Jenny Odell makes a case for paying attention as an act of resistance, resilience, and a necessary step in being able to think critically and organize for activism. She worries that the "attention economy" (the persuasive design of social media and advertising) is leaving modern people, especially people who are already marginalized or in financially precarious positions, no room for quiet, introspective thought. New ideas often need time and space to grow, but who in this world has time and space to spare? Only the well-to-do, who should not have a monopoly on time to do nothing. Odell roots her book in the Bay Area, specifically in Oakland, drawing on anecdotes of native plants and birds as well as the histories of parks, unions, and labor in the Bay Area. She returns frequently to the story of the Useless Tree, a tree too twisted to be logged for timber, which was able to grow old and strong, sheltering a whole ecosystem under it's many branches. This is a refreshingly un-prescriptive book. Despite many critiques of facebook and twitter, Odell doesn't advocate for deleting one's accounts, but rather a kind of mindful resistance from within. The conclusion includes a call for Manifest Dismantling (a radical opposite of Manifest Destiny)- a hope that humans will begin to carefully unmake some of the things we have built, un-daming rivers, breaking up concrete shores and tearing up lawns to replant with native plants. I listened to this book as an audiobook, but I kind of wish I had read it on paper instead, because ironically I don't think I fully gave it the attention it deserved- I was working while listening to most of it, which felt pretty hypocritical.