Warren Rochelle's Blog, page 10
November 20, 2020
Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart
a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm going to be teaching a writing seminar for the WriterHouse, in Charlottesville, VA, on writing fiction about plagues and pandemics, and this 1949 novel is from the suggested reading list. I read it years ago and now, parts of it seem dated--particularly some of the references about race and women are more than a little patronizing. But otherwise, it seems to hold up and, as I remembered from the first time I read, it has beauty.
The opening quote is even more apt, given where we are today in the pandemic: "If a killing type of virus strain should suddenly arise by mutation ... it could, because of the rapid transportation in which we indulge nowadays, be carried to the far corners of the earth and cause the deaths of millions of people." --W.M. Stanley, in Chemical and Engineering News, December 22, 1947 (Stewart 1).
73 years later our transportation is even more rapid. Not millions, but globally 1.34 million (as of today, November 20, 2020). This novel is the tale of what happens after, when civilization as we know it, is gone. Ish Williams, erstwhile grad student, must learn how to survive in a world in which such things as electricity, water, plants cultivated by humans (such as wheat and corn)--the list goes on--are vanishing, or gone. "[How] long will it be before all traces of man's civilization faded from Earth[?] At the same time, he couldn't help wondering where others had survived and whether even a. handful of human beings would ever to be able to rebuild their world" (back cover).
Ish bears witness to the remaking of the world--a process that will last for centuries, it seems.
View all my reviews
Earth Abides by George R. StewartMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm going to be teaching a writing seminar for the WriterHouse, in Charlottesville, VA, on writing fiction about plagues and pandemics, and this 1949 novel is from the suggested reading list. I read it years ago and now, parts of it seem dated--particularly some of the references about race and women are more than a little patronizing. But otherwise, it seems to hold up and, as I remembered from the first time I read, it has beauty.
The opening quote is even more apt, given where we are today in the pandemic: "If a killing type of virus strain should suddenly arise by mutation ... it could, because of the rapid transportation in which we indulge nowadays, be carried to the far corners of the earth and cause the deaths of millions of people." --W.M. Stanley, in Chemical and Engineering News, December 22, 1947 (Stewart 1).
73 years later our transportation is even more rapid. Not millions, but globally 1.34 million (as of today, November 20, 2020). This novel is the tale of what happens after, when civilization as we know it, is gone. Ish Williams, erstwhile grad student, must learn how to survive in a world in which such things as electricity, water, plants cultivated by humans (such as wheat and corn)--the list goes on--are vanishing, or gone. "[How] long will it be before all traces of man's civilization faded from Earth[?] At the same time, he couldn't help wondering where others had survived and whether even a. handful of human beings would ever to be able to rebuild their world" (back cover).
Ish bears witness to the remaking of the world--a process that will last for centuries, it seems.
View all my reviews
November 18, 2020
Rainbow Bridge, by J.A, Pitts
Rainbow Brigade by J.A. PittsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Rest in Peace, J.A. Pitts.
You died too soon, with stories left to be told.
This is Book 5, in the Sarah Beauhall series. "...[A] rash of suicides strikes Bellingham Washington, [and] Sarah Beauhall finds herself embroiled in a conspiracy that involves long-dead gods, love-scorned ancients, dragons, witch feuds and the rediscovery of a mysterious abandoned worlds. Can Sarah put together the puzzle pieces before her world comes crashing down around her? (back cover)
Good questions. They are answered quite satisfactorily, but some were left open, for the next book. Sigh.
Dark urban fantasy fans, Sarah fans, take note. Recommended.
View all my reviews
November 14, 2020
On the Eve of Forever, by Kayleigh Sky
On the Eve of Forever by Kayleigh SkyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The plague this time is called Eve, because it's worse for women than men. Civilization, law and order, and too often human decency and love collapse. But not everywhere. Brey is in prison and the guards let them all out as the virus runs rampant--4 billion dead? Brey, a pretty boy, promises he will find his family. But he is caught and tortured and raped and sold.
