New Staff Picks! (Updated 12/6/2011)
After the Future by Franco "Bifo" Berardi, reviewed by LS
"WARNING: Don't read a book about the end of the future if you're suffering depression or seasonal affective disorder. Actually, maybe you should. Bifo analyzes the psychological and economic impacts of the last 100 years of capitalism and is much easier to understand than Felix Guattari or Christian Marazzi. This is an excellent, if slightly disjointed, slice of his writing."
Anti-Systemic Movements by Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein
Despite vacillating along neo-/post-Marxian lines,
Anti-Systemic Movements is a well written, theoretically engaging (that is to say, mentally
engaging in its theory) book that places the current struggles against hegemony into the
larger context of the past one
hundred and fifty years; that discusses the broadening,
extending scope of those struggles since 1968, and the potential vectors of flight that they
are likely to take; that takes into account the problematizing, and thus de(euro)centralizing,
effect of both postcolonial and minoritarian perspectives.
Published in 1989, shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union, this book is at times outdated in its forecast of the effects of state hegemonic
sway and the reach of globalized capitalism, and still heavily dependent on the Marxian
division of labor, tending to see
subsequent struggles (i.e. national liberation, women’s
rights, civil rights movements, etc.) as merely permutations and reiterations of that
class-based dichotomy, and finds little fault in the historic events of the Russian
revolution of 1917; nonetheless, the
three authors are surprising prescient in their
understanding of the growth of struggles worldwide. If the reader can overlook the obvious
ideological shortcomings of this short book, couched as it is in academia and leftist rhetoric, it
does provide many tools for
better understanding our current geopolitical situation.
Atta by Jarrett Kopek, reviewed by LS
"A dark and slightly surreal fictionalized biography of Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 terrorists. Using the actual man's masters thesis as a point of departure, this novella posits the 9/11 attacks as much as a critique of Western architecture as religious/political statement. A very brave and excellent first work by Kopek."
Blueberry
Girl by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Charles Vess, reviewed by QR
“I
love a kids' book that shows little girls who are brave and
adventurous and independent. I love it even more when it isn't about
marriage or princes or any of the other hetero-normative storylines
that are often
still
the underscore of such books. In 'Blueberry Girl', Gaiman writes a
beautiful incantation for an unborn
child,
wishing her strength and wisdom and freedom. He is also wishing her
freedom from the trappings of the stories girls have been told for
generations...
'Keep
her from spindles, and sleeps at sixteen. Let her stay waking and
wise.'
The
wishes are presented as a sort of prayer to feminine ancestors, or
perhaps pagan goddesses watching over the child. I think that is is
an empowering book for kids and adults alike. It's bright, charming
illustrations, and lilting text are compelling to kids and even some
references that may be lost on little ones will speak more to the
adult reader.”
The Chukchi Bible by Yuri Rytkheu, reviewed by BC
"Originally published in Russian in 2000, this book was translated into English in 2011. Rytkheu was of the Chukchi people, who have occupied the Easternmost point of the Eurasian continent, straddling the Arctic Circle, for thousands of years. This book is Rytkheu's novelization of the folklore/history of the Chukchi, beginning with their origin story, and moving through their history, including flirtations with pastoral Reindeer herding and interactions with colonizing Russians and Americans, up to Rytkheu's birth in 1930. The book is beautifully written/translated, and oftentimes quite humorous, giving insight into a culture's history that is generally neglected, using storytelling instead of a dry historical telling."
Coming Home to the Pleistocene by Paul Shepard, reviewed by BC
"This anthropological classic analyzes the changes that cultures go through when moving from the hunter/gatherer economic system that was dominant for the first 99% of human history (and is still present in small pockets around the world) into either a pastoral economic system or an agricultural system, as well as the effects these changes can have on the environment. These changes have had drastic effects on the attitudes of populations involved, ranging from religious beliefs to the overall structure of a society. Shepard's book is meticulously researched, well-footnoted, and surprisingly readable, not falling into the trap of inaccessible academic language so common in other anthropology texts. A must-have for anyone interested in the way different cultures work."
Coming Home to the Pleistocene by Paul Shepard, reviewed by FG
"Paul Shepard wants you to know that there is still a
wildness in you, and that certain conditions created by civilization (and Silvia
Federici might argue, accelerated by Capitalism) are manufacturing sedentary and
potentially damaging developmental psychological processes: our basic emotional
and environmental needs, which should be considered one in the same, are not
being met by our current living realities and thusly we are being held in
juvenile states of maturity, or neoteny. This directly contributes to the conditions of
depression and alienation so prevalent in Western society.
