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Finished reading
On eating meat by Matthew Evans. I stalled out on this one for a while there, and I’m not totally sure why. Possibly because I was feeling bogged down in a technical details and the like, and when I don’t have a whole lot of brain to spare, it all felt like too much effort. Have pulled through that and into the later part of the book which is about balancing humanity’s diets and land use. It’s really noticeably western-centric in these parts. Not in an unexpected way, I guess, but there’s been no mention of the entire swaths of the world that are lactose-intolerant (or, to put it more realistically, have not needed to develop the tolerances to consume another species’ milk). And possibly he doesn’t need to mention it, it just feels like a notable silence.
Having now finished. He makes some excellent points (by which I mean I agree with a lot of them, if not all of them), but it also feels a bit like all he's made are points, rather than a coherent overarching argument. Part of that might be that there are just a lot of disparate points that make up a whole, but it also made for disjointed reading, which was also possibly why it took me so long. Chapters didn't flow into each other or connect to each other, and even the points made within chapters didn't flow, and were often broken up with a … I don't know the technical term, a fancy page break symbol, which didn't help. 3.5 whatevers out of 5.
Currently reading
How powerful we are by Sally Rugg. All of the behind-the-scenes (and before camera) activism by GetUp and co on the campaign for marriage equality. Sally Rugg is fantastic, and I'm loving this, and have been inhaling this. The wins and the sacrifices, the regrets, and the raging, and the battle still to come.
The second mountain by David Brooks. Tentative chapter skimming. Reading the introduction, and already found an 'oof' line: "A commitment is falling in love with something and then building a structure of behaviour around it for those moments when love falters." (page xx)
Up next
I have a Plan, Goddammit. Once I finish Powerful, I get to buy The Testaments on Tuesday from Rabble Books. Oh god so much trepidation, so much interest. There’s talk of it being about the downfall of the Gilead regime, and I trust Atwood to do it much, much more than I trust the show to show a rebellion/fighting back against Gilead.
I'm also gonna read the 13th doctor's short story, which I got from the library, purely because Naomi Alderman wrote a 13 story, and I’m here for both of these things, so hard. And then work my way backwards through the doctors, and see how many I get through.
Longer-term side plans.
Becky Chambers novella "To be taught, if fortunate..", and the Joanna Russ novella "Those who are about to…". I learned about the latter after reading about the former, and they sound like the flip sides of the same coin – both extensive space travel, one brutally grim and the other hopeful. We'll see.
The post-apoca book of fun by Rachel Sharp.
I also somewhere in all this want to watch the last season of Black sails. Oh, self.
On eating meat by Matthew Evans. I stalled out on this one for a while there, and I’m not totally sure why. Possibly because I was feeling bogged down in a technical details and the like, and when I don’t have a whole lot of brain to spare, it all felt like too much effort. Have pulled through that and into the later part of the book which is about balancing humanity’s diets and land use. It’s really noticeably western-centric in these parts. Not in an unexpected way, I guess, but there’s been no mention of the entire swaths of the world that are lactose-intolerant (or, to put it more realistically, have not needed to develop the tolerances to consume another species’ milk). And possibly he doesn’t need to mention it, it just feels like a notable silence.
Having now finished. He makes some excellent points (by which I mean I agree with a lot of them, if not all of them), but it also feels a bit like all he's made are points, rather than a coherent overarching argument. Part of that might be that there are just a lot of disparate points that make up a whole, but it also made for disjointed reading, which was also possibly why it took me so long. Chapters didn't flow into each other or connect to each other, and even the points made within chapters didn't flow, and were often broken up with a … I don't know the technical term, a fancy page break symbol, which didn't help. 3.5 whatevers out of 5.
Currently reading
How powerful we are by Sally Rugg. All of the behind-the-scenes (and before camera) activism by GetUp and co on the campaign for marriage equality. Sally Rugg is fantastic, and I'm loving this, and have been inhaling this. The wins and the sacrifices, the regrets, and the raging, and the battle still to come.
The second mountain by David Brooks. Tentative chapter skimming. Reading the introduction, and already found an 'oof' line: "A commitment is falling in love with something and then building a structure of behaviour around it for those moments when love falters." (page xx)
Up next
I have a Plan, Goddammit. Once I finish Powerful, I get to buy The Testaments on Tuesday from Rabble Books. Oh god so much trepidation, so much interest. There’s talk of it being about the downfall of the Gilead regime, and I trust Atwood to do it much, much more than I trust the show to show a rebellion/fighting back against Gilead.
I'm also gonna read the 13th doctor's short story, which I got from the library, purely because Naomi Alderman wrote a 13 story, and I’m here for both of these things, so hard. And then work my way backwards through the doctors, and see how many I get through.
Longer-term side plans.
Becky Chambers novella "To be taught, if fortunate..", and the Joanna Russ novella "Those who are about to…". I learned about the latter after reading about the former, and they sound like the flip sides of the same coin – both extensive space travel, one brutally grim and the other hopeful. We'll see.
The post-apoca book of fun by Rachel Sharp.
I also somewhere in all this want to watch the last season of Black sails. Oh, self.
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