Brey winds up in "Waterfall, a small city that made it through the apocalypse, survives on the sale of human beings." There he meets Hank (the other protagonist) who remembers Brey as "the rich kid he once arrested for murder. Now the guy’s up for sale. Hank’s plans go south in a hurry. On the spot to make a quick decision, he buys him.What else can he do?…" (Amazon summary).
So begins what becomes a love affair. This is a story of redemption, human love and decency, and cruelty, and survival. After the world ends, you have to make another.
A fun read.
Book 100 for 2020.
View all my reviews
November 11, 2020
Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady, by Susan Quinn
Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady by Susan QuinnMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a beautiful book of a relationship that shaped both women, two truly good and passionate souls, in profound ways. The research into their lives and into the history of their times, is detailed, rich, and revealing.
To quote the back jacket: these fiercely compassionate women inspired each other to right the wrongs they saw in their deeply troubled world. Deeply researched and told with great warmth, Eleanor and Hick is a vivid portrait of love and a revealing look at how an unlikely romance influenced some of the most consequential years in American history."
Recommended.
View all my reviews
October 9, 2020
Collaborators, by Deborah J. Ross
a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">
Collaborators by Deborah J. Ross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I first read and reviewed Collaborators (Dragon Moon Press, 2013) in 2016. When I learned that Deborah Ross was re-releasing a revised and expanded version of the novel, I found myself curious as what she had changed, what had expanded and rethought. I decided I needed to revisit my own thinking. I wondered what I might expand and rethink.
Re-reading my earlier review, I found myself in conversation with what I written four years ago. That review began with a rumination on two of the novel’s overarching questions, the first: what is a collaborator? The second, a perennial theme in science fiction, what does it mean to be human? Now, I found myself expanding the second question to consider how gender affects being human. I am also adding another overarching question or issue, the nature of power, and its use abuse.
Collaboration can be both a positive and negative act.
To collaborate is “to work jointly on an activity, especially to produce or create something.” This takes me to my graduate training in rhetoric and composition, as collaboration, in composition or writing studies, is often discussed as part of how one teaches writing and comes to understand the writing process. To invent, to create, is a social act. Despite the romantic image of the poet in the garret, no story or poem or painting is solely the creation of one person. The books read and studied before, the people who influenced the creator, the sociocultural context of the creator—all contribute in the making of meaning. Those who collaborate are those work together on an activity to create something.
Not all collaboration, however, is so benign and generative. The second definition offered by Google is to “cooperate traitorously with an enemy.” As I did in my first review, I find myself remembering World War II and those traitors and opportunists—those collaborators—who supported the Nazis in World War II when their countries were occupied. This story, in a broader sense of the many ways people responded to the Nazis, is at the heart of the novel. I would go even further. This story is foundational to the novel. Ross includes four Bonus essays at the end, discussing key issues and themes in greater detail. In the essay, “World-building in Collaborators, I learned that Ross and her family lived in Lyon, France, for “about nine months.” This experience illuminates the novel in two key ways. The first way is the city of Lyon itself. Its culture and history echo in the alien city of Miraz. The other key way is the history of Lyon, especially during the German occupation in World War II. She became “interested in how many varied ways the French responded to the German occupation. Some protested from the very beginning for religious or ethical reasons, but others went along” for a variety of reasons, including “fear or apathy or entrenched antisemitism,” and others “sought to exploit the situation for personal power or financial gain” (394). Eventually this interest and the research that come from it, convinced Ross that she “had to tell this story,” and as a science fiction and fantasy writer, she chose to do so in the “genre [she] knew” (395).
The novel begins with First Contact, a perennial science fiction theme. A news flash from Miraz, the capital of Chacarre: “Space ships sighted over Chacarre,” There has been “a flurry of communication” between Chacarre and Erlind, the neighboring country, a rival, sometime an enemy of Chacarre (5). This national news story results initially in individual action. Hayke, a farmer, and his children, go out at night to see if they can see signs of the alien arrival in the night sky. One of his children sees “an unwinking mote of light” in the northeast sky (6).
