Last year, I read the BuzzFeed article that inspired this book, and Rebecca and I discussed this topic in an episode of our podcast. I didn’t learn that Anne Helen Petersen had turned her article into a book until just around the publication day. Fortunately, I was still able to receive a review copy through NetGalley! I was very excited to dig into this book. Although in some ways this book could never…
-
-
The concept of culinary extinction came to my attention late last year, and it was one of those very intriguing, “Oh, yeah, I want to know more abou that” moments. I listened to Lenore Newman on an interview with Quirks & Quarks, and I also added Rob Dunn’s Never Out of Season to my to-read list at the same time (my library just happened to have this book and not Dunn’s, so I’m reading…
-
At first I admit to some scepticism about the idea that we could use mathematics to rethink our conversations around gender. I was apprehensive because science, and even to some extent mathematics (or at least more applied subsets of its, like statistics) have been misused and abused in service of gender stereotype fallacies. Indeed, Eugenia Cheng points this out herself, and this, along with her careful and patient exposition of her topic, eventually won me…
-
To an outsider (Canadian) like me, the United States college admissions system is bizarre. First there’s the byzantine distinctions between community colleges, state schools, private colleges … as opposed to Canada, where university and college have distinct meanings. It’s not just the vise-grip of the standardized testing agencies on students’ futures … it’s the whole ranking system, the prestige, and the intense competition among post-secondary schools for money and athletes. As an educator, I look…
-
My colleagues and friends keep coming to me for recommendations for anti-racist reading, and I, of course, want to keep educating myself. So I was chuffed when Little, Brown offered me a review copy of Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism. Now, I’m trying to mostly read anti-racism books written by people of colour—white people writing such books is fairly problematic, but Seyward Darby has seized on the…
-
Power Shift: The Longest Revolution exemplifies why the CBC Massey Lectures is such a compelling format. Sally Armstrong delivers, in 5 chapters of roughly equal length, a concise overview of the inequities faced by women around the world. She provides historical perspective, discusses the overt and covert biases present throughout our society, and includes examples of how we can change things for the better. She does her best to be inclusive and intersectional, not to…
-
I thought I would balance out my recent mathematical non-fiction read with a non-fiction read about the English language. Not only did I have one gathering dust on my to-read shelf for years, but it’s one that is just as technical and interested in education as The Math(s) Fix was. So, of course, it took me longer to read too. Also, I was apprehensive regarding Steven Pinker (more on that at the end of the…
-
My boss, fittingly, gave me Bossypants! She gave it to me in June after I broke my elbow, and I promptly put it on my shelf and did not read it, like I do with most books. But now is the time! The time to read Tina Fey’s comedic memoir.
Let’s start with the obvious: Fey is a comedy genius. That isn’t in question. She is funny. This book is funny. If you like…
-
Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life has been on my to-read list for a while (I blame Hannah Witton), but I finally bought it as a birthday present for a friend who shares my interest in these subjects. Emily Nagoski’s book is a comprehensive guide to how people with vulvas can become more comfortable and fulfilled in their sex lives. It’s a little bit science text, a…
-
Huge note: Since writing this review, I’ve actually come out as transgender! So, uh, enjoy all the parts here where I laughably reaffirm my cis-ness! I will revise this review at some point. (Note to future Kara: actually do that.)
I received this book as a gift from a friend who shares my interest in feminism. She found For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity somewhat revelatory. Like me, she…
-
I am white. I am extremely white, because I grew up (and currently live) in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Despite this city being situated on the lands of Fort William First Nation, it remains incredibly white and segregated (see Seven Fallen Feathers for more info). That’s changing a little now, and we have more people of colour coming here as immigrants and refugees. But I grew up largely sheltered from socializing with children of immigrants or…
-
I bought this as a birthday gift for someone I know who has quite the collection of shoes/heels, although it was on my to-read list before I considered it as a gift. High Heel is an unconventional treatise on this type of footwear. In short, easily-digestible chunks, Summer Brennan ponders the evolution of high heels in our history and culture. She wrestles with the conflicting attitudes towards high heels evinced by feminists, as well as…
-
Women are monsters, according to the patriarchy. That’s the thesis of Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, Jude Ellison S. Doyle’s follow-up to their 2016 Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why. To elaborate a bit more, Doyle argues that the portrayal of women (and femininity) in our media and culture overlaps with our understanding of the monstrous, the Other, the…
-
I don’t remember how Freedom Fallacy: The Limits of Liberal Feminism came on my radar. Someone somewhere must have mentioned it; it looks like I bought it from Book Depository four years ago. Anyway, I finally got around to reading it last summer. I was hoping to dig deeper into some of the essays, but honestly things like breaking my elbow took up most of my time, and now I just don’t have the inclination…
-
I live in Thunder Bay, the place of the eponymous sleeping giant, Nanabozho, and a location steeped in anti-Indigenous racism and an ongoing legacy of colonial oppression. So, despite being a white settler and thus the privileged party here, I do have to deal with these issues—and like other settler Canadians, I’ve got a tremendous responsibility here. I picked up The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools, and the Challenge of Conciliation because…
-
The common reaction to people seeing what I was reading with A Terrible Thing to Waste was, “Environmental racism? What’s that?” So I explained it to them, fairly succinctly I think, because it really isn’t that difficult of a concept. Indeed, when I mentioned that, historically, decisions about where to dump waste and where to build factories and how to zone cities or rent houses have disproportionately affected marginalized and racialized people, most of those…
-
Just over two years ago I read and reviewed Hannah Witton’s first book, Doing It!: Let’s Talk About Sex. I loved seeing a YouTuber I respected and whose videos I so enjoyed meet with success in book form. With The Hormone Diaries: The Bloody Truth About Our Periods, Witton does it again. Based this time on a long-running series on her channel chronicling her journey of self-exploration by discontinuing her birth control pill, …
-
With the news coming out of the United States about abortion bans and lawmakers who actually use phrases like “consensual rape,” this seemed like the right time to read Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture. Also, I was going on a library run and it was available. Roxane Gay collects 30 essays about rape or rape culture, some previously published and others newly written for this book. This is a serious book, sure,…
-
Oh boy, I should have checked out the Goodreads rating and reviews before buying this one. But I couldn’t resist! It was on sale at Chapters, and a whole book that seems to be about the history of writing? Sure, I flipped through the first few pages and detected a slightly pretentious tone—but I just thought it meant the author was very passionate and serious about their topic! I was seduced, I say! Seduced!
Palimpsest:…
-
I love behind-the-scenes looks at industries that we don’t often think about. Whether you’re buying a game in the store or downloading it from Steam, chances are you aren’t that knowledgeable about what the game development industry is actually like. Oh, you might have read some horror stories on Reddit, heard some of the gossip going back and forth on gaming blogs. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are…
Showing 41 to 60 of 154 results