390 reviews found
Showing 221 to 240 of 390 results
Laurie Penny has been one of my favourite authors for a while now. Her incisive takes on how feminism can be more intersectional, more anti-capitalist, have continued to be on point as the United States and UK shamble towards their respective political armageddons (armagedda?). Penny’s Unspeakable Things is the feminist primer for my generation. So when I heard that she had a new book coming out, and that it was called Bitch Doctrine: Essays…
It has been over six years since I last read and reviewed an Austen novel, and nearly as long since I received A Brief Guide to Jane Austen: The Life and Times of the World’s Favourite Author as a birthday gift, along with another Austen biography-like book that I’ll review shortly. Charles Jennings tackles his task with four parts: the actual life of Austen, her novels, life in Regency England, and then life…
I was really looking forward to finally digging into Between the World and Me. It seemed like the perfect type of summer reading: intellectually stimulating, yet short; intense in its topics and writing, yet luxurious in its prose. Ta-Nehisi Coates' conscious emulation of the structure and style of early twentieth century writers like James Baldwin (whom, to be fair, I haven't read) makes for a nice departure from more prosaic non-fiction. Epistolary as it…
Buckle up and make sure you’re wearing your g-suit, because this is one of those rare books that live up to all the hype. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth comes with ridiculously high expectations: it has a bunch of awards, and everyone gives it such glowing reviews. So, naturally, I tempered my excitement. As anyone who has read my reviews knows, I love space and science fiction. I welcomed the opportunity to read…
This is the book on transgender rights, gender identity and expression, and policy that you never knew you wanted.
Welcome to the latest instalment of “$#A$^% am I ever behind at reviewing my NetGalley books”. Today I review Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter?, out at the beginning of June from New York University Press. To summarize Heath Fogg Davis’ thesis in one sentence in his own words: “I show why it is in the…
Hello, and in this instalment of “Ben continues to be behind on reviews and on NetGalley reviews in particular” we’re reviewing Paranoid Science: The Christian Right's War on Reality, by Antony Alumkal. I was drawn to this book in much the same way that other people are drawn to evangelical Christianity: the promise of answers. Of course, in this case, I was looking for answers as to why and how the Christian right continues…
I have been wanting to go gradeless for a while now. Assigning numbers to students’ work has always felt very arbitrary. Even in a system as steeped in rubrics as Ontario’s, I still don’t have any confidence in marking work—particularly English, but also math—and giving it a number. Really, at the end of the day, what is the difference between an 82% and an 83%? Or an 85%? It’s so silly. And by putting a…
This book makes one uncomfortable from the very start. Moore lists the ways in which American society embraced the use of radium at the turn of the century. They put it on and in practically everything. It glowed in the dark, after all! It was miraculous! Moore’s blithe list is just so jarring to a 21st-century reader who is aware of radioactivity and the dangers of radium. Yet it’s an effective way to establish the…
I can’t remember when, exactly, I started watching Hannah Witton’s YouTube channel. I’ve backed her on Patreon for over a year now, though, because she’s doing important work. YouTube has a fantastic community of people who care about discussing and educating on topics like sex and sexuality in a way that is accessible to young people. Given that many countries’ sex education curricula are lacking, to say the least (Ontario’s is better than many, especially…
This is what I knew about vaccines prior to reading this book:
Here Douglas Coupland goes again, trying to break our brains and our library cataloguing systems. Is Bit Rot fiction or non-fiction? It’s a collection of both! Oh noes! It contains short stories, including some previously published in Generation A (which I read almost 7 years ago, so I have zero recollection of any of it), and essays and assorted musings. In general, this is Coupland’s most up-to-date published writing on how we’re dealing with the…
Who doesn’t like a good controversy in their popular science books? What’s a philosophical theory about the nature of the universe if it doesn’t ruffle some feathers? No one wants to write a book and then have everyone turn around and shrug at you. That doesn’t sell! So it’s not really surprising that Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality is a controversial book by a somewhat controversial physicist. I received…
I might need to stop requesting non-fiction books from NetGalley, because it seems like I haven’t been very successful with them. In this case I don’t know if I just didn’t read the description properly or didn’t understand it, but I thought Trans Voices: Becoming Who You Are was by a trans author and comprised longer-form interviews with transgender people. Instead, this inaccurately titled book is by a cisgender gay man who intersperses his medicalized,…
I suppose I should start with one of those disclaimers about how I received a free electronic copy of this from NetGalley and Algonquin Young Readers. However, I also preordered two hard copies with my own money (OK, someone else’s money in gift card form) even before that request was approved. But why wait a whole three weeks when I could read it earlier than that? That’s how excited I am for Here We Are:…
No, but seriously, did you expect anything less of a rating from me? This book is kickass. It is literally everything I have wanted in a science history book for a while.
Hidden Figures details the lives and achievements of the Black women who worked first as computers, then as mathematicians and engineers, for NACA (the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics) and its successor, NASA. Margot Lee Shetterly pulls back the curtain on an aspect…
It’s with no regret, but some shame, that I admit I’m not a fan of poetry, and that I actively avoid teaching it. I use poems in my classes, when we’re talking about other subjects. But I avoid teaching the mechanics and technique of poetry, analyzing the metre and rhythm, looking into the intricacies of imagery and similes and repetition. I do this largely because, as a reader, I am not comfortable with poetry, and…
It’s entirely a coincidence that I read about Marie Antoinette in Trainwreck just prior to picking up Marie Antoinette’s Darkest Days. That being said, it was nice to have a little primer from Sady Doyle about why Antoinette is such a fascinating character from a feminist perspective. Here, Will Bashor pieces together Antoinette’s experiences while imprisoned in the Conciergerie prior to her trial and execution. He draws upon a wealth of primary sources in…
Trainwreck was published on my birthday, so it was kind of like Jude Ellison S. Doyle was giving me a birthday gift. Not really, at all, in any way. But still, a great coincidence. I’ve enjoyed reading their writing on various sites for years now, so when I heard they had an honest-to-goodness actual book coming out, I was elated. Fortunately, Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear … and Why does…
Oh man, I did not pick the right time to start reading Haters: Harassment, Abuse, and Violence Online (yay Oxford comma!). I started this two days before the American Election Day, and then after those results, I just had to kind of … put it down a bit. I was planning to read it over a week or so, because like Indigenous Writes, this is an academic-but-accessible book about some heavy stuff, and reading…
Wow, this one was rough. I had to borrow the audiobook version from my library/Hoopla because that was the only format available, and it is the abridged audio edition. I normally avoid abridged editions. What’s the point in missing out on a bunch of the book? In the case of Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, however, I think I’ll make an exception. This is just a terrible, even actively harmful book,…
Showing 221 to 240 of 390 results