is unique and special, that those included in it are privileged and those excluded from it are missing out.

- A very human mistake â€� she’d thought that because she could do something very, very wellâ€� she could do other things well, too

- “There are so many ways to go wrong,â€� Lulu said. “All we’ve got are metaphors, and they’re never exactly right. You can’t ever just Say. The. Thing.â€�

- Word casings, a term [Rebecca] invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words: friend, real, story, change, words that had been sucked of their meanings and reduced to husksâ€� others the reasons were more complex; how had “Americanâ€� become an ironic term? How had “democracyâ€� come to be used in an arch, mocking way.
]]> 56816904
Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written]]> 387 Louise Erdrich 006267112X JK 2
- Sam Elliott as the Stranger in The Big Lebowski

I get why this book was a success. This book made me realize that I haven’t read or consumed any entertainment that addresses COVID anymore than just in passing. But its more than that. This book takes place in Minnesota in 2020: so it throws George Floyd into the mix. And it ends on election day 2020. That’s the trifecta.

Even better, it doesn’t take a side on any of those. You could read this book and enjoy it if you think COVID restrictions are socialism or if you still haven’t left your house in summer 2023. You could enjoy this book if you think George Floyd’s death was an overhyped accident or if Minneapolis should have burned to the ground. You could enjoy this book if you think either Biden or Trump is the messiah.

And who wants to read a book that directly addresses the biggest issues of our time and says nothing?]]> 3.92 2021
author: Louise Erdrich
name: JK
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/07/02
shelves:
review:
Sometimes there’s a manâ€� I won’t say hero, ‘cause what’s a hero? But sometimes, there’s a man. And I’m talkingâ€� about the Dude here. Sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s the Dude, in Los Angelesâ€� But sometimes there’s a man, sometimes, there’s a man. Aw. I lost my train of thought here. Butâ€� aw, hell. I’ve introduced him enough.

- Sam Elliott as the Stranger in The Big Lebowski

I get why this book was a success. This book made me realize that I haven’t read or consumed any entertainment that addresses COVID anymore than just in passing. But its more than that. This book takes place in Minnesota in 2020: so it throws George Floyd into the mix. And it ends on election day 2020. That’s the trifecta.

Even better, it doesn’t take a side on any of those. You could read this book and enjoy it if you think COVID restrictions are socialism or if you still haven’t left your house in summer 2023. You could enjoy this book if you think George Floyd’s death was an overhyped accident or if Minneapolis should have burned to the ground. You could enjoy this book if you think either Biden or Trump is the messiah.

And who wants to read a book that directly addresses the biggest issues of our time and says nothing?
]]> 56269142 An Abolitionist's Handbook, Cullors charts a framework for how everyday activists can effectively fight for an abolitionist present and future. Filled with relatable pedagogy on the history of abolition, a reimagining of what reparations look like for Black lives and real-life anecdotes from Cullors.

An Abolitionist's Handbook offers a bold, innovative, and humanistic approach to how to be a modern-day abolitionist. Cullors asks us to lead with love, fierce compassion, and precision.

In An Abolitionist's Handbook readers will learn how to:

- have courageous conversations
- move away from reaction and towards response
- take care of oneself while fighting for others
- turn inter-community conflict into a transformative action
- expand one’s imagination, think creatively, and find the courage to experiment
- make justice joyful
- practice active forgiveness
- make space for difficult feelings and honor mental health
- practice non-harm and cultivate compassion
- organize local and national governments to work towards abolition
- move away from cancel culture

An Abolitionist's Handbook is for those who are looking to reimagine a world where communities are treated with dignity, care and respect. It gives us permission to move away from cancel culture and into visioning change and healing.]]> 288 Patrisse Khan-Cullors 1250272971 JK 0 to-read 4.14 2022
author: Patrisse Khan-Cullors
name: JK
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40855636 400 N.K. Jemisin 0316491349 JK 0 to-read 4.27 2018
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: JK
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62816349 488 Zoe Baker 1849354987 JK 0 to-read 4.54 2023
author: Zoe Baker
name: JK
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57506209
Deploying vivid cases and unflinching analysis, The Feminist War on Crime documents the failure of the state to combat sexual and domestic violence through law and punishment. Zero-tolerance anti-violence law and policy tendÌęto make women less safe and more fragile. Mandatory arrests, no-drop prosecutions, forced separation, and incarceration embroil poor women of color in a criminal justice system that is historically hostile to them. This carceral approach exacerbates social inequalities by diverting more power and resources toward a fundamentally flawed criminal justice system, further harming victims, perpetrators, and communities alike.

In order to reverse this troubling course, Gruber contends that we must abandon the conventional feminist wisdom, fight violence against women without reinforcing the American prison state, and use criminalization as a technique of last—not first—resort.Ìę±Ő±Ő> 304 Aya Gruber 0520385810 JK 0 to-read 4.11 2019
author: Aya Gruber
name: JK
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 28505023 , The Fire Next Time, as a jumping off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

In light of recent tragedies and widespread protests across the nation, The Progressive magazine republished one of its most famous pieces: James Baldwin’s 1962 “Letter to My Nephew,â€� which was later published in his landmark book, The Fire Next Time. Addressing his fifteen-year-old namesake on the one hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Baldwin wrote: “You know and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon.â€�

Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward knows that Baldwin’s words ring as true as ever today. In response, she has gathered short essays, memoir, and a few essential poems to engage the question of race in the United States. And she has turned to some of her generation’s most original thinkers and writers to give voice to their concerns.

The Fire This Time is divided into three parts that shine a light on the darkest corners of our history, wrestle with our current predicament, and envision a better future. Of the eighteen pieces, ten were written specifically for this volume.

