The narrator arrives in Berlin, a place famed for its hedonism, to find peace and …
In The End, It Was All About Love
3 stars
Righteous Migrants: The poetic mythologizing is punctuatedly endearing while also infrequently connecting. My decade aligned most with “Today, Berlin Punches You In The Stomach” although the acts of racist aggression weren’t its most disturbing facet. Berlin is a self-righteous busybody gleeful to run you over to teach you not to jaywalk.
The mystique is obliterated. I was disappointed by his shallow, regurgitating defence at the end of chapter nine; punching down subverts nothing. I am however heavily into self-deprecation and anecdotes of social inoperativeness (plus laid-back veganism) so this book had the highest laugh rate out of any comic memoir I've read so far. That's excluding when he's slagging off his loved ones as part of his routine and for the most part excluding his recounting a succession of humiliations contained within a single ongoing lifetime.
Work of political economy, detailing the impact of slavery and colonialism on the history of …
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
1 star
DNF 12% Excruciatingly of another era. Starts from false premises, does not question that man must dominate nature and that progress follows a single inexorable path from hunting communalism to slave-owning states to feudalism to capitalisn to socialism. Permanent growth and producing for an anonymous market remain the aim while the summit of development is when the state accumulates the surplus. Among alarming postulations:
However morally indefensible slavery may have been, it did serve for a while to open up the mines and agricultural plantations in large parts of Europe and notably within the Roman Empire.
Magic and mayhem collide with the British elite in this whimsical and sparkling debut.
At …
Sorcerer to the Crown
4 stars
While I'm into Manglish, it's a dragging chore to wade through stilted, pompous fantasy-speak. On top of that, referring to the female of the species so insistently is eminently irritating. It's hard to stomach fantasy when one creates a world of dragons and fairies and magic, but then replicates the same oppressions. It's unfair when Prunella is to be lumped with the servants or thought a strumpet, not because she questions class structures, patriarchal control, religious hypocrisy, imperialism, etc., but because she's not one of them. Having two protagonists of colour alone (although it's mentioned multiple times how light-skinned Prunella is and how she can pass by candlelight) isn't enough to overturn this genre. Is it mandatory for fantasy characters to be Mary Sues? Why does the omniscient narrator have to be racist and sexist too? I'll still read book two though.
"A simple-to-follow, boots-on-the-ground, open-anywhere guidebook that delivers practical tactics for navigating, affecting, and protecting your …
Road Map for Revolutionaries
2 stars
The audience in mind swings back and forth between middle grade and middle aged. It's lean in activism that is specifically not anticapitalist. There is a fair amount that is useful but the moments of cringe are overpowering. A selection:
- 'Standing up for what I believed was not only the right thing to do, it also was a good marketing decision.'
- Suggests the sensationalism of using pictures of dead children as a positive in the chapter that's functionally about hashtag activism
- Promotes the fallacy of voting with your wallet
- 'Let’s face it: Getting arrested feels crummy, and you have way better things to do than be stuck in jail.'
- Falls prey to the manipulation of bothsidesism in the how to become a politician chapter
A provocative manifesto, Whipping Girl tells the powerful story of Julia Serano, a transsexual woman …
Whipping Girl
5 stars
On cissexism:
"The most common myth used to justify this cissexual privilege is the idea that cissexuals inherit the right to call themselves female or male by virtue of being born into that particular sex. In other words, cissexuals view their gender entitlement as a birthright. This is often a deceitful act, as many (if not most) cissexuals in our society tend to look disparagingly upon societies and cultures that still rely on class or caste systems—where one’s occupation, social status, economic disposition, political power, etc., is predetermined based on an accident of birth. So while most Western cissexuals frown upon birth privilege as a means to determine these other forms of social class, they hypocritically embrace it when it comes to gender."
On combating gender entitlement:
"The most radical thing that any of us can do is to stop projecting our beliefs about gender onto other people's behaviors and …
On cissexism:
"The most common myth used to justify this cissexual privilege is the idea that cissexuals inherit the right to call themselves female or male by virtue of being born into that particular sex. In other words, cissexuals view their gender entitlement as a birthright. This is often a deceitful act, as many (if not most) cissexuals in our society tend to look disparagingly upon societies and cultures that still rely on class or caste systems—where one’s occupation, social status, economic disposition, political power, etc., is predetermined based on an accident of birth. So while most Western cissexuals frown upon birth privilege as a means to determine these other forms of social class, they hypocritically embrace it when it comes to gender."
On combating gender entitlement:
"The most radical thing that any of us can do is to stop projecting our beliefs about gender onto other people's behaviors and bodies."
On sexism expanded to include femininity vs masculinity:
"The greatest barrier preventing us from fully challenging sexism is the pervasive antifeminine sentiment that runs wild in both the straight and queer communities, targeting people of all genders and sexualities. The only realistic way to address this issue is to work toward empowering femininity itself. We must rightly recognize that feminine expression...facilitates openness, creativity, and honest expression. We must move beyond seeing femininity as helpless and dependent, or merely as masculinity's sidekick, and instead acknowledge that feminine expression exists of its own accord and brings its own rewards to those who naturally gravitate toward it."
