I got a notification this morning that my application to join the Literal Librarian program was approved. Literal is one of numerous Goodreads alternatives that have launched in the past several years. I’ve been using it since May 2021 (in beta). I also use the Bookshelves feature in Micro.blog with the Epilogue app for iOS to track my reading. Micro.blog automatically posts to my Mastodon account, so I guess I use that too.
Finished reading: The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald 📚
Started reading: Thelonious Monk by Robin D. G. Kelley 📚
Started reading: I Must Resist by Bayard Rustin 📚
Finished reading: Tenth of December by George Saunders 📚
Started reading: Tenth of December by George Saunders 📚
Finished reading: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 📚
This the second novel about a fictional pandemic (and the immediate collapse of society) I managed to finish recently. The other one was Severance (2018) by Ling Ma. Both books were written and published in the years before the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
No more dystopian pandemic fiction for me for a little while.
Started reading: The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald 📚
Finished reading: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow 📚
This book is worth reading, as are the critiques of it, especially the responses by Chris Knight, Nancy Lindisfarne, and Jonathan Neale. I would not waste your time with any reviews penned by employees of the American Enterprise Institute.
I’m glad I finished this book and found it worth engaging with. Graeber and Wengrow present a much more hopeful view of humanity than the other popular titles in the Big Histories genre they are in argument with, including “Sapiens” and “Guns, Germs and Steel”.
Started reading: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 📚