Calum

every critic of this book is a sore loser. you can think a guy is kinda cringe (if you want, i enjoy it) and still respect the argument he puts forth if you open your mind. if anything, you just have to keep in mind the time it was written at. i would kill for someone to respond to him from 50 years in the future. i guess that is our generation's task.

also: so true bestie i am always saying this

read this with maps and satellite imagery at hand for full immersion. so yummy

very interesting and thorough history. i just flat out disagree with the author in her analysis and the anticommunism of it all pissed me off from start to finish. much like knowing about how the bund failed in its heroic mission irritates me (and yes, they failed). such is life.

thanks to netgalley and random house for the ARC
 

incredibly thrilling. a book that begs not to be put down. however, i do not care about any of these characters. the depiction of the library and library workers didn't feel anything like my life as a library worker, but philly is quite different from austin, i guess

i listened on audio, but i really buy a copy for my shelves so bad so i can re-go over it again and again. lyrical. 

inshallah we kill western marxism once and for all. all essay anthologies suck, but I think there was genuinely only one essay I enjoyed in the whole book. I don't think anyone in the Frankfort school had anything interesting to say abt communism. I don't care abt your beef with Stalin. get a life

they weren't joking when they said best locked room of all time

first person plural is my new favourite point of view

ultimately he's right, he's just a bit too much of an arrogantly ignorant yankee nationalist, so huge parts of the book are incoherent

had to pause reading bc i was sick to my stomach when the library burns at the end. what could be more normal than bursting into tears by the end of a novel while at work at the libaby

more of this please

incredibly talented writer. it just lost a star bc i was so incredibly disappointed that it ended there. but it's illegal to actually offer real solutions in published books as always

i had fun, mizuki. it's not a particularly profound history, but being a memoir and actively engaging with itself as a memoir was really interesting

booooo stick to youtube. the humour doesnt land bc theyre too busy leaning too hard on the unearned credibility of authors, and if they had not tried to make A Message or engaged in the honoured English tradition of blatant bigotry, I could have enjoyed the jokes

there's no need to have that many show off words that i have to look up in a text with so many stupid typos. + the author's opinions were so annoying that it made me want to go back and reread nkrumah himself without this guy whispering in my ear

A fantastic introduction to the vast and diverse Romani people. Each chapter covers a different country where Roma have history, and blends a short history of the relationship of each state to its Romani people with a travelogue of the author visiting with each community or her own experience and family history. Thanks to NetGalley and Harper for the e-ARC.

philip hutton i loved to hate you

thanks to netgalley and penguin for the ARC

i really wanted to like this, and there's nothing wrong with it per se.... it just isn't very funny while trying very hard to be funny. your mileage may vary

The Chaser and Stag Dance both deserve 5 stars, and the Masker is a hearty 4.

easy and understandable overview of the current scientific argument against sex essentialism. fascinating stuff

💯💯💯 this book is like a friend

it's good book bront, but the conclusion is so needlessly hopeless. also the author's former zionism, which i understand as essential to the text itself, is so annoying. but it's good, makes solid arguments, despite the flaws.

I kinda shoulda just dropped it after the first section. Truly, entirely my fault, I was just skimming through some of those church history chapters like who give a fuck. A good book and what it says on the title! I am just bored of Christians.

i went in completely unaware that the links between stories were more than style and had to go back and reread almost half the book whenever i realised that that was part of the same narrative from before. masterful use of first-person, i'm such a first-person hater. to reread for sure

Both a biography of Dr. Hirschfeld and a well-argued plea that he was right for the very reason he had a target on his back. Due to his historical significance, the book goes more into political history than your average biography, and it is very well done narratively. The comparisons to Einstein seemed a little cheesy to me, but in a go-off-king kinda way :Þ

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. Look for this when it comes out next month.