Story of resistance from inside the imfamous Guantanamo prison, America's own circle of hell. El-Gharani's story needs to be seen & heard in the u.s. because the actual identities of the real people imprisoned in guantanamo are forgotten or don't warrant a mention in American news media & official pronouncements. This story also highlights that even in the national security establishment's own terms, the idea that the USA needs an island prison to keep all the baddest guys (and keep them out of the justice system) is idiotic. The notes at the end detailing El-Gharani's subsequent tribulations & adventures is also worth reading.

Story of various characters meeting & not meeting in late 1920s Berlin. Main characters are queer bohemian artists, communist workers, & leftist journalists. Also many vignettes featuring the daily internal lives of various minor characters (cops, prostitutes, nazi street thugs, bums, etc), some of whom appear later, and many of whom do not. Features many streetscapes.

Continues stories from City of Stones, and adds a black american Jazz band into the mix, and also features A jewish family who were minor characters more prominently. Delves deeper into the late 20s nightclub scene, and the high society party scene Also shows more about the rise of the Nazis.

Final and appropriately most depressing book in the series. Ends with Hitler assuming power and some of the characters either fleeing to the country, or outright fleeing the country, and an bleak future for everyone else. Covers the continued rise of fascism, abetted by the wealthy and by the police forces. (However, the Army and their part in the rise of the Nazis is absent from all three Berlin books). Still not sure if a city is more than a pile of stones.

Excellent collection of stories. Le Guin's introductions to her other books I've read are a treat in themselves, and the intro to Fisherman of the Inland Sea is no exception. The stories are good too. The final three are related, and I feel like the first two are best thought of as a build-up to the final story, even though it's title, "Another Story" makes it sound like an afterthought. "Another Story" resonated with me the most, emotionally. "Newton's Sleep" felt like it had the most techno-political-philosophical relevance to the moment we're in now (but I hope it doesn't stay relevant).

Novel bringing all your favourite Ballardisms (mysterious quasi-cult led by diseased charismatic leader, automotive technological fetishism, all viewed through the eyes of a privileged unreliable narrator) into the world of early 2000s London. I remember Crash, Super Cannes, Hello America, & Drowned World taking a while for me to get through & digest, so I'm trying to decide if I zipped through Millennium People because it's one of Ballard's more readable Novels, or if I've just finally become versed in reading Ballard, or oddball literature in general. Millennium people is peppered with what feel like portents of our current world, but the brief discussions of how the more pointless a terrorist attack, the more potent it is seem the most prophetic today. This book is a good place to go looking for quoteable quotes about bourgeois foibles, pop culture, & our neoliberalist world.

Memoir of Glidden's free birthright trip to Israel in 2007. A look at the whole Birthright experience through the eyes of a person skeptical of the Zionist project. Also provides some glimpses of the leftist Israeli perspective.

Seminal work in the evil carnival genre, and thus the direct progenitor of Killer Klowns from Outer Space. This book has a lot of elements that check Stephen King bingo boxes (young kids teaming up, middle aged wanderers settling down in small towns, creepy carnivals, nerdy outsiders), and has to have been a huge influence on Stephen King.

Fantasy short stories with hard sci-fi feel and elements, with Some stories blending space opera and fantasy. The logical progression from theory to premise to logical conclusion feels a little relentless in some of these stories (not surprised at all that Lee was a math major in college). Most of the stories keep suspense by keeping the reader in the dark about what it is the main character is up to. These elements give this collection a little bit of the feel of 50s-60s SF anthologies I've read. I thought the last story was going to be more metaphorical than it turned out to be. A main theme across these stories is occupation and resistance, and most of the characters are fighters of some sort. All in all a good find for a collection I picked up because it happened to be next to LeGuin on the library shelf.

Great book following the hurricane Katrina experiences of 7 different New Orleaners. Shows how all levels of government mostly left people to their own resources before, during, and after the disaster. Big Freedia's memoir, and Mike Davis's essays about New Orleans & Katrina (found in "In Praise of Barbarians"), are good supplements to A.D. and complete the picture of a mostly avoidable but catastrophic disaster for the people of New Orleans. A.D. also follows the stories of people who managed to evacuate before the storm, & their difficulties in returning to their City. Finally, I liked the epilogue at the back briefly telling the author's methods finding the subjects and putting their stories into the book.