In the fifty-odd years since Baldwin’s essay was published, entire generations have dared everything and made significant progress. But the idea that we are living in the post-Civil Rights era, that we are a “postracialâ€� society, is an inaccurate and harmful reflection of a truth the country must confront. Baldwin’s “fire next timeâ€� is now upon us, and it needs to be talked about.]]> 226 Jesmyn Ward 1501126342 JK 0 to-read 4.35 2016
author: Jesmyn Ward
name: JK
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1869
Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.]]> 240 Barbara Ehrenreich 0805063897 JK 0 to-read 3.65 2001
author: Barbara Ehrenreich
name: JK
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 108428
In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for "decarceration", and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.]]> 128 Angela Y. Davis 1583225811 JK 0 to-read 4.53 2003
author: Angela Y. Davis
name: JK
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 911572 In Win Your Case , Spence shares a lifetime of experience teaching you how to win in any arena-the courtroom, the boardroom, the sales call, the salary review, the town council meeting-every venue where a case is to be made against adversaries who oppose the justice you seek. Relying on the successful courtroom methods he has developed over more than half a century, Spence shows both lawyers and laypersons how you can win your cases as he takes you step by step through the elements of a trial-from jury selection, the opening statement, the presentation of witnesses, their cross-examinations, and finally to the closing argument itself.
Spence teaches you how to prepare yourselves for these wars. Then he leads you through the new, cutting-edge methods he uses in discovering the story in which you form the evidence into a compelling narrative, discover the point of view of the decision maker, anticipate and answer the counterarguments, and finally conclude the case with a winning final argument.
To make a winning presentation, you are taught to prepare the power-person (the jury, the judge, the boss, the customer, the board) to hear your case. You are shown that your emotions, and theirs, are the source of your winning. You learn the power of your own fear, of honesty and caring and, yes, of love. You are instructed on how to role-play through the use of the psychodramatic technique, to both discover and tell the story of the case, and, at last, to pull it all together into the winning final argument.
Whether you are presenting your case to a judge, a jury, a boss, a committee, or a customer, Win Your Case is an indispensable guide to success in every walk of life, in and out of the courtroom.]]> 304 Gerry Spence 0312338813 JK 3 3.70 2005
author: Gerry Spence
name: JK
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/06/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 59718522 242 Kimberley Baker Guillemet JK 0 to-read 4.00
author: Kimberley Baker Guillemet
name: JK
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 44678031
Yearbook is a collection of true stories that I desperately hope are just funny at worst, and life-changingly amazing at best. (I understand that it’s likely the former, which is a fancy “bookâ€� way of saying “the first one.â€�)

I talk about my grandparents, doing stand-up comedy as a teenager, bar mitzvahs, and Jewish summer camp, and tell way more stories about doing drugs than my mother would like. I also talk about some of my adventures in Los Angeles, and surely say things about other famous people that will create a wildly awkward conversation for me at a party one day.

I hope you enjoy the book should you buy it, and if you don’t enjoy it, I’m sorry. If you ever see me on the street and explain the situation, I’ll do my best to make it up to you.]]> 260 Seth Rogen 1984825402 JK 5
Memoirs usually suck. It’s rare for someone to be both a good writer and have an interesting life. Seth’s got it all.

Also, I’ve never really got why audiobooks are ever increasing in popularity. I think they also suck. This one doesn’t. But it probably helps that it was very well produced; in fact there’s over 3 minutes of credits. If audiobooks were only half the quality as this one, I’d listen to them.]]> 4.15 2021
author: Seth Rogen
name: JK
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/06/15
shelves:
review:
Seth Rogen knows how to tell a story.

Memoirs usually suck. It’s rare for someone to be both a good writer and have an interesting life. Seth’s got it all.

Also, I’ve never really got why audiobooks are ever increasing in popularity. I think they also suck. This one doesn’t. But it probably helps that it was very well produced; in fact there’s over 3 minutes of credits. If audiobooks were only half the quality as this one, I’d listen to them.
]]> 49295293 The Mandalorian and Cowboy Bebop in this high-stakes adventure.

Persephone Station, a seemingly backwater planet that has largely been ignored by the United Republic of Worlds, becomes the focus for the Serrao-Orlov Corporation as the planet has a few secrets the corporation tenaciously wants to exploit.

Rosie—owner of Monk’s Bar, in the corporate town of West Brynner—caters to wannabe criminals and rich Earther tourists, of a sort, at the front bar. However, exactly two types of people drink at Monk’s back bar: members of a rather exclusive criminal class and those who seek to employ them.

Angel—ex-marine and head of a semi-organized band of beneficent criminals, wayward assassins, and washed up mercenaries with a penchant for doing the honorable thing—is asked to perform a job for Rosie. What this job reveals will affect Persephone and put Angel and her squad up against an army. Despite the odds, they are rearing for a fight with the Serrao-Orlov Corporation. For Angel, she knows that once honor is lost, there is no regaining it. That doesn’t mean she can’t damned well try.]]> 512 Stina Leicht 1534414584 JK 0 to-read 3.43 2021
author: Stina Leicht
name: JK
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 59366244
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,â€� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?â€� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died , Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly , she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!â€�), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 304 Jennette McCurdy 1982185821 JK 2
Jennette writes in the way that law school describes as good writing. She uses active voice and writes in simple sentences: subject-verb. The reason law school calls this good writing, I think, is because it gets good scores on the bar exam. The reason it gets good scores on the bar exam is because it gets a lot of material on paper in an efficient amount of timeâ€� oh, and it’s easy to grade.

I have to admit that memoir isn’t my genre of choice. Having interesting life experiences, being a good story teller, and being a good writer are all very rare by themselves; having all three seems impossible.

Jennette’s life sucked. And she condensed that into 91 short chapters. But there is no description, no introspection, no feeling. It’s devoid of emotion. Sam Puckett is funny; she has great comedic timing. Jennette isn’t. Worst, the matter of fact writing doesn’t hammer in the trauma, but rather reads of clinical, emotional detachment.

Emotional parental abuse is prolific. It’s also taboo to discuss. Although I’m sure my disappointment is due, in part, to a complete lack of anything but rave reviews, I can take consolation that this book is good for many people. Maybe it’ll help others escape and begin recovery; maybe it’ll ignite a broader discussion on child abuse.

I’m glad Jennette has started recovery. I think it’s great that she shows that progress isn’t linear. She’s not anywhere near recovered when she leaves us, she’s not even doing okay. Still, I’m not glad her mom died.]]> 4.43 2022
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: JK
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/06/04
shelves:
review:
This is the first book that I have read while simultaneously listening to the accompanying audiobook. And it was the perfect book to do just that. I’m a slow reader; however, I think putting the audiobook at 2x speed helped me get through this in just about 3 hours on the train.

Jennette writes in the way that law school describes as good writing. She uses active voice and writes in simple sentences: subject-verb. The reason law school calls this good writing, I think, is because it gets good scores on the bar exam. The reason it gets good scores on the bar exam is because it gets a lot of material on paper in an efficient amount of timeâ€� oh, and it’s easy to grade.

