Books are Good, Actually

For December, we ready Babel by R.F. Kuang! We discussed favorite characters, unexpected climaxes, Harry Potter comparison and our favorite ship!

January - Red Star by Alexander Bogdanov

February - In Case You Get Hit by a Bus: How to Organize Your Life Now for When You're Not Around Later by Abby Schneiderman

For November, we read Play Nice by Jason Schrier! We discussed our history with Blizzard, surprising facts and uncovering misconceptions, the difference between iD and Blizzard and brainstorming how we could solve Blizzard's problem forever!

December - Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang

January - Red Star by Alexander Bogdanov

February - In Case You Get Hit by a Bus: How to Organize Your Life Now for When You're Not Around Later by Abby Schneiderman

For October, we read The Witch by Ronald Hutton. We discussed our knowledge of witches and witchcraft, how this books differs from The Calaban and the Witch, shamanism and how the Catholic church turned out to be reasonable!

November - Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment by Jason Schreier

For September, we read Technopoly by Neil Postman and boy howdy...we had some thoughts and feels about this book. We discussed some Postman's war against social science, US a technopoly hellscape?, industries that have surrendered to technology and some Warhammer 40k!

October - The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present by Ronald Hutton

For August, we watched Don't Look Up directed by Adam McKay. We discussed our favorite characters and moments, what worked and didn't work, we answered the question about was this really an allegory to climate change and so much more!

Articles referenced:

https://www.technicianonline.com/culture/critics-are-right-about-don-t-look-up-it-sucks/article_528e4384-7224-11ec-acb0-7740f9a22af1.html

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/12/critics-of-dont-look-up-are-missing-the-entire-point

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2022/01/dont-look-up-satire/621256/

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-crude-demagogy-of-dont-look-up

Back to reading for the rest of the year! Maybe...?

September - Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman

For July, we read The Murderbot Diaries: Artificial Condition by Martha Wells! We discuss our favorite characters and moments, revelations made or not made in the book, and if we are AI if we took questions from Reddit.

For August, we are going to watch "Don't Look Up!" available on Netflix.

Reddit questions: https://www.reddit.com/r/bookclub/comments/199kj1a/discussion_bonus_book_artificial_condition_by/

For the month of June, we read Slow Down by Kohei Saito! We discussed the life long pursuit of studying and reinterpreting Marx, Saito's four outcomes and futures, disaster capitalism, another rant on vegetarianism by Angela, and a very bad attempt to end on a more hopeful note.

July:⁠⁠ Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

For May, we read Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham! We discussed the little town around the little nuclear plant, the big explosion, who's at fault, and if we would even visit.

June: ⁠Slow Down by Kohei Saito⁠

July:⁠ Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

For April, we read Socialist States and the Environment Lessons for Eco-Socialist Futures by Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro! We discussed things we have learned from the examples of socialist states, what was missing from the book, comparison to Half-Earth Socialism, and degrowth policies.

https://monthlyreview.org/2022/09/01/a-new-environmental-history-of-socialist-states/

May: Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham

June: Slow Down by Kohei Saito

July: Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

For March, we read King Richard by Michael Dobbs! We discussed our knowledge about Watergate, interesting tidbits gleamed from the book, what critical mistakes were made and the structure of the book.

Upcoming:

April - ⁠⁠Socialist States and the Environment Lessons for Eco-Socialist Futures by Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro