author: Thomas Frank

name: Steev

average rating: 4.00

book published:

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2019/06/28

shelves: politics, own-it, fun

review:

author: Damon Krukowski

name: Steev

average rating: 3.79

book published:

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2019/06/09

shelves: art, politics, own-it

review:
This is a really great book. As soon as I saw it I knew I had to get it and read it ASAP. But YMMV. I'm a sound/noise/music/art guy, so am definitely biased.

Anyway, it's about way more than sound and music. It's about what the internet and the digital world we're in now has done to us and our culture and our society.

The design of the book reminds me of McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage. The title is a nod to John Berger, and the book does a good job of aspiring to, but isn't quite get up to the level of, Berger's perspective-shifting book Ways of Seeing. But almost.

Highly recommended to anyone with similar obsessions to my own.

author: Jacobin

name: Steev

average rating: 3.56

book published:

rating: 3

read at:

date added: 2019/05/10

shelves: own-it, politics

review:
I suppose it's important, but the deep dive into the financial sector is really pretty dry.
I see that somebody has to be understanding and working at that level, but it was a hard slog getting through a lot of this. And for the most part the basic message was continuous throughout, and already well-known: finance capitalism sucks, is totally out of control, and needs to be reined in, and nothing has really been accomplished toward that end even in the wake of the 2008 crisis. I guess it's good to be reminded.

author: Jacobin

name: Steev

average rating: 3.83

book published:

rating: 5

read at: 2019/04/25

date added: 2019/04/25

shelves: children, politics, own-it

review:
As a parent and as a leftist this is so good to read. Depressing in many ways, but good that there's this kind of analysis of kid-related politics.

author: Annalee Newitz

name: Steev

average rating: 3.73

book published: 2017

rating: 4

read at: 2019/04/13

date added: 2019/04/13

shelves: fun, novels, own-it

review:
Mixed feelings about this book. It brings up a lot of super interesting issues and builds a fascinating future world. However, the simplistic and largely unearned character development and dialogue and human interaction, plus all the overt exposition isn't really my cup of tea, to put it generously, or to be more critical, those things make the book feel like a clumsy YA novel. Or maybe that's just how genre SF is and I never really noticed before? Or forgot?

I've been reading Newitz's journalism for about 20 years (or at least it seems that way) and I'm certain she's smart and knowledgeable. But she's got a ways to go before her fiction is something I'd consider literature.

author: Jonathan Lethem

name: Steev

average rating: 3.91

book published: 1999

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2019/03/10

shelves: crime, novels, own-it

review:
This is great. Lethem is so consistently great and I don't know why I never read this sooner.
I love that the narrator has Tourette's. Is there any precedent for that? It's a great, at least to me, realistic take on OCD, from the inside.

author: Sam Lipsyte

name: Steev

average rating: 3.00

book published: 2001

rating: 4

read at:

date added: 2019/02/15

shelves: fun, novels, own-it

review:
This is a great book. Laugh-out-loud funny, dark, profound. Poetic and snarky and satiric and brilliant. Certainly Lipsyte got better after this first novel. Homeland and The Ask are better. But if you're a fan and a completist, definitely read this.

The drawbacks are that Lipsyte is one of those authors that is all about style rather than realism. His books are bit like Aaron Sorkin's scripts. Nobody really talks that way, but, but it's so good that you don't care. Except you wouldn't want to read only this kind of thing. It's like poetry, rather than a story you can believe in. And that's fine.

author: Chris Lehman

name: Steev

average rating: 0.0

book published:

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2019/01/30

shelves: own-it, politics, fun

review:

author: Harry Crews

name: Steev

average rating: 4.02

book published: 1976

rating: 4

read at: 2019/01/29

date added: 2019/01/29

shelves: fun, novels, own-it

review:
I like this but it was pretty brutal. Kind of like a 70s version of Cormac McCarthy. Lots of senseless pointless violence, graphic sex, racism, misogyny. But there is a deeper thread somewhere. Southern redneck ex football player jock has an existential crisis in the midst of A bachanalian redneck mega party.

author: Brennan Lee Mulligan

name: Steev

average rating: 4.16

book published: 2017

rating: 5

read at:

date added: 2019/01/01

shelves:

review: