Disaster Nationalism: A Politics of Cleansing Violence

...er, in turn, guided me to the writing of Richard Seymour, specifically his book The Twittering Machine. The central thesis of that book, that we think we are “tweeting” when we are, in fact being tweeted is something I think about as I, and I’m sure many of you, struggle with the amount of time we are captured by the algorithms. Seymour has a new book out, Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization that grapples with our present co...

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Are Miniature Books the New Smartphone?

...internet in your pocket. But long before Snapchat people carried miniature books. Prayer books and the bible were popular in miniature form. In the 19th century, improved printing technology brought a wider variety of tiny books aimed at travelers. In the 20th century the miniature book became an end in itself. Rather than utility, miniature books are now objects to collect. This is not what I’m interested in. Rather, I’m looking for books that ar...

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The Jerusalem Cookbook

...a wonderful dinner party last week and cooked all of the courses from this book. Now, Kazi is an expert cook, so I’m sure she doesn’t really need a book to put on an good spread, but she assured us that she was experimenting on us: she’d never tried any of the recipes before, and was cooking them straight out of the book as written. The meal was astounding. Of course, her beautiful presentation and the excellent company had much to do with it, but...

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Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land

...from the publisher because we’ve met Gary and like his work. Getting free books once in a while is one of the perks of blogging. This book, though, I would lay down cash for in a heartbeat. At the time I made the request, I merely though it would be an interesting read. In the wake of the Age of Limits Conference, and my subsequent reading about climate change–and the depression that resulted from that–its fortuitous arrival this week has given m...

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