Love, Money, Sex and Death in the 21st Century by Louis Shalako
A mind-blowing series of essays concerning ten ethical and moral dilemmas facing modern science as well as the rest of humanity. The 21st Century is sure going to be interesting.
"Around year 2000 BCE, the Sumerian language, in which the poems are written, died out as a native language, becoming instead a language of scholarship and religious rituals, much like Latin in Europe and Sanskrit in India. And so, it had to be taught in schools, and the copying of Sumerian poems—including those attributed to Enheduana—was a key part of the school curriculum in ancient Babylonian cities like Nippur and Ur."
Things That Can and Cannot Be Said: Essays and Conversations by Arundhati Roy & John Cusack, 2024
An activist and an actor reflect on Edward Snowden and the surveillance state in this collection that “reads like a whistleblower’s travel diary” (Disorient). In late 2014, Arundhati Roy, John Cusack, and Daniel Ellsberg traveled to Moscow to meet with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Hilary Mantel’s posthumous ‘A memoir of my former self’ is of course of great interest to fans of her fiction, but every one of the disparate, beautifully written pieces in this book is worth reading on its own merits.
FIERY, UNSETTLING, INCISIVE collection of essays delves deep into history and cultural critique as well as the author’s life for a rigorous exploration of power and control, from racism and colonialism to misogyny and sexual violence. A MINUS
In this magnificent and often surprising collection of essays Barthes explores the myths of mass culture. Taking subjects as diverse as wrestling, films, plastic and cars, Barthes elegantly deciphers the symbols and signs embedded deep in familiar aspects of modern life, unmasking the hidden ideologies and meanings which implicitly affect our thought and behaviour.
Classic Krakauer Essays on Wilderness and Risk by Jon Krakauer
Spanning an extraordinary range of subjects and locations, these articles take us from a horrifying avalanche on Mt. Everest to a volcano poised to obliterate a big chunk of greater Seattle at any moment; from a wilderness teen-therapy program run by apparent sadists to an otherwordly cave in New Mexico, studied by NASA to better understand Mars...
Hi everyone. I'm going to share a new #introduction.
I'm a #nonbinary (they/them) movement journalist in my 40s, currently based in Central #Texas. From 2022 until today's layoffs, I was Digital Editor at the @TexasObserver. I've been a writer, journalist, editor since at least 2011, when I got my start on the primordial political blog Firedoglake. My involvement with the Occupy Wall Street movement helped make me a journo and I've always worn my bias on my sleeve. (1/?)
In November of 2022, I launched @TexasObserver dot social, helping the Observer become one of the first publications to run its own server on the #fediverse. We quickly amassed well over 15,000 followers as a result of our engaged presence here.
Fighting Against Western Imperialism by Andre Vltchek compiles ten modified essays that were written during just a few months of the onslaught of the Western imperialism all over the world.
Travel back to the year 1926 and into the rush of experiences that made people feel they were living on the edge of time. Touch a world where speed seemed the very essence of life.
"Taken together, the essays reveal the dynamics of what the editors call an "imperial commons," a lively, empire-wide print culture. They show that neither empire nor book were stable, self-evident constructs. Each helped to legitimize the other."