queer transmasc, 23book reviews mostly, sometimes shitposting
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BOOK 13: The Tuskegee Student Uprising by Brian Jones
Jones does a great job of highlighting the student movement for black power at Tuskegee during the 60s. He contextualizes the history of the institute and really unpacks what it meant at the time to struggle to change an institution to work for you. There were a lot of remarkable things, namely that engineers were some of the most militant folks advocating for change, but also that there’s plenty of contradictions and progress isn’t always measured by wins. Student movements are complex, and Jones highlights this, but I think he concludes with an inspiring message that movements like these open up possibilities for things to be different and that the most radical things students can do is try to have a say in their own education. Highly recommend, especially for anyone involved in student activism. It pays to know your history.
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BOOK 12: Ponyboy by Eliot Duncan
Heartbreaking, raw, and so fucking beautiful. Eliot does a beautiful job of capturing the ftm experience in all its pain and messiness and joy too. Becoming yourself hurts but there’s no choice but to go forward. Definitely warning about heavy drug use / addiction, but I highly recommend. (Plus, I giggled at the Testo Junkie reference. Love seeing trans men in literary dialogue!)
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BOOK 11: Consequences of Capitalism by Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone
Based on a series of lectures given by the two authors in 2019, this book is perhaps one of the most striking things I’ve ever read. While at this point I’ve encountered a lot of the ideas in this book, I do say it’s the most comprehensive analysis I’ve seen of our current situation. Plus, I kept getting struck by certain lines of analysis that are even more poignant now in Trump’s second term. Definitely one of my top books I’ve read - would recommend!
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BOOK 10: Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
I speed-read this in like five hours the day of my book club, haha. It’s been a while since I have read YA books, and it went down really easy. Collins once again continues her scathing commentary on authoritarianism, capitalism, and media complicity. As a prequel I liked it because it shows us how Haymitch got to be the way he was when the original books opened. However, I feel like the commentary Collins gives us is just the same as the original series with not that much different. I guess there really can’t be that much different, since we are even further from the revolution that happens with Katniss later. Snow is still evil, the capitol citizens are still eager for a show that’s complete lies, we watch children kill each other and be resigned to death to keep another insurrection from happening. Maybe it’s because I’m reading this as an adult, but the book just felt… superficial. I wasn’t attached to the other characters as much as when I first read The Hunger Games, and I felt they lacked depth to really get behind. But I guess that’s what you get from YA. Good nostalgia read, but I’m looking for harder-hitting fiction these days. Going to have to suggest some better books for book club…
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BOOK 9: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
I genuinely have mixed feelings about this book. It’s interesting to hear a perspective from a non-Palestinian Arab living in the west about his own experiences with displacement and violence intertwine and inform his response to the genocide in Palestine. It’s kind of remarkable that he spends the whole book on the fence about violent resistance. Somehow, Omar both criticizes violent resistance while simultaneously advocating for a total rejection of current systems that are enabling the genocide. This seems a bit discordant to me, as if the point of violent resistance is not also a total rejection of the system. I’m not quite convinced that Omar’s assessment that simple non-participation in a system will be the most powerful agent for change. He’s right that not participating in capitalism will be the only thing that gets the wheels of power to listen, but I think there’s no accounting in his analysis for the increasing state violence against people that refuse to participate. What are they to do? Continue being perfect victims? There’s also an analogy he makes halfway through asking “where is the Palestinian Martin Luther King”, musing why there haven’t been any nonviolent resistance groups in Gaza and they’re “left with” Hamas. This kind of pissed me off, because MLK was not actually some famous champion of nonviolent resistance. There’s more history of violent resistance in the Civil Rights Movement than the American empire has wanted to acknowledge. MLK himself at the time was denounced as a violent extremist. Nelson Mandela, too, was called a terrorist for his resistance to South African apartheid.
All in all, there are some powerful points Omar makes, and I think there are some interesting insights. I was a bit frustrated that his message and standpoint felt muddled, and I still can’t figure out where he stands on some resistance tactics groups have been employing. It’s an interesting book in dialogue with many other writers I’ve read, but I found it lacking in some key areas.
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BOOK 8: Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri
This collection of essays is really thought-provoking. It really makes you think about the act of translation, and it was interesting to hear more philosophy behind one person’s relationship to translation and language. I would say this book was a lot closer to a poem than a novel. I am still struck by how intimate this was and still parsing out exactly how it’s changed my frame of reference, but it definitely has.
