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Before I begin this review, it's necessary to acknowledge the allegations that Sherman Alexie assaulted multiple women (which he says are true,) and say that I believe these women. I also acknowledge the ways in which this and other behavior has impacted the publishing of stories about Native people, and encourage folks to read books by Native authors other than Alexie (especially Native women); I'm happy to offer recommendations if people need them.
These stories paint a specific world and it's fascinating to move through it and see the ways in which they interact and contradict, that they aren't always in the same "world" (in the sense of a continuity) but contain many similar characters. It's also clearly a book written in a specific time by a person thinking about his relationship to specific things; this edition came with a preface/introduction that I a dialogue where Alexie explores some recurring themes and I think it's fairly clear that these stories are a product of that time of his life. I can see how it would be powerful for folks to read and consider; and it is certainly a world he has created here, or variations on it, without relying on a novel-structure sense of continuity.
These stories paint a specific world and it's fascinating to move through it and see the ways in which they interact and contradict, that they aren't always in the same "world" (in the sense of a continuity) but contain many similar characters. It's also clearly a book written in a specific time by a person thinking about his relationship to specific things; this edition came with a preface/introduction that I a dialogue where Alexie explores some recurring themes and I think it's fairly clear that these stories are a product of that time of his life. I can see how it would be powerful for folks to read and consider; and it is certainly a world he has created here, or variations on it, without relying on a novel-structure sense of continuity.
Before I start this review, it's necessary to highlight the accusations of sexual assault and harassment against Sherman Alexie made by multiple women, accusations he says are true. I believe these women. I also acknowledge the ways in which this and other behavior has impacted the publishing of stories about Native people, by Native people, and I encourage folks to read books by Native authors other than Alexie (especially Native women and Two-Spirit people.) I'm happy to offer recommendations if people need them.
This was definitely, as advertised, a mix of new and older stories, and coming off of literally just finishing The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and having read Ten Little Indians about a year ago, there were maybe more older stories than I would have liked. Additionally, the two stories in the collection that involve Black people (one from the perspective of a white man, another from the perspective of a man from the Spokane Tribe,) don't come off as particularly good or like they grapple with race in a way that is graceful. I am white, but oof, folks. A yikes all around. So the new stories did not feel particularly new, and I have already read the old stories, so I'd say if you have already read some Alexie, you can skip this collection, and if you haven't, well, you could read a different one. Also there's a weird throwaway line about how sleeping with booksellers and others on book tours is one of the perks and boy has that not aged well!
This was definitely, as advertised, a mix of new and older stories, and coming off of literally just finishing The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and having read Ten Little Indians about a year ago, there were maybe more older stories than I would have liked. Additionally, the two stories in the collection that involve Black people (one from the perspective of a white man, another from the perspective of a man from the Spokane Tribe,) don't come off as particularly good or like they grapple with race in a way that is graceful. I am white, but oof, folks. A yikes all around. So the new stories did not feel particularly new, and I have already read the old stories, so I'd say if you have already read some Alexie, you can skip this collection, and if you haven't, well, you could read a different one. Also there's a weird throwaway line about how sleeping with booksellers and others on book tours is one of the perks and boy has that not aged well!
I read this ages ago, I think when it first came out, but this reread as an adult I think revealed way more to me than I remembered. In some ways it reminds me a lot of Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains, a book that I adored when I read and which came out many years later; it shares a lot in the sense of being about an enslaved young person grappling with liberty during the American Revolution, and in depicting violence against enslaved people and the trauma of enslavement in subtle and nuanced ways. I would not say one is necessarily better than the other, though I remember being fairly confused by the beginning of this book as a kid, but that may have been from not being very good at reading.
I think one advantage of the book is it doesn't truck very heavily in nationalism or even in ideas of liberty (at least in this first book); it acknowledges that the "liberty" of the Revolution was a false idea/that there was a ruling class deeply invested in maintaining enslavement. We will see if that continues in the second book; I am definitely interested plot-wise in seeing how this shakes out, and what it looks like by the end!
I think one advantage of the book is it doesn't truck very heavily in nationalism or even in ideas of liberty (at least in this first book); it acknowledges that the "liberty" of the Revolution was a false idea/that there was a ruling class deeply invested in maintaining enslavement. We will see if that continues in the second book; I am definitely interested plot-wise in seeing how this shakes out, and what it looks like by the end!
This book was beautiful and just so, so deeply wrenching. It took me way longer to finish than I thought because it was really emotionally draining. Makkai manages to balance these really beautiful and artistic moments with the more mundane and also the dramas of relating to and being in relation with one another.
