Recent reading
Apr. 1st, 2019 06:54 pmElbilen och jakten på metallerna by Arne Müller (2019, title means The Electric Car and the Hunt for Metals)
This is the fourth book I've read by Müller, and he consistently writes really good journalism. His themes are mining, the environment, regional politics and the impact of capitalism on the countryside. He wrote one book on the mining boom in Sweden about ten years ago; after that, metal prices crashed and many mines went bankrupt and planned projects didn't happen. Now metal prices and demand are rising again, especially for minerals used in battery technology. Müller looks at several projects that don't look so good on the environmental front, and also he looks at how much metals we'd actually need to electrify all cars; the result is not encouraging. Probably there will be more conflicts over mining in Sweden's future.
Queen's Shadow by E. K. Johnston (2019)
Recced by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skygiants. I thoroughly enjoyed this! Read if you want women being competent and loyal to each other while also wearing cool space outfits and carefully crafting their public personas. Funny how this and Blood Lines are both about the political process in a way that the Star Wars movies are not (it's ages since I watched I-III though, so I can't speak for those). In the movies, the good guys are always the underdogs and they do dramatic war stuff with spaceships and blasters. In The Last Jedi, they even cut down the Resistance to just a few people who now have to start over, like they weren't underdogs enough already. In these books, I do enjoy watching people try to build something instead of desperately fighting.
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (2012)
For my fannish book club; abandoned partway through. I am a bad book club participant! It was unfortunate that before this book, I had read an account of the role of the internet in the Arab Spring and after, written by a participant who is also a programmer, because it made that aspect of the book seem completely unrealistic. I could not suspend disbelief at all, and was relieved once the magic stuff got into it. To be fair to the book though, it was actually written before the Arab Spring. But even besides the computer stuff, I did not like the main character and the book did not grip me.
Revolution at Point Zero by Silvia Federici (2012)
I will probably abandon this as well. I wish it was written a bit less academically--I guess I've gotten spoiled with books written in a more direct and accessible way. Anyway, it's about housework, childcare, eldercare, etc, and how those things intersect with capitalism, and the author's changing views on this throughout her life.
This is the fourth book I've read by Müller, and he consistently writes really good journalism. His themes are mining, the environment, regional politics and the impact of capitalism on the countryside. He wrote one book on the mining boom in Sweden about ten years ago; after that, metal prices crashed and many mines went bankrupt and planned projects didn't happen. Now metal prices and demand are rising again, especially for minerals used in battery technology. Müller looks at several projects that don't look so good on the environmental front, and also he looks at how much metals we'd actually need to electrify all cars; the result is not encouraging. Probably there will be more conflicts over mining in Sweden's future.
Queen's Shadow by E. K. Johnston (2019)
Recced by
skygiants. I thoroughly enjoyed this! Read if you want women being competent and loyal to each other while also wearing cool space outfits and carefully crafting their public personas. Funny how this and Blood Lines are both about the political process in a way that the Star Wars movies are not (it's ages since I watched I-III though, so I can't speak for those). In the movies, the good guys are always the underdogs and they do dramatic war stuff with spaceships and blasters. In The Last Jedi, they even cut down the Resistance to just a few people who now have to start over, like they weren't underdogs enough already. In these books, I do enjoy watching people try to build something instead of desperately fighting. Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (2012)
For my fannish book club; abandoned partway through. I am a bad book club participant! It was unfortunate that before this book, I had read an account of the role of the internet in the Arab Spring and after, written by a participant who is also a programmer, because it made that aspect of the book seem completely unrealistic. I could not suspend disbelief at all, and was relieved once the magic stuff got into it. To be fair to the book though, it was actually written before the Arab Spring. But even besides the computer stuff, I did not like the main character and the book did not grip me.
Revolution at Point Zero by Silvia Federici (2012)
I will probably abandon this as well. I wish it was written a bit less academically--I guess I've gotten spoiled with books written in a more direct and accessible way. Anyway, it's about housework, childcare, eldercare, etc, and how those things intersect with capitalism, and the author's changing views on this throughout her life.