Aliens have arrived. They are us, Terrans. The starship, Prometheus, seems to have an unfortunate encounter with a “hidden ‘dark’ hole”. Repairs are needed and the planet, below named Bandar by the Terrans, seems to have “an adequate manufacturing capability” to help with repairs. No Prime Directive here, the Terrans “offer to trade technological knowledge for certain items to be manufactured to [their] specifications” (19).
This brings the reader to the question of being human and gender, and to the issues of power.
Ross is using, I would argue, a very broad definition of being human, akin to the legal one Robert Heinlein uses in Star Beast: “Beings possessed of speech and manipulation must be presumed to be sentient and therefore to have innate human rights, unless conclusively proved otherwise” (167). The Bandari speak of themselves as human, and wonder if we are. That Ross uses it to refer to the inhabitants of a planet that we—Terrans—would call alien, is, frankly, oddly disturbing. These aliens, these citizens of Chacarre and Erlind seem to be like us—sort of, mostly, or rather just enough for assumptions to be made that aren’t questioned or examined until far too late. Gender is a dominant feature in how we see ourselves. For the Bandari, their definition of “gender has a very different meaning and [their] instincts can drive a crowd to madness” (back cover). They are gender-fluid, and do not divide themselves into two genders, rather “every other age-appropriate person is a potential lover and life mate” and “in a life-paired couple, each is equally likely to engender or gestate a child” (402).
Yes, I heard echoes of Le Guin and The Left Hand of Darkness. One key
difference is that Le Guin’s Gethenians are humans, descended from the Hainish as we Terrans are. Another key difference and perhaps of more importance, is that Le Guin’s Gethenians are only sexually active when in kemmer. For Ross’s Bandari, “Sex [is] something [they] enjoy often and enthusiastically with their age-mate friends,” and this can lead to a “permanent lifelong pairing” (403). For Terran humans, understanding this sexuality will be difficult, to say the least.
There are misunderstandings between the native species and the Terrans, misunderstandings that lead to violence and retaliation and interference and open conflict. “Soon everyone—scientists and soldiers, rebels and lovers, patriots and opportunists—are swept up in a cycle of destruction” (back cover). Who is at fault? And what does it mean to collaborate? To betray one’s species? Does loving an alien, as does Lexis, a Chacarran, and it seems, so CelestiniBellini, a Terran, make one a collaborator? And collaboration, cooperating, working together, joining forces, this seems to be the way to fight back—or is fighting the way to stop the violence? Can there be reconciliation? Peace?
Can something be created that is new and different? Of value? Is there common ground?
And the issue of power? How is power used and abused by both the Terrans and the Bandari. The Terrans have “the power of advanced technology, the power of military superiority…” Both species have “the power of idealism, power that comes from love, power that comes from political advantage …and especially power that relates to gender” (401). What happens when powerful technology encounters the power of love, idealism, and morality? What happens when greater physical power and strength misreads a gender-fluid people as binary? Weapons can kill the silent witnesses that come to protest at the Terran compound, but will weapons stifle the power of that silence?
These two cultures, alien to each other, are explored in depth through the lives of such people on the planet as the aforementioned Hayke, a farmer, who follows a way of life, a philosophy—or is it a religion (there are echoes of Taoism and Quakers)—called the Way, Alon and Birre, lovers, then mates; their families, and Lexis, a professor who takes a Terran lover. On the ship, we find intense scientists, such as Vera Eisenstein, the resident genius, and her protégé, Sarah Davis, and Celestin Bellini, a soldier and Lexis’ lover, and the captain, Hammadi.
Can there be forgiveness? Compromise? Understanding? Will collaboration result in good or ill, no matter which definition is used, or is it somewhere in the murky middle?
Ross didn’t make radical changes in the plot from 2013 to 2020. But, these people—Terran and Bandari—they are deeper, layered, and thus more dynamic. When Alon grieves for his (admittedly not an accurate pronoun, as Ross notes) lost child, we experience the stages of grief with him. He lost his unborn child in a horrific way. Is what happened forgivable? Are there things that are unforgiveable?