I have to admit that memoir isn’t my genre of choice. Having interesting life experiences, being a good story teller, and being a good writer are all very rare by themselves; having all three seems impossible.

Jennette’s life sucked. And she condensed that into 91 short chapters. But there is no description, no introspection, no feeling. It’s devoid of emotion. Sam Puckett is funny; she has great comedic timing. Jennette isn’t. Worst, the matter of fact writing doesn’t hammer in the trauma, but rather reads of clinical, emotional detachment.

Emotional parental abuse is prolific. It’s also taboo to discuss. Although I’m sure my disappointment is due, in part, to a complete lack of anything but rave reviews, I can take consolation that this book is good for many people. Maybe it’ll help others escape and begin recovery; maybe it’ll ignite a broader discussion on child abuse.

I’m glad Jennette has started recovery. I think it’s great that she shows that progress isn’t linear. She’s not anywhere near recovered when she leaves us, she’s not even doing okay. Still, I’m not glad her mom died.
]]> 57048177 Aparna Shewakramani of Indian MatchmakingÌęfame knows who she is and what she wants—and she is not afraid to ask for it

When Aparna Shewakramani appeared on Netflix’s hit series, Indian Matchmaking, it soon became clear that Aparna knew what she wanted. But all stories are told through certain lenses—and her story is no exception. That reality show turned Aparna into a character. Her decisiveness combined with careful editing spun her into a very specific archetype: The villain. The woman you love to hate. The unlikable woman.

It turned around, though, with a single message of support: Be Like Aparna. Soon supporters were in the tens of thousands. Women are tired of seeing other women being vilified simply because they have a voice. In this book, you will learn about the real Aparna Shewakramani.

She bares it all—the good, the bad, and the it-depends-on-how-you-look-at-it. There is her mother’s bravery in escaping an abusive marriage, Aparna’s diagnosis of an autoimmune disease, and her confession that she too is susceptible to the deep-rooted need to be pretty and likeable. But it is also the story of her entrepreneurial spirit and her success. It is about lessons learned and the strength to be your own woman.

This is a journey to prevent Aparna-the-person from being erased by Aparna-the-character.
Ìę±Ő±Ő> 224 Aparna Shewakramani 1641606665 JK 0 to-read 3.73 2022
author: Aparna Shewakramani
name: JK
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 44326323
Awarded honorable mention for the Modern Language Association's Matei Calinescu Prize (2020), which recognizes "a distinguished work of scholarship in twentieth- or twentieth-first-century literature and thought."

American evangelicalism is big business. For decades, the world's largest media conglomerates have sought out evangelical consumers, and evangelical books have regularly become international best sellers. In the early 2000s, Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life spent ninety weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list and sold more than thirty million copies. But why have evangelicals achieved such remarkable commercial success?

According to Daniel Vaca, evangelicalism depends upon commercialism. Tracing the once-humble evangelical book industry's emergence as a lucrative center of the US book trade, Vaca argues that evangelical Christianity became religiously and politically prominent through business activity. Through areas of commerce such as branding, retailing, marketing, and finance, for-profit media companies have capitalized on the expansive potential of evangelicalism for more than a century.

Rather than treat evangelicalism as a type of conservative Protestantism that market forces have commodified and corrupted, Vaca argues that evangelicalism is an expressly commercial religion. Although religious traditions seem to incorporate people who embrace distinct theological ideas and beliefs, Vaca shows, members of contemporary consumer society often participate in religious cultures by engaging commercial products and corporations. By examining the history of companies and corporate conglomerates that have produced and distributed best-selling religious books, bibles, and more, Vaca not only illustrates how evangelical ideas, identities, and alliances have developed through commercial activity but also reveals how the production of evangelical identity became a component of modern capitalism.]]> 336 Daniel Vaca 0674980115 JK 0 to-read 4.24
author: Daniel Vaca
name: JK
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> 56749657 From the co-creators and co-hosts of the Peabody- and Pulitzer-nominated podcast comes this unflinching, illuminating view of prison life, as told by presently and formerly incarcerated people.

The United States locks up more people per capita than any other nation in the world--600,000 each year and 2.3 million in total. The acclaimed podcast Ear Hustle, named after the prison term for eavesdropping, gives voice to that ever-growing prison population.

Co-created for the Radiotopia podcast network from PRX by visual artist Nigel Poor and inmate Earlonne Woods, who was serving thirty-one years to life before his sentence was commuted in 2018, Ear Hustle was launched in the basement media lab of California's San Quentin State Prison. As the first podcast created and produced entirely within prison, it has since been globally lauded for the rare access and perspective it contributes to the conversation about incarceration.

Now, in their first book, Poor and Woods present unheard stories that delve deeper into the experiences of incarceration and share their personal paths to San Quentin as well as how they came to be co-creators. This unprecedented narrative, enhanced by forty original black-and-white illustrations, reveals the spectrum of humanity of those in prison and navigating post-incarceration. Bringing to the page the same insight, balance, and charismatic rapport that has distinguished their podcast, Poor and Woods illuminate the full--and often surprising--realities of prison life. With characteristic candor and humor, their portrayals include unexpected moments of self-discovery, unlikely alliances, and many ingenious work-arounds. One personal narrative at a time, framed by Poor's and Wood's distinct perspectives, This Is Ear Hustle tells the real lived experience of the criminal justice system.]]> 304 Nigel Poor 0593238869 JK 0 to-read 4.31 2021
author: Nigel Poor
name: JK
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> 24686569
“A memoir of rare insight and humor.â€� â€� Garry Trudeau [JN: note two r’s in Garry]
“This chronicle. . . could not be beat as a portrait of criminal court life.â€� â€� The New Yorker]]> 270 James S. Kunen JK 0 to-read 4.14 1983
author: James S. Kunen
name: JK
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1983
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 53217284
For fans of Georgette Heyer or Julia Quinn's Bridgerton, who'd like to welcome magic into their lives...

Young baronet Robin Blyth thought he was taking up a minor governmental post. However, he's actually been appointed parliamentary liaison to a secret magical society. If it weren’t for this administrative error, he’d never have discovered the incredible magic underlying his world.