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BOOK 7: Blitzed by Norman Ohler
Holy shit… I had this book recommended to me recently and instantly had to pick it up. The way Ohler paints a disturbing picture of drugs in Nazi Germany is enthralling. I had no idea prior how much methamphetamines played a role in the blitzkrieg as well as Hitler’s own decline into addiction throughout the war as a result of his own personal doctor’s “treatment”. Fascinating to watch an entire fascist country lean into hard drugs to accomplish their deplorable goals. One can only wonder if Elon Musk is taking inspiration from the early years in blissful ignorance of the grotesque chemical dependence that followed…
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BOOK 6: Perfect Victims by Mohammed el-Kurd
I have been waiting to read this for a while. Genuinely a fantastic analysis of rhetoric frequently used in the struggle for Palestinian liberation. El-Kurd’s words are empowering, clear-headed, and encourage us all to rethink the language we use and the arguments we make. Reject the trap that Palestinians must be perfect to have a chance at being considered human by the western media. Definitely recommend reading this one carefully.
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BOOK 5: The Return by Hisham Matar
Truly devastating reflection on loss and exile. Through each story that Hisham presents us, we fall further into despair and get the feeling of searching along with him, never truly being of a place. We see the stark price that people pay for speaking out against authoritarian regimes, in this case Qaddafi in Libya. I was thoroughly haunted by how Hisham articulates the decades long search to find his father after he was abducted and sent to Abu Salim. It’s a strange sense of the world turning and some things healing and changing and growing while fundamentally some things are left behind - and the pain they cause is immense. This is one of the most vulnerable books I have ever read. It’s genuinely going to haunt me for a very long time.
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BOOK 4: Butter by Asako Yuzuki
This book took me so long to read because I got majorly sick halfway through and lost so much energy. HOWEVER!!! What a fucking fantastic book. Yuzuki does an amazing job of taking us as readers through the transformation our main character undergoes. I love all the imagery, the descriptions of food, and how our relationship to cooking changes throughout. I was fascinated and glued to my seat, essentially, as we discover more and more about the murderer our main character is interviewing. I don’t know how else to describe this book but stunning. I wish I could read it again for the first time. It’s playful in a really expertly done way. You become so immersed in the world while reading. I was surprised at how captivated I was the whole time. This is probably one of the best fiction books I have ever read. READ THIS BOOK!!!
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BOOK 3: Testo Junkie by Paul B. Preciado
A very interesting book, and one that feels very timely to read now with the rise of reactionary conservatives and their push to ban trans healthcare. Testosterone and similar hormonal transition as a way of resistance to what Paul calls the pharmacopornographic state. He argues that capital in this age is produced by pharmaceutical companies and pornography. Work is pornography. We subject our bodies to capitalism via the pharmaceutical industry, taking all forms of chemical modifications without thinking about how this changes our own body, our own subjective experience. For Paul, using testosterone is a drug, a way of getting high, a way of putting one’s body outside of the area that can be easily boxed, categorized, and labeled. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I understood everything that was going on in this book, there was an awful lot of theory and language that as someone outside the space of queer philosophy was hard to grasp. It took me a while to finish. But that being said, I do think it’s an amazing read. It brought a really interesting perspective, and I think it’s broadened how I think about capitalism and working under capitalism and using the tools of the pharmacopornographic system of control against itself.
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BOOK 2: Sand-Catcher by Omar Khalifah
I did not expect this book to be as funny as it was. The book follows these four Palestinian journalists as they try to get this old man to retell his memories of the Nakba for a newspaper article. The plot ensues when he refuses to actually respond to them or give them anything. The journalists get more and more desperate, and we can’t help but watch as the readers as the assignment becomes more and more of a train wreck. At once hilarious and profound, Khalifah interrogates the question of what the Nakba means for Palestinians. Definitely one of my favorite books ever.
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BOOK 2: […] by Fady Joudah
Had to stop multiple times through this poetry collection to just sob. Joudah is an amazing poet and this collection both cuts deeply and yet has an unshaking hope and love associated with it. “Dedication” at the end of section IV is perhaps the poem that most struck me in the whole collection.
“We are not afraid of love from the river to the sea.”
Read this book. Seriously.
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BOOK 1: Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington
Truly just a stunning book. Written in an easily digestible manner, Washington walks us through the systematic abuses African Americans have suffered at the hands of the medical system from slavery until now. I felt this was particularly important to read as an early career scientist that might continue in a future of medical research.
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New year, new reviews. Target for 2025: more than 34 books!
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BOOK 34: The Butterfly’s Burden by Mahmoud Darwish, tr. by Fady Joudah
Been meaning to read Darwish, and this collection of The Stranger’s Bed / A State of Siege / Don’t Apologize for What You’ve Done (some of his later works 1998-2003) is translated beautifully. Makes me want to learn Arabic. I recommend listening to readings of the poems while following along with the translation. Joudah does a wonderful job of retaining the Arabic flow in the translation to English. Very powerful poetry, would definitely recommend. And bonus, if you read this on the train like I did you might end up discussing Palestinian poetry with your seatmate!
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BOOK 33: All About Love by bell hooks
Finally got around to reading this one. Honestly felt like maybe I’ve just read so many books about the politics of radical love and being in community that a lot of the insights felt like things I have heard before. At any rate, would recommend reading it at least once in your life, especially as a very accessible introduction to rethinking how we love and relate to people in our lives.
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