RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

[spiralsheep]

What are you reading?

Current booknook friending meme still active:

https://booknook.dreamwidth.org/37093.html

Comments

[mxroboto]

Intruder by Louis Charbonneau. Picked it up in a pulp 70s scifi lot. It's atrocious. Every section begins with a variation of "[First Name Last Name] is with [Other First Name Last Name] at [Entire Place Name]." The sexism is insane. The characters are cardboard cutouts except for the women, which are cardboard cutouts with legs to the gotdamn moon, even The One Girl Who Is "Surprisingly" Smart. But the glimpse of early reactions to technology -- it's about a computer system taking over a town -- is interesting. It's a popcorn book.

Another Country by James Baldwin. From the library. It's incredible (and probably the only reason I'm getting through Intruder tbh), it's complex, it's dark, it's upsetting, it's empathetic, it's one of those books that as I read it I think you are experiencing this for the first time and that truly only happens once, so maybe slow down a little. I've been combing through his entire catalogue since falling in love with Giovanni's Room.

[dancesontrains]

James Baldwin was one of the best writers the USA has ever produced, I think.

And, considering his opinions on the country and on white Western societies in general, they should be ashamed too.