Cursed by mysterious attackers and plagued by visions, Robin becomes determined to drag answers from his missing predecessor â€� but he’ll need the help of Edwin Courcey, his hostile magical-society counterpart. Unwillingly thrown together, Robin and Edwin will discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles.]]> 377 Freya Marske 1250788897 JK 2
You can’t convince me that this book isn’t simply Harry Potter fan fiction. If that’s your thing, I think this is the book for you. If, however, you’re already satiated with stuffy British magicians, I think you’ll just find this to be rigid and gay Harry Potter fan fiction.]]> 3.94 2021
author: Freya Marske
name: JK
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/05/19
shelves:
review:
I can’t remember many of my childhood rules; I don’t think there were many. I had an non-enumerated (therefore unenforced) bedtimeâ€� oh and Harry Potter was forbidden. I’m sure like my bedtime, had I actually tested the Harry Potter rule, it would’ve proven to be equally illusory. The thing is: I’ve never had any interest in Harry Potter.

You can’t convince me that this book isn’t simply Harry Potter fan fiction. If that’s your thing, I think this is the book for you. If, however, you’re already satiated with stuffy British magicians, I think you’ll just find this to be rigid and gay Harry Potter fan fiction.
]]> 60741787 An Instant New York Times Bestseller

“This voice-driven, relatable, heartfelt and emotional story will make any parent tear up.â€�
—Good Morning America, â€�15 Delightful Books Perfect for Spring Readingâ€�

Operating Instructions meets Glennon Doyle in this new book by famed NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly that is destined to become a classic—about the year before her son goes to college—and the joys, losses and surprises that happen along the way.

The time for do-overs is over.

Ever since she became a parent, Mary Louise Kelly has said “next year.â€� Next year will be the year she makes it to her son James’s soccer games (which are on weekdays at 4 p.m., right when she is on the air on NPR’s All Things Considered, talking to millions of listeners). Drive carpool for her son Alexander? Not if she wants to do that story about Ukraine and interview the secretary of state. Like millions of parents who wrestle with raising children while pursuing a career, she has never been cavalier about these decisions. The bargain she has always made with herself is this: this time I’ll get on the plane, and next year I’ll find a way to be there for the mom stuff.

Well, James and Alexander are now seventeen and fifteen, and a realization has overtaken Mary Louise: her older son will be leaving soon for college. There used to be years to make good on her promises; now, there are months, weeks, minutes. And with the devastating death of her beloved father, Mary Louise is facing act three of her life head-on.

Mary Louise is coming to grips with the reality every parent faces. Childhood has a definite expiration date. You have only so many years with your kids before they leave your house to build their own lives. It’s what every parent is supposed to want, what they raise their children to do. But it is bittersweet. Mary Louise is also dealing with the realities of having aging parents. This pivotal time brings with it the enormous questions of what you did right and what you did wrong.

This chronicle of her eldest child’s final year at home, of losing her father, as well as other curve balls thrown at her, is not a definitive answer―not for herself and certainly not for any other parent. But her questions, her issues, will resonate with every parent. And, yes, especially with mothers, who are judged more harshly by society and, more important, judge themselves more harshly. What would she do if she had to decide all over again?

Mary Louise’s thoughts as she faces the coming year will speak to anyone who has ever cared about a child or a parent. It. Goes. So. Fast. is honest, funny, poignant, revelatory, and immensely relatable.]]> 240 Mary Louise Kelly 1250859859 JK 0 to-read 3.84 2023
author: Mary Louise Kelly
name: JK
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 1898
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.]]> 368 Jon Krakauer JK 0 to-read 4.24 1997
author: Jon Krakauer
name: JK
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 61151272 An Indian American family is turned upside down when the parents divorce thirty-six years into their arranged marriage� in this witty, big-hearted debut.

I have a soft spot for underdogs. And late bloomers. You've told me a lot of things about yourself, so let me tell you something about me.

After thirty-six years of a dutiful but unhappy arranged marriage, recently divorced Suresh and Lata Raman find themselves starting new paths in life. Suresh is trying to navigate the world of online dating on a website that caters to Indians and is striking out at every turn--until he meets a mysterious, devastatingly attractive younger woman who seems to be smitten with him. Lata is enjoying her newfound independence, but she's caught off guard when a professor in his early sixties starts to flirt with her.

Meanwhile, Suresh and Lata's daughter, Priya, thinks her father's online pursuits are distasteful even as she embarks upon a clandestine affair of her own. And their son, Nikesh, pretends at a seemingly perfect marriage with his law-firm colleague and their young son, but hides the truth of what his relationship really entails. Over the course of three weeks in August, the whole family will uncover one another's secrets, confront the limits of love and loyalty, and explore life's second chances.

Charming, funny, and moving, Late Bloomers introduces a delightful new voice in fiction with the story of four individuals trying to understand how to be happy in their own lives--and as a family.]]> 368 Deepa Varadarajan 059349802X JK 0 to-read 3.72 2023
author: Deepa Varadarajan
name: JK
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 6361501 Beginning with a look at Christopher Columbus’s arrival through the eyes of the Arawak Indians, then leading the reader through the struggles for workersâ€� rights, women’s rights, and civil rights during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and ending with the current protests against continued American imperialism, Zinn in the volumes of A Young People’s History of the United States presents a radical new way of understanding America’s history. In so doing, he reminds readers that America’s true greatness is shaped by our dissident voices, not our military generals.]]> 464 Rebecca Stefoff 1583228691 JK 0 to-read 4.30 2009
author: Rebecca Stefoff
name: JK
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> 25938480
It is a story with many villains, from the superintendent of the Dickensian Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded who chose Carrie for sterilization to the former Missouri agriculture professor and Nazi sympathizer who was the nation's leading advocate for eugenic sterilization. But the most troubling actors of all were the eight Supreme Court justices who were in the majority--including William Howard Taft, the former president; Louis Brandeis, the legendary progressive; and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., America's most esteemed justice, who wrote the decision urging the nation to embark on a program of mass eugenic sterilization]]> 416 Adam Cohen 1594204187 JK 0 to-read 3.75 2016
author: Adam Cohen
name: JK
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> 46184066 From New York Times bestselling author Adam Cohen, a revelatory examination of the conservative direction of the Supreme Court over the last fifty years since the Nixon administration

In the early 1960s, the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren was at the height of its power, expanding civil rights for the poor and minorities and promoting equality in dramatic ways through rulings such as Brown v Board of Education and establishing the "Miranda warning" for persons in police custody. But when Warren announced his retirement in 1968, newly elected President Richard Nixon, who had been working tirelessly behind the scenes to put a stop to what he perceived as the Court's liberal agenda, had his new administration launch a total assault on the Warren Court's egalitarian victories, moving to dismantle its legacy and replace liberal justices with others more loyal to his views. During his six years in office, he appointed four justices to the Supreme Court, thereby setting its course for the next fifty years.

