Now Reading, Now Read
Discover more from Eating an Island
Now Reading, Now Read
Some thoughts on some books: Tracey Lindeman, Omer Aziz, Matt Black and others.
The sun has been shining brightly the past couple of days; while the temperatures remain cold, the spring light has been a welcome salve. -JRS
Tracey Lindeman, Bleed
I’m a sucker for a great book by a talented journalist (e.g. Dark Money, Bad Blood, Chasing the Scream), so it’s no surprise that I loved this one, Lindeman’s first. She combines exceptional writing and in-depth reportage with memoir – literal decades of pain and suffering – to create an engaging and enraging indictment of the healthcare system. I sincerely hope this book gets the attention it deserves.
Omer Aziz, Brown Boy
Aziz is an extremely talented up-and-coming writer, and his memoir proves, as expected, well written and charming. (For a short-form sample of the author’s work, check out his terrific essay on Jordan Peterson from Harper’s Magazine.)
Stephen Marche, On Writing and Failure
A slender volume – pamphlet, really – that I’ve started prescribing to all my friends who write. While it can feel a bit bro-y at times, both in its hard-nosed take on writing and its survey of writers, it makes for a valuable read, all the same. (It certainly came at the right time for me, after I had already started to excise any notion of popular “success” from the work that I do as a writer and artist.)
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired our Minds and the World, Max Fisher
You probably use social media for personal or professional reasons. You probably have some understanding of how bad it is, anecdotal or otherwise. Fisher’s book makes it make sense, explaining the hows and the whys, from the beginning. If you’ll allow the hyperbole, I’d consider this book required reading for understanding our current politics and culture.
Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works
I’ll say this much: Scholars and other experts on fascist and authoritarian politics have been ringing the alarm bells for a few years now. This should probably concern us.
Matt Black, American Geography
I began to study the craft of photography three years ago; as a life-long lover of words, it’s been a liberating experience to explore the world without them. (You can see some of my work here.) In recent months, I’ve begun to loosely compile my work into something that might become a monograph and, to that end, started studying books by established photographers.
Which is how I ended up here, in awe of Matt Black’s incredible book. The Magnum photographer spent years travelling over 100,000 miles around the continental US and Puerto Rico to compile a stark and stunning portrait of contemporary poverty.
