Ever wonder why when you were a kid in Oregon, you learned about the Iroquois and Cherokee tribes of the Eastern USA but nothing about local Native Americans? Why you learned about the pioneers crossing the plains on the Oregon Trail, but nothing about what they did once they arrived?
...Or maybe you didn't even notice how much was left out until this very moment, reading my words?
Here is the missing piece.
"Tribal Histories of the Willamette Valley" by David G. Lewis.
Fair warning, this book made me so upset that I cried. Not at the author, he's done an excellent job. At the astonishing cruelty, violence, and dishonesty shown to native people by (many) white settlers. At how little they asked for, and still didn't get. At how little is left of the ecosystems that sustained people and wildlife and were carefully maintained by native people. At how much astonishing wealth has accrued to those who stole from natives, even to the modern day.
Land acknowledgement statements are not enough! If you are a white person in Oregon, you need to read this.
Heather Burns has an absolutely deft way of turning the sometimes-dull world of digital privacy into entertaining, informative, and actionable prose. Too many of these sorts of books end up being a list of woes and end with "someone should do something, I guess?". Understanding Privacy is different. A…
Post from Manila! My book review of "Sine ni Lav Diaz: A Long Take on the Filipino Auteur", edited by Parichay Patra and Michael Kho Lim, has been published and I'm super chuffed to see that my writing has made it to the Philippines as well 🙂
THE OPPRESSION OF THE UYGHUR PEOPLE explored in heartbreaking detail through an exiled poet and filmmaker’s memoir. Beautiful writing about a horrifying topic brings stories of the imprisoned and murdered into the light. A MINUS
1/ For some years now, @kashhill has been a leading journalist on privacy and technology. Here she mainly tells the human story behind the facial recognition company Clearview (whom she brought to national attention). But there's much more to the book. ↵ #BookReview
#BookReview: Circumcision Scar: My Foreskin Restoration, Neonatal Circumcision Memories and How Christian Doctors Duped a Nation (2020) by Jay J. Jackson
Long-time gay rights activist Tim Hammond connects cultural fears of the intact penis with homophobia within this review of Jay Jackson's intensely personal book.
This book is outstanding. It's the mid 1980s, you're administrating a nascent fleet of UNIX boxen, and you are tasked with accounting for a 75¢ billing discrepancy. Naturally that eventually leads into an international conspiracy involving the FBI, NSA, and an excellent recipe for chocolate chip cookies. It is…
Borrowed The Lost Cause, written by @pluralistic (from the library), and was an enjoyable sci-fi novel, although perhaps too close for comfort to the present, and most certainly more optimistic than some of us here would be about the future; but, well recommended nonetheless. The hero of the book most certainly would be a denizen of this slice of the Fediverse. #bookreview#books#bookstodon
🆕 blog! “Book Review: Terry Pratchett - A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins”
★★★★★
Like a million fans, I have a precious memory of (briefly) meeting Terry Pratchett and getting him to sign something amusing. I hold on to it dearly. This is half-way between a biography and autobiography. Parts were clearly dictated and recorded prehumously and are…
🆕 blog! “Book Review: Hacking Capitalism - Modeling, Humans, Computers, and Money by Kris Nóva”
★★★★☆
I was saddened to hear of Kris Nóva's untimely death a few weeks ago. I had her book "Hacking Capitalism" on my eReader for several months, but hadn't got around to reading it yet. Never put these things off. The book is a complicat…
In my feed, you'll find: dark humor, dirty jokes, progressive politics, random lyrics, mindfulness, radical acceptance, and everything #books, #bookreview and #bookstodon. 🏳️🌈✊🗳️
Rather pleasingly, I averaged one book a week this year, 52 in total. 24 by women - although that doesn't include compilations which had a mixture of genders. So fairly even handed. As per usual, I alternated between fiction and non-fiction. I find my brain gets confused otherwise. I also set my eReader to have […]
🆕 blog! “Book Review: How Big Things Get Done - Lessons From the World's Top Project Manager by Bent Flyvbjerg, Dan Gardner”
★★★★⯪
Infrastructure is impossible. You have to wrangle thousands of people over dozens of months, with a budget of millions, to deliver something made of hundreds of plans, which has to fit …
I recently read (or rather listened) to abook that I want recommend: "Better Living Through Birding: Note from a Black Man in the Natural World"
It is an autobiography of Christian Cooper, a truly fascinating human being. Cooper is (sadly) most famous for being the Central Park birder who was threatened by a racist white woman (and you know probably the rest of that story, so I won't retell it here), but there is much more to his story including of course the #birding (he weaves stories of his hobby and passion throughout the book), but also as a writer for #comics who played a key role in bringing several #LGBTQ characters to the #Marvel universe. And throughout it all, he also explains eloquently the joys and heartbreak of being a #Gay#Black man in a world that is often hostile towards gayness and blackness ---and I can't forget to mention his interesting ideas about nature-based spirituality, but also issue of accumulated trauma and family drama.
A BLACK PHYSICIAN’S UNSPARING examination of the profound impact racism has on healthcare and health outcomes intertwines with stories of her own, her sister’s, and her mother’s lives as doctors. Thoughtful, deep, engaging. A MINUS
🆕 blog! “Book Review: We Are Bellingcat - Eliot Higgins”
★★★⯪☆
The problem with autobiographies is that every anecdote ends with "needless to say, I had the last laugh!" This corporate-autobiography is no different - as it details the rise and impact of Bellingcat - a team of investigators and journalists. I am in awe of Bellingcat - and have seen them give talks on a […]
‘Bantering with Bandits’: Annie Zaidi’s searing truths about Indian preoccupations and peculiarities
This book of essays by @anniezaidi creates a space where the personal and the political fuse to paint an often uncomfortable picture of our sociopolitical reality.
🆕 blog! “Book Review: Julia - Sandra Newman”
★★★★★
The central schtick of this book is a cliché brilliantly delivered. Take a side-character from a beloved book and retell the story through their eyes. I only have hazy memories of reading 1984 - where Julia is little more than a femme fatale. This book is an explicit and visceral journey through Julia's life in […]