In Supreme Inequality, Adam Cohen surveys the most significant Supreme Court rulings since Nixon and exposes how rarely the Court has veered away from a pro-corporate agenda. Contrary to what Americans might like to believe, the Court does not protect equally the rights of the poor and disadvantaged, and, in fact, hasn't for decades. Many of the greatest successes of the Warren Court, such as school desegregation, labor unions, voting rights, and class action suits, have been abandoned in favor of rulings that protect privileged Americans who tend to be white, wealthy, and powerful.

As the nation comes to grips with two newly Trump-appointed justices, Cohen proves beyond doubt that the trajectory of today's Court is the result of decisions made fifty years ago, decisions that have contributed directly and grievously to our nation's soaring inequality. A triumph of American legal, political, and social history, Supreme Inequality holds to account the highest court in the land, and should shake to its core any optimistic faith we might have in it to provide checks and balances.]]> 448 Adam Cohen 0735221502 JK 0 to-read 4.33 2020
author: Adam Cohen
name: JK
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> 27171845 Seinfeld—the cultural sensation that changed television and bled into the real world, altering the lives of everyone it touched.

Comedians Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld never thought anyone would watch their silly little sitcom about a New York comedian sitting around talking to his friends. NBC executives didn’t think anyone would watch either, but they bought it anyway, hiding it away in the TV dead zone of summer. But against all odds, viewers began to watch, first a few and then many, until nine years later nearly forty million Americans were tuning in weekly.

In Seinfeldia, acclaimed TV historian and entertainment writer Jennifer Keishin Armstrong celebrates the creators and fans of this American television phenomenon, bringing readers behind-the-scenes of the show while it was on the air and into the world of devotees for whom it never stopped being relevant, a world where the Soup Nazi still spends his days saying “No soup for you!â€�, Joe Davola gets questioned every day about his sanity, Kenny Kramer makes his living giving tours of New York sights from the show, and fans dress up in Jerry’s famous puffy shirt, dance like Elaine, and imagine plotlines for Seinfeld if it were still on TV.]]> 307 Jennifer Keishin Armstrong 1476756104 JK 2 3.69 2016
author: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
name: JK
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/04/13
shelves:
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There is no question that Seinfeld changed TV. But instead of exploring this, we get a handful of anecdotes of writers from the show and 21st century meme makers.
]]> 58890783 From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Idiot, the continuation of beloved protagonist Selin's quest for self-knowledge, as she travels abroad and tests the limits of her newfound adulthood

Selin is the luckiest person in her family: the only one who was born in America and got to go to Harvard. Now it's sophomore year, 1996, and Selin knows she has to make it count. The first order of business: to figure out the meaning of everything that happened over the summer. Why did Selin's elusive crush, Ivan, find her that job in the Hungarian countryside? What was up with all those other people in the Hungarian countryside? Why is Ivan's weird ex-girlfriend now trying to get in touch with Selin? On the plus side, it feels like the plot of an exciting novel. On the other hand, why do so many novels have crazy abandoned women in them? How does one live a life as interesting as a novel--a life worthy of becoming a novel--without becoming a crazy abandoned woman oneself?

Guided by her literature syllabus and by her more worldly and confident peers, Selin reaches certain conclusions about the universal importance of parties, alcohol, and sex, and resolves to execute them in practice--no matter what the cost. Next on the list: international travel.

Unfolding with the propulsive logic and intensity of youth, Either/Or is a landmark novel by one of our most brilliant writers. Hilarious, revelatory, and unforgettable, its gripping narrative will confront you with searching questions that persist long after the last page.]]> 368 Elif Batuman 0525557598 JK 4 4.01 2022
author: Elif Batuman
name: JK
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/03/28
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]]> 71730
In this internationally acclaimed text, Marshall Rosenberg offers insightful stories, anecdotes, practical exercises and role-plays that will dramatically change your approach to communication for the better. Discover how the language you use can strengthen your relationships, build trust, prevent conflicts and heal pain. Revolutionary, yet simple, Nonviolent Communication offers you the most effective tools to reduce violence and create peace in your life—one interaction at a time.]]> 220 Marshall B. Rosenberg 1892005034 JK 0 to-read 4.32 1999
author: Marshall B. Rosenberg
name: JK
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 52671040 64 Micah Salaberrios JK 0 to-read 4.13
author: Micah Salaberrios
name: JK
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 61111250 An urgent and definitive examination of how the legal system prevents accountability for police misconduct, from one of the country's leading scholars on policing

In recent years, the high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others have brought much-needed attention to the pervasiveness of police misconduct. Yet it remains nearly impossible to hold police accountable for abuses of power--the decisions of the Supreme Court, state and local governments, and policy makers have, over decades, made the police all but untouchable.

In Shielded, University of California, Los Angeles, law professor Joanna Schwartz exposes the myriad ways in which our legal system protects police at all costs, with insightful analyses about subjects ranging from qualified immunity to no-knock warrants. The product of more than two decades of advocacy and research, Shielded is a timely and necessary investigation into why civil rights litigation so rarely leads to justice or prevents future police misconduct. Weaving powerful true stories of people seeking restitution for violated rights, cutting across race, gender, criminal history, tax bracket, and zip code, Schwartz paints a compelling picture of the human cost of our failing criminal justice system, bringing clarity to a problem that is widely known but little understood. Shielded is a masterful work of immediate and enduring consequence, revealing what tragically familiar calls for "justice" truly entail.]]> 336 Joanna Schwartz 0593299361 JK 0 to-read 4.49 2023
author: Joanna Schwartz
name: JK
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 5588817
Many contemporary political thinkers are gripped by the belief that their task is to develop an ideal theory of rights or justice for guiding and judging political actions. But in Philosophy and Real Politics , Raymond Geuss argues that philosophers should first try to understand why real political actors behave as they actually do. Far from being applied ethics, politics is a skill that allows people to survive and pursue their goals. To understand politics is to understand the powers, motives, and concepts that people have and that shape how they deal with the problems they face in their particular historical situations.