I don't know, I'm having such a hard time articulating it; it was so difficult for me to read, and yes ultimately worth it. The story flowed really well and the jumping between time periods wasn't confusing at all. It just was a hard read.
I don't know, I'm having such a hard time articulating it; it was so difficult for me to read, and yes ultimately worth it. The story flowed really well and the jumping between time periods wasn't confusing at all. It just was a hard read.
Oliver combines essays about nature with essays about (primarily) American authors who wrote about nature in this thoughtful and interesting collection. It took me a little bit to ease into it--I think there's a specific way of approaching nature writing that I'm resistant to that this book engages in, and it took a little getting used to. (It's a kind of nature writing that sees the return to nature as absolutely necessary without examination about the kinds of limitations and different relationships people of different identities have to nature.) But I think there are definitely things to take away and by the end I was caught along enough to be able to appreciate it. I don't know that this was the best place to start with Mary Oliver's work--I'm looking forward to trying her poems, rather than these essays--but the essays were often beautiful and interesting to read.
An interesting collection. I think some topics maybe haven't aged well, or at least are really more like sources for a specific time than necessarily have the staying power of other work. The essay about anti-semitism especially feels like it has been more ably taken up, including more recently by Butler herself in her essay about Bari Weiss's book, though both have an element of something missing in their articulations.
The title essay and "Violence, Mourning, Politics," were my favorites; the former also has a kind of incompleteness about it, and I think for me makes the most sense as the staging area for Butler's book about non-violence that came out this year (2020,) though it definitely leaves a lot to chew over. "Violence, Mourning, Politics" is the essay I'm most familiar with via citation, and it was good to read it in its entirety; it's clear why it's so heavily cited, and it's an essay I will definitely come back to. The other essays are fine, just didn't hit as much as those two, or felt like they have not aged as well/are not maybe as groundbreaking as they were in 2004.
The title essay and "Violence, Mourning, Politics," were my favorites; the former also has a kind of incompleteness about it, and I think for me makes the most sense as the staging area for Butler's book about non-violence that came out this year (2020,) though it definitely leaves a lot to chew over. "Violence, Mourning, Politics" is the essay I'm most familiar with via citation, and it was good to read it in its entirety; it's clear why it's so heavily cited, and it's an essay I will definitely come back to. The other essays are fine, just didn't hit as much as those two, or felt like they have not aged as well/are not maybe as groundbreaking as they were in 2004.
What a delightful book! The writing is so distinctive, and unlike the previous Discworld book I read (Maskarade) this one makes me want to go on and really read more of these books. (Any recommendations on which one 'comes next'- I know there's an 'order' and an "Order," but y'know... help a kid out!) There were a couple moments where I literally laughed out loud, very hard, and I'm always down for that, plus there's always the nice little moments where Pratchett sneaks in some Human Wisdom that are very lovely. I definitely want to spend more time in this world!
Reread, 3/15/20: Just as good if not even a little better the second time around! Extremely funny, but also a great and interesting driving plot. Really fun to revisit, and so glad I did! A great place to jump into the world if you're looking for a place to start!
Reread, 3/15/20: Just as good if not even a little better the second time around! Extremely funny, but also a great and interesting driving plot. Really fun to revisit, and so glad I did! A great place to jump into the world if you're looking for a place to start!
A really interesting, sometimes dizzying read that nevertheless was super interesting. I'm not sure if the parts that confused me around the world were a product of me reading this badly or if it was meant to be that way, but I would definitely like to return to this and try it again. I think the afterword by clipping. was SUPER helpful in contextualizing all of it, and I kind of wish I could have read it upfront and be prepared to approach it from that perspective. But there's a lot going on here about memory and history and trauma, and it's all so well-done, definitely recommend.
First off, I received a copy of this book through the Early Reviewers program on LibraryThing. I'm grateful to the publisher for the copy of this; I read an ARC, and so some aspects may have changed in the course of publishing.
This book interesting series of meditations on migraine and pain. Olstein draws cultural objects from all over--poets and writers, House, M.D., art, etc. I think some of her interactions with those objects falls kind of short for me--the book itself is not, obviously, a true cultural history in the academic sense of migraine, but it feels a little pulled thin as she tries to create essentially migraine as a kind of epistemology but never really coming to any real stance on it, which is fine since that's not necessarily her aim.
The biggest weakness of the text for me is the lack of engagement with disability studies, or the question of disability at all. I'm not sure if Olstein considers herself disabled, and she seems resistant to considering the question in any serious capacity, preferring to take the pain as its own thing. I just think addressing some of the questions that disability studies has posed about pain (I'm thinking especially the work of Tobin Siebers in Disability Theory around pain, which touches on much of what Olstein writes about here but also extends beyond it in ways I find productive,) or at least acknowledging that thought might really have enriched this.
