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What are you reading Wednesday?
Dec. 9th, 2020 03:49 pmWhat have you finished reading?
I finished Havana Best Friends, a Cuban Noir novel. It was pretty crass, sexist, predictable and collapsed on itself at the end, in spite of an interesting turn of things when the shit hit the fan.
What led me to that book was Istanbul Noir, part of Akashic's series of "$city noir" short stories compendia. It was rather unequal but there was a fair number of good stories. The stories from women's perspectives were generally better, even when written by men. The American translator/editor lives in Turkey so there was no obvious Kurdish content, save for one story I think?
It think this was the first time I was reading noir novels in a long time, if ever? We've been watching a whole bunch of Western Noirs and the bar was set a little too high for these books... Back to science fiction and piracy for me.
What are you currently reading?
Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in the Syrian Kurdistan
It's a fascinating account of how they've tried to implement bottom-up, feminist autonomous social organization in a civil war context, with roots first planted by the PKK in the 1980s, then picked up by local underground activists in the 2000s after the PKK had to formally leave Syria (1998), and really picking up when Syrian society started erupting during the Arab Spring. Most of the survey concerns the years 2012-16 as Kurds took over their part of the country and set up social institutions to replace the state that they had ejected. It's really amazing and so frustrating that it's being absolutely blockaded economically and politically on all sides, just kept alive by the Pentagon because that suits the USA's geostrategic interests...
You'd think I'd be all over this but it's definitely /work/ to read. As usual with Kurdish things, especially a social survey like this, there are a gazillion names and acronyms of peoples, places and organizations to keep organized in one's head, and even for me who's followed Rojava for 5 years now, there is a lot of them that I didn't know yet.
I think this is book 3 or 4 of my targeted 6 Kurdish books to read this year. I'm afraid I might not achieve my new year's resolution...
I finished Havana Best Friends, a Cuban Noir novel. It was pretty crass, sexist, predictable and collapsed on itself at the end, in spite of an interesting turn of things when the shit hit the fan.
What led me to that book was Istanbul Noir, part of Akashic's
It think this was the first time I was reading noir novels in a long time, if ever? We've been watching a whole bunch of Western Noirs and the bar was set a little too high for these books... Back to science fiction and piracy for me.
What are you currently reading?
Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in the Syrian Kurdistan
It's a fascinating account of how they've tried to implement bottom-up, feminist autonomous social organization in a civil war context, with roots first planted by the PKK in the 1980s, then picked up by local underground activists in the 2000s after the PKK had to formally leave Syria (1998), and really picking up when Syrian society started erupting during the Arab Spring. Most of the survey concerns the years 2012-16 as Kurds took over their part of the country and set up social institutions to replace the state that they had ejected. It's really amazing and so frustrating that it's being absolutely blockaded economically and politically on all sides, just kept alive by the Pentagon because that suits the USA's geostrategic interests...
You'd think I'd be all over this but it's definitely /work/ to read. As usual with Kurdish things, especially a social survey like this, there are a gazillion names and acronyms of peoples, places and organizations to keep organized in one's head, and even for me who's followed Rojava for 5 years now, there is a lot of them that I didn't know yet.
I think this is book 3 or 4 of my targeted 6 Kurdish books to read this year. I'm afraid I might not achieve my new year's resolution...