Philosophy and Real Politics both outlines a historically oriented, realistic political philosophy and criticizes liberal political philosophies based on abstract conceptions of rights and justice.]]> 128 Raymond Geuss 0691137889 JK 0 to-read 3.97 2008
author: Raymond Geuss
name: JK
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 34467031
‎Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. One evening at a nightclub, she meets Dexter Styles again, and begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have vanished.

With the atmosphere of a noir thriller, Egan’s first historical novel follows Anna and Styles into a world populated by gangsters, sailors, divers, bankers, and union men. Manhattan Beach is a deft, dazzling, propulsive exploration of a transformative moment in the lives and identities of women and men, of America and the world.]]> 438 Jennifer Egan 1476716730 JK 3 3.55 2017
author: Jennifer Egan
name: JK
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2017
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/03/14
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]]> 42449469 How the rise of the car, the symbol of American personal freedom, inadvertently led to ever more intrusive policing--with disastrous consequences for racial equality in our criminal justice system.

When Americans think of freedom, they often picture the open road. Yet nowhere are we more likely to encounter the long arm of the law than in our cars. Sarah Seo reveals how the rise of the automobile led us to accept—and expect—pervasive police power. As Policing the Open Road makes clear, this radical transformation in the nature and meaning of American freedom has had far-reaching political and legal consequences.

Before the twentieth century, most Americans rarely came into contact with police officers. But with more and more drivers behind the wheel, police departments rapidly expanded their forces and increased officersâ€� authority to stop citizens who violated traffic laws. The Fourth Amendment—the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures—did not effectively shield individuals from government intrusion while driving. Instead, jurists interpreted the amendment narrowly. In a society dependent on cars, everyone—the law-breaking and law-abiding alike—would be subject to discretionary policing.

Seo overturns prevailing interpretations of the Warren Court’s due process revolution. The justicesâ€� efforts to protect Americans did more to accommodate than to limit police intervention, and the new criminal procedures inadvertently sanctioned discrimination by officers of the law. Constitutional challenges to traffic stops largely failed, and motorists “driving while blackâ€� had little recourse to question police demands. Seo shows how procedures designed to safeguard us on the road ultimately undermined the nation’s commitment to equal protection before the law.]]> 352 Sarah A. Seo 0674980867 JK 0 to-read 3.86 2019
author: Sarah A. Seo
name: JK
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> 58724954
"Brian's new book on remaining Christian knocks it out of the ballpark in terms of framing and naming the questions. I cannot stop reading it. Thank you, Brian!"
―Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, author of The Universal Christ

"Any thoughtful Christian has been asking the questions McLaren tackles here, but many of us are afraid to voice them aloud. In Do I Stay Christian? we’re gifted a gentle guide who opens ideas and voices the questions we cannot, naming our frustration, fear, and hesitant hope."
―Rev. Dr. Amy Butler, former Senior Minister, The Riverside Church; Founder, Invested Faith

Do I Stay Christian? addresses in public the powerful question that surprising numbers of people―including pastors, priests, and other religious leaders―are asking in private. Picking up where Faith After Doubt leaves off, Do I Stay Christian? is not McLaren's attempt to persuade Christians to dig in their heels or run for the exit. Instead, he combines his own experience with that of thousands of people who have confided in him over the years to help readers make a responsible, honest, ethical decision about their religious identity.

There is a way to say both yes and no to the question of staying Christian, McLaren says, by shifting the focus from whether we stay Christian to how we stay human . If Do I Stay Christian? is the question you're asking―or if it's a question that someone you love is asking―this is the book you've been waiting for.]]> 272 Brian D. McLaren 1250262798 JK 0 to-read 4.21
author: Brian D. McLaren
name: JK
average rating: 4.21
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/08
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]]> 582280 46 Eugene O'Neill 140695683X JK 0 to-read 3.44 1922
author: Eugene O'Neill
name: JK
average rating: 3.44
book published: 1922
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> 15824226 Ìę
A Nieman Report’s Top Ten Investigative Journalism Books of 2013
Ìę
First published to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court decisionÌę Gideon v. Wainwright , which guaranteed all criminal defendants the right to legal counsel,Ìę Chasing Gideon offers a personal journey through our systemic failure to fulfill this basic constitutional right. Written in the tradition of Anthony Lewis’s landmark work Gideon’s Trumpet , it focuses on the stories of four defendants in four states―Washington, Florida, Louisiana, and Georgia―that are emblematic of nationwide problems. Revealing and disturbing, it is “a book of nightmaresâ€� because it shows that the “‘justice systemâ€� that too often produces the exact opposite of what its name suggests, particularly for its most vulnerable constituentsâ€� ( The Miami Herald ).
Ìę
Following its publication, Chasing Gideon became an integral part of a growing national conversation about how to reform indigent defense in America and inspired an HBO documentary as well as the resource website GideonAt50.org.
Ìę
â€� Chasing Gideon is a wonderful book, its human stories gripping, its insight into how our law is made profound.â€� ―Anthony Lewis, author ofÌę Gideon’s Trumpet]]> 274 Karen Houppert 1595588698 JK 2
Although in the introduction, Houppert says that her book “raises questions about how we as a nation will choose to define justice,â€� if it does, it does so very subtly. Instead, I believe this book will provide a time capsule of early 21st century rights in the criminal legal system.

Gideon’s promise did not occur in a vacuum. [Be happy that I deleted the paragraph about the incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the states. You wouldn’t believe how boring it was]. The enforcement of the right to counsel didn’t occur in a vacuum either.

In the wake of Gideon’s promulgation leading to the publishing of this book there was the Civil Rights Act, The War on Drugs, the entrenchment of Neoliberalism, 9/11, and of course this list would be incomplete without Law and Order (TV).

However, instead of picking a factor that has influenced the right to counsel, Houppert tells 4 stories. 3 of the stories are criminal trials that take place in the early 21st Century. [The other is a shorter, yet more substantive, more complete, and most of all, better written, recounting of Gideon’s Trumpet]

Why these three stories? Unfortunately, that is the inescapable question that remains after finishing this book.

�

In the first chapter, a PD tells a judge that if she is forced to do her 6th consecutive trial, she will be ineffective assistance of counsel. Her employer initially has her back, but later fires her. The story ends with the former-PD running a blog about starting a PD revolution and writing semi-autobiographical novelization of this chapter. (I couldn’t find the blog or novel).

