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Fall Books
Oct. 28th, 2024 03:00 pmLaziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price - Very much a pop-psychology book for the Tumblr generation; Price makes some good points but is a little more lacking in solutions. Price is queer and neurodivergent but also clearly gifted with the capabilities and resources to reinvent their life following burnout—which, good for them, but it doesn’t actually translate into advice that works well for many people. Yes, we’re all driving too hard and expecting too much of ourselves and it leads to a lot of bad outcomes, but as the saying goes, “you can’t personal responsibility your way out of a systemic problem.” I give them credit for getting out the message of, “You’re not crazy, the world is fucked up and unsustainable.” But that needs to be followed with, “What can we do to address this that doesn’t just drop us as individuals into horrifying poverty and early graves?”
How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss - Credit to her for writing this in 2019 and accurately predicting what we’re seeing in 2024. That said, despite dedicating an entire chapter to right-wing anti-semitism in America, she doesn’t talk about the reasons behind Evangelical Christian support of Israel, which I think is a massive, glaring oversight. (In short: Rapture mythology, which roughly a quarter of Americans believe in, holds that there must be a literal country called Israel and populated by Jews in order for literal Jesus to return and usher in the literal End Times. And that 99% of those Jews will die and go to hell in said End Times—with the remainder converting to Christianity—so this is not actually a good thing for Jews.) The fact that Republicans will support Israel but still hate Jews is made much clearer when you include this puzzle piece. She also spends a lot of time trying to convince you that right-wingers who murder Jews are basically the same as left-wingers who want them to assimilate, and that Trump’s stochastic terrorism is probably still not as bad as Columbia University letting anti-semitic Muslims speak there. And maybe I’m biased by the fact that I’m from a line of assimilated American Jews and I’m okay with assimilation in general, but I think the threat from the left isn’t “they think Jews should stop being so weird.” It’s that the younger generation started with a basis in right-wing propaganda and cultural Christianity they haven’t actually examined and then got fed a flood of anti-Israel propaganda from the Arab nations. Like, this isn’t the “third head of the hydra,” this is the other two working together and you’re working too hard trying to “both-sides” it for the American audience.
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler - Fantasy, comedy, and Groundhog Day time-loops. I can work with this. Davi has spent a few hundred lives (and a thousand years) trying and failing to save the Kingdom from the Dark Lord. She’s so pissed off this time that she’s decided to become the Dark Lord herself. It’s queer, it’s deeply referential to pop culture, and it clearly aims at my demographic. My biggest quibble is that this is only the first half of the story; after becoming Dark Lord (and discovering that her time-loop may no longer be as reliable as she thinks), Davi has to deal with the fact that her new job involves killing all the humans in the Kingdom. Yes, I’ll be buying the sequel.
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle – A horror novel about a fictional church and ex-gay conversion camp with unsurprising similarities to reality (lies, bigotry, corruption, extensive cult behavior, Prosperity Gospel) up to the point where actual demons appear to torture people. Tingle is open about being autistic, and that doesn’t necessarily come through when he’s writing about torrid love affairs with Tide pods and dinosaur billionaires, but it absolutely comes through here. I think this overtakes the Murderbot books for “most autistic book ever.” It’s PG-13 in the strict MPAA ratings: Plenty of violence and implied torture, but no sex, no nudity and no cursing. (And I have to imagine that’s deliberate!) Tingle’s style is a little awkward and ham-fisted at points—again, incredibly autistic book—but he’s not wrong and it’s fun the way a tongue-in-cheek horror movie is fun.
How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss - Credit to her for writing this in 2019 and accurately predicting what we’re seeing in 2024. That said, despite dedicating an entire chapter to right-wing anti-semitism in America, she doesn’t talk about the reasons behind Evangelical Christian support of Israel, which I think is a massive, glaring oversight. (In short: Rapture mythology, which roughly a quarter of Americans believe in, holds that there must be a literal country called Israel and populated by Jews in order for literal Jesus to return and usher in the literal End Times. And that 99% of those Jews will die and go to hell in said End Times—with the remainder converting to Christianity—so this is not actually a good thing for Jews.) The fact that Republicans will support Israel but still hate Jews is made much clearer when you include this puzzle piece. She also spends a lot of time trying to convince you that right-wingers who murder Jews are basically the same as left-wingers who want them to assimilate, and that Trump’s stochastic terrorism is probably still not as bad as Columbia University letting anti-semitic Muslims speak there. And maybe I’m biased by the fact that I’m from a line of assimilated American Jews and I’m okay with assimilation in general, but I think the threat from the left isn’t “they think Jews should stop being so weird.” It’s that the younger generation started with a basis in right-wing propaganda and cultural Christianity they haven’t actually examined and then got fed a flood of anti-Israel propaganda from the Arab nations. Like, this isn’t the “third head of the hydra,” this is the other two working together and you’re working too hard trying to “both-sides” it for the American audience.
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler - Fantasy, comedy, and Groundhog Day time-loops. I can work with this. Davi has spent a few hundred lives (and a thousand years) trying and failing to save the Kingdom from the Dark Lord. She’s so pissed off this time that she’s decided to become the Dark Lord herself. It’s queer, it’s deeply referential to pop culture, and it clearly aims at my demographic. My biggest quibble is that this is only the first half of the story; after becoming Dark Lord (and discovering that her time-loop may no longer be as reliable as she thinks), Davi has to deal with the fact that her new job involves killing all the humans in the Kingdom. Yes, I’ll be buying the sequel.
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle – A horror novel about a fictional church and ex-gay conversion camp with unsurprising similarities to reality (lies, bigotry, corruption, extensive cult behavior, Prosperity Gospel) up to the point where actual demons appear to torture people. Tingle is open about being autistic, and that doesn’t necessarily come through when he’s writing about torrid love affairs with Tide pods and dinosaur billionaires, but it absolutely comes through here. I think this overtakes the Murderbot books for “most autistic book ever.” It’s PG-13 in the strict MPAA ratings: Plenty of violence and implied torture, but no sex, no nudity and no cursing. (And I have to imagine that’s deliberate!) Tingle’s style is a little awkward and ham-fisted at points—again, incredibly autistic book—but he’s not wrong and it’s fun the way a tongue-in-cheek horror movie is fun.