“Coming Home” proposes a “Pleistocene paradigm,”
investigating which conditions create autonomy in individuals and collectively,
suggesting that the ways humans have historically lived equitably amongst each
other informs our current genetic makeup but is in a state of suspension. This book is as important
as ever. As a burgeoning anthropology nerd, I found the connections Shepard makes
fascinating, like how infant bonding creates such vital senses of self and
safety later in life but modern medical standards have dictated a necessary,
almost instantaneous separation between newborn and parent, and our work lives
forbid the kind of necessary bonding intended to foster independence.
Shepard died before the book was published and his wife wove
the remaining pieces together so at times it feels disjointed and flights of
thought seem to come to an abrupt halt. But certain statements still ring
starkly and poignantly, and Shepard retains a hopefulness after pages of
illustrating all of the ways our emotional lives are not what they could be or
have been. We are not as lost as many cynics believe, he firmly states. It is not
necessary to go back in time to live fulfilling lives, but we must consider the
environment that informed our genetic makeup.
‘To reenvision ‘going back,’ we look with our mind’s eye at
time as a spiral rather than a reversal. We ‘go back’ with each day along an
ellipse with the rising and setting of the sun, each turning of the globe…We
cannot run the life cycle backwards, but we cannot avoid the inherent and
essential demands of an ancient, repetitive pattern as surely as human
embryology follows a design derived from an ancestral fish. Most of the ‘new’
events in each individual life are like a different pianist playing a familiar
piece.’"
Debt by David Graeber, reviewed by Lucas "Sassy" Smith
"Graeber traces the three interweaving paths of debt, money and violence through all of recorded human history and many non-literate cultures the world over. But don't let his utterly readable writing style fool you -- some of the paths get a little hard to follow and I found myself rereading parts. Despite my backtracking, 'Debt' is well worth the effort: laying bare capitalism's grounding in physical violence and it's inevitable reduction of everything it touches to quantifiable units of exchange; emphasizing that markets aren't tied to capitalism and that exchange is a fundamental element of human sociality, albeit one element amongst many.
The books focus -- debt in all it's many facets -- leaves Graeber little room to explore alternate metaphors in which to base both morality and exchange, something that was intentional but left me wanting: Graeber is incredibly intelligent -- he could basically talk about anything and I would listen with rapt attention. Which is to say, everything he does include is informative, engaging, and so damn fun to read."
Dreams by Derrick Jensen, reviewed by BC
"Dreams is a critique of the idea that Science is the only legitimate method for obtaining knowledge and wisdom. Jensen tears into popular scientists Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris (and others) for the insistence that the Universe is a cold, mechanistic place without meaning."
The
Dumpster Diver by Janet S. Wong, illustrated by David Roberts,
reviewed by QR
The
art in this book is clever and compelling, and there is a nice
diversity to the characters, though, per the usual format for most
media, the main character is still a white man. The story shows a
group of folks who take items they find in the trash and create new
uses for them.
The
premise is great, but the ending bugs me a little. They had to come
in with some final moral about how "re-using is great and all,
but you probably shouldn't dig through the trash."
The
main character gets hurt while dumpster diving, and so the kids go
around and ask their neighbors for their unwanted items instead of
dumpstering anymore. Great idea, except that I would bet if you went
to Safeway and asked them for the bread they were about to throw
away, they probably wouldn't hand it over. It isn't a reality to keep
the waste of a capitalist system from reaching the trash cans, and I
think that a little nod to why people are taught to (encouraged to)
be so wasteful would have been interesting.
Either
way, I think it is a cute book, that can bring up plenty of discussion about waste and re-use of things others call "trash."
Entropy by Peregrine, reviewed by FG
"Peregrine uses a beautiful, deeply personal narrative
interlaced with anti-civ ideas to construct a story of healing both as a
survivor of sexual assault and as a part of a society caught in an abusive
relationship with capitalism. In lucid poetry, he focuses on how trauma
alienates people from their memories and bodies and juxtaposes that with
capitalisms isolation of the self from all parts of nature while coming to a reconciliation
of hope. It may be triggering and explicit at times, but the connections made
of systemic and interpersonal abuse are sharp, well written and worth it."