This book interesting series of meditations on migraine and pain. Olstein draws cultural objects from all over--poets and writers, House, M.D., art, etc. I think some of her interactions with those objects falls kind of short for me--the book itself is not, obviously, a true cultural history in the academic sense of migraine, but it feels a little pulled thin as she tries to create essentially migraine as a kind of epistemology but never really coming to any real stance on it, which is fine since that's not necessarily her aim.
The biggest weakness of the text for me is the lack of engagement with disability studies, or the question of disability at all. I'm not sure if Olstein considers herself disabled, and she seems resistant to considering the question in any serious capacity, preferring to take the pain as its own thing. I just think addressing some of the questions that disability studies has posed about pain (I'm thinking especially the work of Tobin Siebers in Disability Theory around pain, which touches on much of what Olstein writes about here but also extends beyond it in ways I find productive,) or at least acknowledging that thought might really have enriched this.
I received a copy of this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I'm grateful for the publishers for the opportunity to read this. Also as a kind of disclaimer, I am a mentally ill person with a variety of diagnoses around trauma.
This was a fairly basic introduction, a little bit scattershot in how much it tried to cover, though the parts about Indigenous healing and culturally competent care were interesting. There were a couple gaps in this, the biggest one for me being around police and police work. Siebert talks about the rate of police violence against people with mental illness, but then goes in to talk about how police are being trained to be better and the good work they're doing. Given that most of the mentally ill people killed by police are BIPOC, it seems to me disingenuous and dangerous to represent police as anything other than incredibly dangerous, and I don't think putting in a single cop doing "good work" outweighs just how horrific interactions between police and folks with mental illness, especially racialized folks, are. Another gap for me was a lack of discussion around racialization and diagnosis; it seems significant to me that the Black people whose experiences she wrote about/talked to were diagnosed as schizoaffective, especially given the history of using the diagnosis of schizophrenia to incarcerate Black people and invalidate their experiences of racism.
There were still some good parts, though I think the most interesting parts of this book were literally sidelined; I deeply appreciated the inclusion of sections about harm reduction and mad pride, as I think those are things that it's very important for teenagers to learn about early on, as it could be life-saving; I think taking them more seriously, especially speaking to someone who identifies as mad or is a psychiatric survivor about involuntary hospitalization might have helped address some of the ambivalence that Siebert herself expressed in the book. Finally, I think an actual look inside at what hospitalization might look like could help demystify that process for teenagers, and might make them more likely to consider it as an option in a time when their agency is already so limited and giving up even more of it is often a terrifying process.
Overall it wasn't a bad book, and I think could be a useful starter to a larger conversation, but there were definitely parts that I had serious misgivings about and would adjust or supplement if using this book with actual teenagers.
This was a fairly basic introduction, a little bit scattershot in how much it tried to cover, though the parts about Indigenous healing and culturally competent care were interesting. There were a couple gaps in this, the biggest one for me being around police and police work. Siebert talks about the rate of police violence against people with mental illness, but then goes in to talk about how police are being trained to be better and the good work they're doing. Given that most of the mentally ill people killed by police are BIPOC, it seems to me disingenuous and dangerous to represent police as anything other than incredibly dangerous, and I don't think putting in a single cop doing "good work" outweighs just how horrific interactions between police and folks with mental illness, especially racialized folks, are. Another gap for me was a lack of discussion around racialization and diagnosis; it seems significant to me that the Black people whose experiences she wrote about/talked to were diagnosed as schizoaffective, especially given the history of using the diagnosis of schizophrenia to incarcerate Black people and invalidate their experiences of racism.
There were still some good parts, though I think the most interesting parts of this book were literally sidelined; I deeply appreciated the inclusion of sections about harm reduction and mad pride, as I think those are things that it's very important for teenagers to learn about early on, as it could be life-saving; I think taking them more seriously, especially speaking to someone who identifies as mad or is a psychiatric survivor about involuntary hospitalization might have helped address some of the ambivalence that Siebert herself expressed in the book. Finally, I think an actual look inside at what hospitalization might look like could help demystify that process for teenagers, and might make them more likely to consider it as an option in a time when their agency is already so limited and giving up even more of it is often a terrifying process.
Overall it wasn't a bad book, and I think could be a useful starter to a larger conversation, but there were definitely parts that I had serious misgivings about and would adjust or supplement if using this book with actual teenagers.