science fiction

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April Reading

I feel repetitive in noting I didn’t read as much as I’d hoped to this past month, but April was truly one for lite reading. In part, due to an overall lack of motivation and, more importantly, the precedence of a wonderful family visit. Nonetheless, a few things did get read, and for those interested, here they are.

  • Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, by Herman Melville
  • Dawn, by Octavia E. Butler
  • Not a Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
  • The City Inside, by Samit Basu
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March Reading

I blame this month’s lack of reading on the U.S. government. In particular, preparing documentation for our appointment at the U.S. embassy to obtain a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA), which perhaps I’ll write about at another time, but probably won’t. The good news is at least all that work/not-reading paid off and our little one is now a U.S. citizen.

But in between cursing profligate bureaucratic obtuseness and the absurdity of citizenship, a few books got read, along with a series of fascinating academic essays, which I’ll be sharing more about below. This month’s round-up includes:

  • Becoming an Ally to the Gender-Expansive Child: A Guide for Parents and Carers by Anna Bianchi
  • The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
  • Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children by Diane Ehrensaft
  • The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty
  • Polarización y transfobia: Miradas críticas sobre el avance de los movimientos antitrans y antigénero en México por Julianna Neuhouser, et al.
  • Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene Carruthers
  • The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
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February Reading

Another month gone and some more books read. Why not share? Building off the epically popular “January Reading” post, clicked on by an entire 11 people who weren’t me, I’ve decided to expand the Internet a bit and add a post for February’s books.

As a result of life circumstances, I didn’t get as much reading done as I was hoping to this month, though some books definitely gave me a lot to talk about. How about you? What have you been reading? As for myself, here are the texts this post will be talking about:

  • Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov
  • The Keeper’s Six by Kate Elliott
  • The Visit by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild
  • Radon Journal Issue 2
  • Sustainable Superabundance: A Universal Transhumanist Invitation by David W. Wood
  • The Actual Star: A Novel by Monica Byrne
  • The Idea of the World: A Multi-Disciplinary Argument for the Mental Nature of Reality by Bernardo Kastrup
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January Reading

For those who don’t know, one thing I love to do is read. And while the Occidental calendar of months and years are rather arbitrary, one thing I have started doing in 2023 is writing brief reviews of what I’ve been reading and sharing them on a couple social media sites. I figured I might as well share them here as well. Instead of publishing each review as its own post, I’ve decided to just do a one-off round-up of every book I’ve read this month. I have no idea if this will be a regular feature of the blog, we’ll see what next month brings.

A major reason for doing this is that along with reading books, I love talking about books. So if you’ve got thoughts on any of the books or reviews below, or have your own recommendations, please do share! I’m always looking for new reads to add to my list.

Here’s a list of the books reviewed in this post:

  • Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov
  • Critique of Black Reason by Achille Mbembe
  • The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
  • A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging by Dionne Brand
  • Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory by Martha Wells
  • The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe
  • Ontological Terror: Blackness, Nihilism, and Emancipation by Calvin L. Warren
  • Machinehood by S.B. Divya
  • Cannibal Metaphysics by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
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