twenty-seven word reviews of books read during august, september and october

Nnedi Okrafor’s Binti. Some great aliens in YA novella about Himba girl (Namibia) leaving home (in various senses) for offworld uni. A fiction about being tough enough to wage peace. 

Ken MacLeod's Corporation Wars: Dissidence. Emergent sentience, exo-mining, simulated simulations, political mistrust, relatable robots; the alt-right “fancying themselves elite while… outstripped economically by the Chinese and intellectually by their own phones.” Enjoyed.

Angela Nagle's Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right. Field-guide: ‘alt-lite’ (nasties, contrarian outrage-merchants), hard ‘alt-right’ (extreme racists, fascists), 4Chan, Pepe. Some ultra-left trends – Situationism, Yippies, valuation of ‘transgression’ for own sake – may’ve fed the beast.

Juliet Jacques' Trans: A Memoir. Narrates author’s trans journey, reflecting on school, family, literature, art/ LGBT cinema, theory, journalism, fear, violence, student debt, admin jobs, football (Norwich supporter, “someone has to be”).

Tessa Hadley, London Train Two stories; main character in one =incidental character in second; otherwise, links are geographical, thematic:  London, Wales, climate fear, love affairs, passage of time, cups of coffee.

John Williams' My Son’s Not Rainman: One Man, One Autistic Boy, A Million Adventures.   Writer’s gift for telling observations, funny lines (he does stand-up) mediates the intimacy of this readable account of autism (son) and nervous breakdown (dad). Myth-busting, tough, hopeful.

Daniel Siegel & Tina Payne Brayson's The Whole-Brain Child, 12 Proven Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind.   Like Gottman, a ‘grower’ for me; the more I reflect on the hand model and other metaphors and strategies here, the more depth and applicability I find. 

twenty-seven word reviews of books read since March

Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon.  Liked incursion of Nigerian folktale into Lagos-set SF; wanted to like more; found ‘putdownable’; polyphonic, magic-realist approach versus narrative drive, perhaps. Keen to read more by author.

C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. Theologically, philosophically well-grounded ‘core Christianity’ explication in clear-sighted, plain prose. Helps me recommit. Good. BUT race, gender, LGBT attitudes range from dated through jaw-dropping to WTF. Hmmm.

Tim Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage: Facing The Complexities of Marriage with the Wisdom of God. Sane, non-liberal (e.g. "headship") Christian thought and insight re-presented in full awareness of today’s context (so no WTF moments). Not scintillating but pragmatic. Religion speaks to culture.

H.G. Wells’ Ann Veronica.   Ann, adrift in London, stalked, mistaken for a prostitute, in same existential predicament as Wells’ Time Traveller in 802,701. Clammy horror good but quasi-Nietzschean sexual politics bad.

Karl-Ove Knausgaard’s A Death in the Family: My Struggle Book 1 (tr. Don Bartlett).   Had to get around to; compulsory (for a certain middle-aged male ‘literary’ demographic). Boring and intensely absorbing by turns (like life – good mimesis). Alcoholism, girls, father-son stuff.

John Gottman & Joan DeClaire’s Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting. Useful if working with families (or in one); categorisation of parenting styles as dismissing, emotion-coaching etc. is illuminating without being – as with some parenting texts - reductive.  

  

Mark O’Connell’s To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death. Literary sensibilities and experience of fatherhood inform author’s (i) researches into transhumanism (ii) road trip across America with Zoltan Istvar, running for President in a coffin-shaped bus.

Alex Evans’ The Myth Gap: What Happens when Evidence and Arguments aren’t Enough?. We must reconnect with our various religious/ cultural myths, esp. atonement, coming of age, to reach both inwards and outwards on climate. Mindfulness is non-trivial. Brief, recommended.