November Reviews

Discussed in this post: 9 books (Organism and Environment; Weird Life; Illness as Metaphor; A Sorrow Beyond Dreams; The Robber; Go Tell It on the Mountain; The Vanishing Hitchhiker; Collected Shorter Poems; and Burma Chronicles); 4 Movies (The Dance of Reality; Solaris; Loving Vincent; and Songs My Brothers Taught Me); and 2 Documentaries (Voyage of Time; and Jodorowsky’s Dune).

Continue reading

June Reviews

Discussed in this post: 3 Books (A Special Hell; Taking Sides; This is Not a Program); 6 Movies (The Lobster; Alps; Attenberg; Miss Violence; Hunt For the Wilderpeople; Personal Shopper); and 2 Documentaries (Incident at Restigouche; They Call Us Monsters).

Continue reading

May Reviews

Discussed in this post: 4 Books (From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation; The Sunjata Story; Medicine Walk; and The Assault); 4 Movies (Winter Sleep; The CelebrationI, Daniel Blake; and Krisha); and 2 Documentaries (Sunless; and Daughter of the Lake).

Continue reading

April Reviews

In April I read four Books (Living at the Edges of Capitalism; Vertigo; The Skin; and The Passion According to G. H.) watched three Movies (Black Sunday; Beyond the Black Rainbow; and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage) and two Documentaries (Hotel Terminus; and Newtown).  I wanted to write detailed reviews of some of them, especially the first book, but I am up to my ears in other projects at the moment so these are even more inadequate than my already inadequate reviews.  A star system is looking more and more appealing all the time…

Continue reading

December Reviews

Reviewed in this post: 9 books (Conflict is Not Abuse; Solidarity and Difference; Paul and the Stoics; Personal patronage under the early Empire; Seiobo There Below; Giovanni’s Room; The Story of a New Name; teaching my mother how to give birth; and The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni), 3 movies (The Battleship Potemkin; Andrei Rublev; and On the Silver Globe), and 5 documentaries (Author; Little Hope was Arson; An Open Secret; Rape in the Fields; and Rape on the Night Shift).

Books

1. Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair by Sarah Schulman.

08 Covers.indd

Continue reading

October Reviews

Discussed in this post: 6 Books (I Am Woman; Destroyer of the gods; Paul, the Fool of Christ; Come Out, My People; The Ancient Economy; The Rings of Saturn); 1 Movie (Atanarjuat); 2 Documentaries (People of the Kattawapiskak River; Tickled).

Books

1. I Am Woman by Lee Maracle.

maracle

Continue reading

July Reviews

Discussed in this post: 8 books (Paul’s Summons to Messianic Life; Radical Embodied Cognitive Science; Consider the Lobster; Sorcerer’s Screed; Angel Wings Splash Pattern; The Moviegoer; and American Gods) and 3 documentaries (O.J.: Made in America; Patience: After Sebald; and Fursonas).

Continue reading

May Reviews

[Pardon the delayed posting, I was in Iceland.  When I have forgotten enough of that experience to think I can speak of it, perhaps I will write something about it.  Until then, there are reviews to be done.]

Discussed in this post: 5 books (Waiting for the Barbarians, The Will to Change, Dying From Improvement, My Struggle: Volume Five, and Child of Woe) and 2 documentaries (Requiem for the American Dream, and The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution).

Continue reading

January Reviews

[A few years back, I stopped doing my monthly book reviews.  I’m going to try and get back into that as well as maybe doing some film and documentary reviews.  Rather than doing formal reviews, I’m mostly going to use these texts or films as springboards for thought so I won’t always be providing very detailed analyses of whatever title happens to be under discussion.  I’m sure google can lead to any number of more traditional reviews.  Also, I’m happy to hear in the comments about what other people are reading or watching and enjoying!]

Books

1. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James.

James

Jamaica is more than Bob Marley as the CIA knew full well in 1976 when the Rasta who sang against downpression and isms was shot.  Although Papa Doc Duvalier was firmly established by violence and terror and money in Haiti, the Cuban revolution had succeeded against all odds.  Granted, Che was already dead for nine years but his witness and words — ¡hasta la victoria siempre! — lived on.  In the mid- to late twentieth century much of the Caribbean was in flux and it was hard to know where the cards would fall.  Would the the people manage to shake off the yoke of colonial imperialism, foreign powers, and client rulers willing to betray their own people for personal profit, or would those powers triumph and beat the people down in order to maintain ever growing disparities between the rich and the poor?

Continue reading