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el dang Locked account

eldang@outside.ofa.dog

Joined 1 year, 6 months ago

Also @eldang@weirder.earth

I'm currently the coordinator of the #SFFBookClub so a lot of what I'm reading is suggestions from there.

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el dang's books

Currently Reading (View all 5)

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Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities (Paperback, 2018, Haymarket Books) No rating

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was created in a surge of revolutionary self-determination that …

This is a topic I've been interested in since visiting Zagreb a few years after its war ended, and wondered about how different its 20th century built environment felt from other recently-Communist places I'd visited. I wasn't there very long and one can only read so much into the shapes of buildings, so it's always just been a sort of "hrm, I ought to learn if there's any there there" sort of thing at the back of my mind. So when @loshmi@social.coop posted social.coop/@loshmi/113568017088684018 I figured this book could be a way for me to find out.

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Practicing New Worlds (2023, AK Press) No rating

Practicing New Worlds explores how principles of emergence, adaptation, iteration, resilience, transformation, interdependence, decentralization and …

AK Press has made 6 e-books free to download for a limited period: www.akpress.org/featured-products/featured-topic-free-ebook.html

  • Practicing New Worlds - Abolition and Emergent Strategies
  • Street Rebellion - Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence
  • No Pasarán! - Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis
  • The Operating System - An Anarchist Theory of the Modern State
  • Joyful Militancy - Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times
  • Emergent Strategy - Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

chaos.social/@catileptic/113453646275291175

wants to read White Identity Politics by Ashley Jardina

White Identity Politics (Paperback, 2019, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press) No rating

Referenced by Tressie McMillan Cottom in a recent article; the thesis seems to be that whiteness as an identity is a powerful political force distinct from and in addition to out-group hatred. I'm not sure I understand what it means for a dominant group's identity politics to operate distinct from hatred of the Other, and if this reference had come from an author I respect less I might dismiss the idea, but given the context I want to learn more and try to understand it.

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A Bit of Murder Between Friends (EBook, White Hart Fiction) No rating

Every day, Baz, Peggy, Carole, and Madge get together to knit, drink tea, and dole …

I don't know about you, but I'm finding everything really hard right now.

So today I come to you with free books. No code. No minimum purchase. No secret handshake. Just free books.

If you need a dash of hope, then maybe The Left Hand of Dog will bring you joy. www.whitehartfiction.co.uk/products/left-hand-ebook

If you'd prefer a story of women getting justice through any means necessary, then A Bit of Murder Between Friends might be what the doctor ordered. www.whitehartfiction.co.uk/products/between-ebook

wandering.shop/@clacksee/113464365271096503

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The Other Wind (Paperback, 2003, Gollancz) 4 stars

Perfect resolution to one of my favourite series

5 stars

Not only in the story itself, but also the pacing and atmosphere make this a perfect resolution to a series I've been slowly reading for something like 10 years. The circle feels satisfyingly complete, and I probably will start again with A Wizard Of Earthsea sooner or later.

For Times Such As These (Paperback, 2024, Wayne State University Press) 3 stars

A revolutionary guide to Jewish practice rooted in social justice, feminism, and queer liberation.

This …

Some good food for thought, but also somehow too much lecture and too much "exercise for the reader" at once

3 stars

I love the idea of this book, and I probably will continue referring to it each month, but I also found the execution a bit disappointing. The authors seem inconsistent on whether they're writing a 101 type introduction or an overview for people who just need some prompts and reminders.

The introduction tries to be a comprehensive survey of what we might concisely call modern social justice Judaism, but ends up being very long and kind of repetitive. It might be interesting for someone newer to that scene--might even have been revelatory for me 15 years ago--but it felt like well trodden ground to me.

The month by month description of festivals and rituals feels the most useful to me, though in this section I keep wanting more detail. The poems and illuminations that start each month in this section are also a delight.

There's a second month by month …

Counterweight (Hardcover, 2023, Pantheon) 3 stars

Some potential, didn't work for me as a whole

2 stars

I found this book frustrating because it kept being just interesting enough to keep me reading, but never really seemed to develop the potentially more interesting of its ideas, and ultimately felt like a lot of SFF / cyberpunk cliches thrown into a pot and not quite stirred enough to become a whole.

[#SFFBookClub September; I am slowly catching up on reviews]

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Thyme Travellers (2024, Fernwood Publishing Co., Ltd.) 5 stars

Thyme Travellers collects fourteen of the Palestinian diaspora’s best voices in speculative fiction. Speculative fiction …

Brutal, beautiful, necessary

5 stars

A very powerful and varied collection, in which not one story misses the mark. They range from direct explorations of the brutality of invasion and occupation, through some elegiac expressions of exile and loss, through to stories that aren't even particularly about current conditions, and work unusually well together for such a diverse set. I'll be looking for more work from the majority of these authors.