I’ve been on a “books about books” run lately, beginning with Syria’s Secret Library, then Robert Caro’s Working, and now I’m finishing the wonderful The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Orlean is a writer for The New Yorker, which generally means excellent nonfiction. Her book about the canine movie star
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wmtc: what i’m reading: the library book by susan orlean
I’ve been on a “books about books” run lately, beginning with Syria’s Secret Library, then Robert Caro’s Working, and now I’m finishing the wonderful The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Orlean is a writer for The New Yorker, which generally means excellent nonfiction. Her book about the canine movie star
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: the library book by susan orlean
I’ve been on a “books about books” run lately, beginning with Syria’s Secret Library, then Robert Caro’s Working, and now I’m finishing the wonderful The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Orlean is a New Yorker writer, which generally means excellent nonfiction. Her book about the canine movie star Rin Tin
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: working by robert caro
Fans of Robert Caro rejoiced when we learned that Caro, author of nonfiction histories, was writing a book about his writing process. When the book was published, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one surprised by its brevity. At a slim 207 pages, Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing is the equivalent
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: working by robert caro
Fans of Robert Caro rejoiced when we learned that Caro, author of nonfiction histories, was writing a book about his writing process. When the book was published, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one surprised by its brevity. At a slim 207 pages, Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing is the equivalent
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: working by robert caro
Fans of Robert Caro rejoiced when we learned that Caro, author of nonfiction histories, was writing a book about his writing process. When the book was published, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one surprised by its brevity. At a slim 207 pages, Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing is the equivalent
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: A Short History of Progress – Ronald Wright
This lecture, which I attended at the University of Alberta, and later read the book was one of the cornerstones of the awakening of my intellectual curiosity about the world and how human societies work. Each time history repeats itself, so it’s said, the price goes up. The 20th century
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Books I Want to Read – One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism by William Greider
It seems like William Greider was frighteningly correct with the thesis of his book from 1997. This snippet from Counterpunch has raised my curiousity enough to make it point to borrow or buy the book. “Back in 1997, Greider wrote a book, One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic
Continue readingpolitics – Christy's Houseful of Chaos: Where does political authority come from?
One of the books I’ve been reading recently is called Piety and Politics: The Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia. One of the things it points out very early is that the divine authority of kings in ancient times is not necessarily the
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: ali: a life by jonathan eig
Ali: A Life is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary person. It’s an epic page-turner at more than 500 pages. This is simply a fascinating book about an utterly fascinating person. If Muhammad Ali hadn’t existed, you couldn’t make him up. No fiction character on this scale would be believable. It
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: ali: a life by jonathan eig
Ali: A Life is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary person. It’s an epic page-turner at more than 500 pages. This is simply a fascinating book about an utterly fascinating person. If Muhammad Ali hadn’t existed, you couldn’t make him up. No fiction character on this scale would be believable.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Urinary Leash – Feminist History
How you are treated in society is dependent on your sex. Men never had to deal with bullshit like this. “In the Victorian period, the lack of public facilities for women was intentional as a way of controlling their movements and keeping them out of public spaces, argues Dr Clara
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: ‘Night Soil’ – Cultural and Geographical Variations on the use of Human Waste
JSTOR always serves up interesting articles with a solidly researched background. How we think of human waste is dependent on the spatial location not only geographically, but historically as well. Compare and contrast human waste usage and disposal in18th century Japan versus England or France, the differences are remarkable. Appreciating
Continue readingpolitics – Christy's Houseful of Chaos: Sophists And Today?
Aaron Sorkin’s television show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip aired in 2006. Already, the show feels somewhat dated and when watching it with our children my husband and I found ourselves trying to explain how the public debate was different at that time. (Just as one example, these days
Continue readingpolitics – Christy's Houseful of Chaos: Conversations with Leigh Robertson and some reflections about making change in the world.
I had a great talk with Leigh Robertson the other day. Our conversation wandered from talking about child labour as a focus for teaching children about the history of the labour movement to talking about the gig economy. Then we moved onto talking about the Danish resistence movement during WWII.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Austerity – The History of A Dangerous Idea – Mark Blyth
A thick meaty discussion of the western political economy and the checkered history that has led us to the current financial mess we happen to be in. Great viewing, get some popcorn!
Continue readingwmtc: 11.11: there is no glory in war
Eleven people, on war. * * * * Imprisoned for opposing U.S. involvement in thewar in Europe, Debs ran for President from jail. He garnered 1,000,000 votes, at a time whenthe US population was 103,208,000, andonly men could vote. These are the gentry who are today wrapped up in the
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Guns & The British Empire – Protect the Homeland, Hamstring the Colonies.
The armament industries have lead the way in the conquest and modernization of the world. One of the key policies of British Empire was to keep manufacturing technology out of the hands of her far flung colonial conquests while denaturing and appropriating any of the native craftsmanship/technology solely for the
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