From the Observatory by Julio Cortazar, reviewed by LS
"This is worth it for the photos alone, but it's also Cortazar's most humanist work, echoing Walt Whitman in prose more swirling than the best of the Beats. 'Go out on the streets, breathe the of men who live and not the air of the theory of men in a better society.'"
the Futurism of the Instant by Paul Virilio, reviewed by LS
"Virilio haunts the edge between sci-fi and reality. Continuing the theme of the disappearance of space due to the speed of technologies, here he considers the human impacts of decentralizing cities and societies. From sprawling suburban rings to third world train depots, Virilio paints a rather dystopian future, one where this is no here here."
the Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Phillip Pullman, reviewed by BC
"A retelling of the story of Jesus' life, not quite as blasphemous as the His Dark Materials trilogy, but blashpemous enough to be interesting. A quick read."Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, reviewed by Lucas
"Many things have been written about Infinite Jest, probably too many. But I am adding my two cents to the collection nonetheless.
Writing about this book is difficult: it is like trying to sum up a moment of my life, a passage of time, wherein so many things happened both within and without the book. This is something that anyone who perseveres and makes a little headway in this book quickly realizes: any attempt at a summation of this book is necessarily incomplete, any reading of this book is predicated on the reader (try explaining this book to your seatmate on the bus when they ask: they will ask) – something that could be said of any book, but in the case of Infinite Jest, due to its sheer volume alone, carries with it new implications. Having said that, this is only one person’s understanding of the book. Read More
Lost
Language of Plants: The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicines for
Life on Earth by Steven Harrod Buhner, reviewed by BC
"This
book is part critique of industrial medicine (particularly the
insanely large amount of antibiotics that we put into the
environment), part critique of the dominant universe-as-machine
epistemology of mainstream science, and part description of the
amazing things that plants can and will do to take care of
themselves, their landbases, other plants, insects, and other animal
creatures such as ourselves.
With
a quite accessible writing style, Buhner takes us through the very
recent history of modern medicine, and a plethora of its deleterious
effects on the environment, including shockingly large amounts of
radiation.
I
have experienced first-hand the idiocy of the "scientific"
testing regimen of the pharmaceutical industry. I can tell you that I
trust much more the thousands of years of experiences with plants as
medicine than the very recent and brief experience that the medical
industry has with medicines designed in laboratories. These medicines
are composed of chemicals our bodies have never had experience with,
and inevitably flush through our bodies and into the greater
environment, quite often to its detriment, and inevitably the
detriment of ourselves.
At
once poetry, science, reasoned critique, and appeal to conscience,
this book shatters our everyday beliefs about the health of
ourselves, as well as our land, and how we maintain that health.
I
don't use the word "crucial" lightly, but the ideas put
forth in this book are crucial for the survival of pretty much
everything except the pharmaceutical industry."
The Postmortal by Drew Magary, reviewed by Una
"Think it might be nice to stop aging? This book will make you think again. The kind of sci-fi I love best, the near-future kind that seems all too possible. Magary takes ideas of near-immortality beyond the realm of philosophy and imagines the immediate effects such a discovery would have on every day life. Fascinating and all too believable!"
Ruins ed. by Brian Dillon, reviewed by xBOx
"Time sweeps aside our creative dreams in the form of decay, modern ruination vis a vis war, exhaustion or abandonment, displays our woe of modernity. We are left with our sordid aesthetic experience."
The
Table Where Rich People Sit By Byrd Baylor, illustrated by Peter
Parnell, reviewed by QR
"A
family tries to put a price on the things that are most important to
them about their lives, and determine that they are very rich. Ok...
Sounds cheesy, but it is truly a beautiful book. I am not entirely
thrilled about the need to see ones life through a capitalist lens,
but I realize that that is a lens that many can identify with,
especially when contemplating
ones economic class. The family portrayed in the story is also not
typical in kids books, or much media, for that matter. They have
chosen to live a life outside of the 'mainstream' where
they can follow work that makes them feel passion, and live a life in
rhythm with their surroundings, and created by their own hands."
This is Not a Program by Tiqqun, reviewed by FG
"Using the praxis of the radical Italian Movement of ’77 to
weave a critique of activisms indulgence in false binaries and single issue
politics, TINAP sometimes reads like prose. Though in my mind it does not live
up to the hype currently surrounding the project and has a tendency to succumb
to it’s own criticisms of oversimplification, they do a great job synthesizing
an analysis of radical participation and it’s boundaries in a captivating and lyrical manner.
"
Wildwood by Colin Malloy, reviewed by AK
"WARNING: Do not read this book on the bus, you WILL miss your stop! (twice) This is the voice of experience speaking. Engaging from the get go, Wildwood is wonderfully entertaining and whimsical."
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