[The second chapter is the better version of Gideon’s Trumpet]

The third chapter shows how Hurricane Katrina took Louisiana from the worst place to be charged of a crimeâ€� to the worst place to be charged of a crime. Don’t go to Louisiana. But if you do; don’t be black or poor.

And, before the events of the final chapter take place, no one had been denied the death penalty in Georgia on account of being severely mentally handicap. (Unfortunately, the legal term is the r-word). And by the end of the chapterâ€� the only change is the lead defender’s career change to bartending.

�

This book won’t change anyone’s minds on what is the floor for effective assistance of counsel. So, why these three cases?

My guess is that Karen Houppert thought 50 years after Gideon, we were at rock bottom. But the history of Gideon’s promise didn’t end in 2013. When Houppert published the book, Donald Trump hadn’t even declared his 2016 presidential campaign, not to mention install 3 justices on the supreme court.

Just yesterday, I saw a video from Reuters on Twitter about a so-called mega prison in El Salvador. More tragic than the preceding suspension of constitutional rights to fill the prison were the countless ]]> 4.03 2013
author: Karen Houppert
name: JK
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/03/01
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In America’s first 150 years, one did not have the right to an attorney in state criminal court. The case Gideon vs Wainwright changed that. And as quick as Gideon became law, Anthony Father-of-Legal-Journalism Lewis penned Gideon’s Trumpet. Lewis wrote optimistically and prospectively of a brave new world. Karen Houppert’s book, Chasing Gideon, takes the opposite perspective.

Although in the introduction, Houppert says that her book “raises questions about how we as a nation will choose to define justice,â€� if it does, it does so very subtly. Instead, I believe this book will provide a time capsule of early 21st century rights in the criminal legal system.

Gideon’s promise did not occur in a vacuum. [Be happy that I deleted the paragraph about the incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the states. You wouldn’t believe how boring it was]. The enforcement of the right to counsel didn’t occur in a vacuum either.

In the wake of Gideon’s promulgation leading to the publishing of this book there was the Civil Rights Act, The War on Drugs, the entrenchment of Neoliberalism, 9/11, and of course this list would be incomplete without Law and Order (TV).

However, instead of picking a factor that has influenced the right to counsel, Houppert tells 4 stories. 3 of the stories are criminal trials that take place in the early 21st Century. [The other is a shorter, yet more substantive, more complete, and most of all, better written, recounting of Gideon’s Trumpet]

Why these three stories? Unfortunately, that is the inescapable question that remains after finishing this book.

�

In the first chapter, a PD tells a judge that if she is forced to do her 6th consecutive trial, she will be ineffective assistance of counsel. Her employer initially has her back, but later fires her. The story ends with the former-PD running a blog about starting a PD revolution and writing semi-autobiographical novelization of this chapter. (I couldn’t find the blog or novel).

[The second chapter is the better version of Gideon’s Trumpet]

The third chapter shows how Hurricane Katrina took Louisiana from the worst place to be charged of a crimeâ€� to the worst place to be charged of a crime. Don’t go to Louisiana. But if you do; don’t be black or poor.

And, before the events of the final chapter take place, no one had been denied the death penalty in Georgia on account of being severely mentally handicap. (Unfortunately, the legal term is the r-word). And by the end of the chapterâ€� the only change is the lead defender’s career change to bartending.

�

This book won’t change anyone’s minds on what is the floor for effective assistance of counsel. So, why these three cases?

My guess is that Karen Houppert thought 50 years after Gideon, we were at rock bottom. But the history of Gideon’s promise didn’t end in 2013. When Houppert published the book, Donald Trump hadn’t even declared his 2016 presidential campaign, not to mention install 3 justices on the supreme court.

Just yesterday, I saw a video from Reuters on Twitter about a so-called mega prison in El Salvador. More tragic than the preceding suspension of constitutional rights to fill the prison were the countless
]]> 15857964 280 Jill Paperno 0314285296 JK 0 to-read 3.80 2012
author: Jill Paperno
name: JK
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/02/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 1252914 Bringing drama to life, A Life and Death Decision gives unique insight into how a jury deliberates. We feel the passions, anger, and despair as the jurors grapple with legal, moral, and personal dilemmas. The jurorsâ€� voices are compelling. From the idealist to the “holdout,â€� the individual stories—of how and why they voted for life or death—drive the narrative. The reader is right there siding with one or another juror in this riveting read.
From movies to novels to television, juries fascinate. Focusing on a single case, Sundby sheds light on broader issues, including the roles of race, class, and gender in the justice system. With death penalty cases consistently in the news, this is an important window on how real jurors deliberate about a pressing national issue.]]> 240 Scott E. Sundby 1403961182 JK 0 to-read 4.22 2005
author: Scott E. Sundby
name: JK
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/02/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60199840
The Brady rule was meant to transform the U.S. justice system. In soaring language, the Supreme Court decreed in 1963 that prosecutors must share favorable evidence with the defense—part of a suite of decisions of that reform-minded era designed to promote fairness for those accused of crimes. But reality intervened. The opinion faced many challenges, ranging from poor legal reasoning and shaky precedent to its clashes with the very foundations of the American criminal legal system and some of its most powerful prosecutors. In this beautifully wrought work of narrative nonfiction, Thomas L. Dybdahl illustrates the promise and shortcomings of the Brady rule through deft storytelling and attention to crucial cases, including the infamous 1984 murder of Catherine Fuller in Washington, DC. This case led to eight young Black men being sent to prison for life after the prosecutor, afraid of losing the biggest case of his career, hid information that would have proven their innocence. With a seasoned defense lawyer’s unsparing eye for detail, Thomas L. Dybdahl chronicles the evolution of the Brady rule—from its unexpected birth to the series of legal decisions that left it defanged and ineffective. Yet Dybdahl shows us a path forward by highlighting promising reform efforts across the country that offer a blueprint for a legislative revival of Brady ’s true spirit.]]> 288 Thomas L Dybdahl 1620977044 JK 0 to-read 4.61
author: Thomas L Dybdahl
name: JK
average rating: 4.61
book published:
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date added: 2023/02/07
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]]> 80369 Librarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found here.

Barely two hundred and fifty years ago a man condemned of attempting to assassinate the King of France was drawn and quartered in a grisly spectacle that suggested an unmediated duel between the violence of the criminal and the violence of the state. This groundbreaking book by the most influential philosopher since Sartre compels us to reevaluate our assumptions about all the ensuing reforms in the penal institutions of the West. For as he examines innovations that range from the abolition of torture to the institution of forced labor and the appearance of the modern penitentiary, Michel Foucault suggests that punishment has shifted its focus from the prisoner's body to the soul � and that our very concern with rehabilitation encourages and refines criminal activity.

Lucidly reasoned and deftly marshaling a vast body of research, Discipline and Punish is a genuinely revolutionary book, whose implications extend beyond the prison to the minute power relations of our society.]]> 333 Michel Foucault 0679752552 JK 0 to-read 4.23 1975
author: Michel Foucault
name: JK
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/30
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]]> 4121395 160 Mark Neocleous 0745314848 JK 0 to-read 4.36 2000
author: Mark Neocleous
name: JK
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> 55054890 Late Night.

In lieu of a perfect, hypothetical future husband, Mindy Kaling is thinking a lot about being single. Pros? She can marathon any Christine Baranski show she wants. Cons? Dealing with married couples and their condescension at cocktail parties. But until a gorgeous, morally flawless, preferably tall TV dad materializes in three dimensions, Mindy can cope with waiting it out (from the driver’s seat).

From the acclaimed writer, actor, director, producer, and New York Times bestselling author comes Nothing Like I Imagined. In these essays, Mindy Kaling shares the latest chapters of a multitasking life in Hollywood. Read or listen to them in a single setting. Either way, they’re pitch-perfect.]]> 15 Mindy Kaling 154201722X JK 0 to-read 4.19 2020
author: Mindy Kaling
name: JK
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> 27404
Gideon's plea to the United States Supreme Court was deceptively simple: he had been denied a lawyer at the time of his trial for burglary because he could not afford one. To most laymen this would seem to provide grounds for a new trial, but the fact is that until the Supreme Court heard Gideon's case, an indigent prisoner did not have the right to a lawyer in many state courts.

The case of Gideon v. Wainwright changed all that. The Supreme Court decided to hear Gideon's plea, and it appointed Abe Fortas, a noted Washington lawyer, to represent him.

On March 18, 1963, the Court announced its historic decision: the Justices unanimously overruled an earlier case and held that henceforth the "due process of law" guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment meant that poverty alone could not deprive a criminal defendant of the right to counsel. For Gideon this meant a new trial, and this time, with the help of a lawyer, he was acquitted.

But Gideon's Trumpet is far more than the dramatic story of a single case whose reverberations will change the lives of thousands of other prisoners; it is also an inspiring examination and interpretation of the role of the Supreme Court itself. The reader learns much of the history of the Court, of the constitutional and criminal law in the United States, of the philosophies of law of various Justices, of changing historical interpretations of the Bill of Rights and its various amendments, and of the modus operandi of the Court day by day.

Anthony Lewis writes about the complex and momentous issues involved in Gideon v. Wainwright with simplicity, clarity and precision, and his portrait of Gideon and his dogged fight for freedom is as poignant and, in the words of one distinguished reader, "as absorbing as the best fiction."]]> 277 Anthony Lewis 0679723129 JK 2
-The Stranger, The Big Lewbowski
Ìę
Clarence Earl Gideon possessed a unique combination of ignorance of contemporary 6th amendment jurisprudence, an ability to cross-examine witnesses as well as any layman, and the drive and access to materials in prison to get his habeus corpus petition past SCOTUS exacting demands (not to mention timing) to drastically change the tide of history.
Ìę
Unfortunately, Anthony “The Father of Legal Journalismâ€� Lewis possessed a unique ability to talk about ]]> 3.89 1964
author: Anthony Lewis
name: JK
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1964
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2022/11/11
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Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude. The Dude from Los Ángeles.

-The Stranger, The Big Lewbowski
Ìę
Clarence Earl Gideon possessed a unique combination of ignorance of contemporary 6th amendment jurisprudence, an ability to cross-examine witnesses as well as any layman, and the drive and access to materials in prison to get his habeus corpus petition past SCOTUS exacting demands (not to mention timing) to drastically change the tide of history.
Ìę
Unfortunately, Anthony “The Father of Legal Journalismâ€� Lewis possessed a unique ability to talk about
]]> 46046478
Fed up with capitalism? Get organised and build the institutions of the future in radical unions and local communities. Tired of politicians stalling on climate change? Set up an alternative energy collective. Ready to smash racism and the patriarchy? Root them out in all areas of our lives, not just in 'high politics'.

This is the first book dedicated to prefigurative politics, explaining its history and examining the various debates surrounding it. How can collective decision-making be inclusive? In what ways are movements intersectional? Can prefigurative organisations scale up? It is a must-read for students of radical politics, anarchism, and social movements, as well as activists and concerned citizens everywhere.]]> 180 Paul Raekstad 150953590X JK 0 to-read 4.15 2020
author: Paul Raekstad
name: JK
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/21
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]]> 9399604 216 Matthew Butterick 1598390775 JK 0 to-read 4.45 2010
author: Matthew Butterick
name: JK
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/12
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]]> 60644838 **A NEW YORK TIMES AND THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022**

An explosive exposé of the world's most prestigious and successful management consultancy.

'Panoramic, meticulously reported and ultimately devastating' Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain

McKinsey earns billions advising almost every major corporation as well as countless governments, including Britain's, the USA's and China's. It boasts of its ability to maximise efficiency while making the world a better place. Its millionaire partners and network of alumni go on to top jobs in the world's most powerful organisations. And yet, shielded by non-disclosure agreements, its work remains largely secret - until now.

In this propulsive investigation, two prize-winning journalists reveal the reality. McKinsey's work includes ruthless cost-cutting in the NHS, incentivising the prescription of opioids and executing Trump's immigration policies (the ones that put children in cages). Meanwhile its vast profits derive from a client roster that has included the coal and tobacco industries, as well as some of the world's most unsavoury despots.

McKinsey proudly insists it is a values-led organisation. When McKinsey Comes to Town is a parable of values betrayed: a devastating portrait of a firm whose work has often made the world more unequal, more corrupt and more dangerous.

*A The Times Best Book of 2022*
'A story of secrecy, delusion and untold harm' Observer
'Astonishing ... makes you so angry you want to chuck rocks at its offices' Sunday Times
'Every page made my blood boil' Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate]]> 368 Walt Bogdanich 1847926258 JK 0 to-read 3.78 2022
author: Walt Bogdanich
name: JK
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/03
shelves: to-read
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]]>