This rich novel, with its “first-rate world-building from a writer gifted with a soaring imagination and good old-fashioned Sense of Wonder” (C.J. Cherryh, back cover) asks the reader to think and think again. Read Collaborators again, if like me, you read the first version. You will be rewarded with a stronger, more nuanced, and a more passionate story. Read the Bonus sections at the end—and experience world-building, and species construction. Take the time mull over gender and power and collaboration. Be prepared to keep reading. This novel is a real page-turner.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Collaborators by Deborah J. RossMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I first read and reviewed Collaborators (Dragon Moon Press, 2013) in 2016. When I learned that Deborah Ross was re-releasing a revised and expanded version of the novel, I found myself curious as what she had changed, what had expanded and rethought. I decided I needed to revisit my own thinking. I wondered what I might expand and rethink.
Re-reading my earlier review, I found myself in conversation with what I written four years ago. That review began with a rumination on two of the novel’s overarching questions, the first: what is a collaborator? The second, a perennial theme in science fiction, what does it mean to be human? Now, I found myself expanding the second question to consider how gender affects being human. I am also adding another overarching question or issue, the nature of power, and its use abuse.
Collaboration can be both a positive and negative act.
To collaborate is “to work jointly on an activity, especially to produce or create something.” This takes me to my graduate training in rhetoric and composition, as collaboration, in composition or writing studies, is often discussed as part of how one teaches writing and comes to understand the writing process. To invent, to create, is a social act. Despite the romantic image of the poet in the garret, no story or poem or painting is solely the creation of one person. The books read and studied before, the people who influenced the creator, the sociocultural context of the creator—all contribute in the making of meaning. Those who collaborate are those work together on an activity to create something.
Not all collaboration, however, is so benign and generative. The second definition offered by Google is to “cooperate traitorously with an enemy.” As I did in my first review, I find myself remembering World War II and those traitors and opportunists—those collaborators—who supported the Nazis in World War II when their countries were occupied. This story, in a broader sense of the many ways people responded to the Nazis, is at the heart of the novel. I would go even further. This story is foundational to the novel. Ross includes four Bonus essays at the end, discussing key issues and themes in greater detail. In the essay, “World-building in Collaborators, I learned that Ross and her family lived in Lyon, France, for “about nine months.” This experience illuminates the novel in two key ways. The first way is the city of Lyon itself. Its culture and history echo in the alien city of Miraz. The other key way is the history of Lyon, especially during the German occupation in World War II. She became “interested in how many varied ways the French responded to the German occupation. Some protested from the very beginning for religious or ethical reasons, but others went along” for a variety of reasons, including “fear or apathy or entrenched antisemitism,” and others “sought to exploit the situation for personal power or financial gain” (394). Eventually this interest and the research that come from it, convinced Ross that she “had to tell this story,” and as a science fiction and fantasy writer, she chose to do so in the “genre [she] knew” (395).
The novel begins with First Contact, a perennial science fiction theme. A news flash from Miraz, the capital of Chacarre: “Space ships sighted over Chacarre,” There has been “a flurry of communication” between Chacarre and Erlind, the neighboring country, a rival, sometime an enemy of Chacarre (5). This national news story results initially in individual action. Hayke, a farmer, and his children, go out at night to see if they can see signs of the alien arrival in the night sky. One of his children sees “an unwinking mote of light” in the northeast sky (6).
Aliens have arrived. They are us, Terrans. The starship, Prometheus, seems to have an unfortunate encounter with a “hidden ‘dark’ hole”. Repairs are needed and the planet, below named Bandar by the Terrans, seems to have “an adequate manufacturing capability” to help with repairs. No Prime Directive here, the Terrans “offer to trade technological knowledge for certain items to be manufactured to [their] specifications” (19).
This brings the reader to the question of being human and gender, and to the issues of power.
Ross is using, I would argue, a very broad definition of being human, akin to the legal one Robert Heinlein uses in Star Beast: “Beings possessed of speech and manipulation must be presumed to be sentient and therefore to have innate human rights, unless conclusively proved otherwise” (167). The Bandari speak of themselves as human, and wonder if we are. That Ross uses it to refer to the inhabitants of a planet that we—Terrans—would call alien, is, frankly, oddly disturbing. These aliens, these citizens of Chacarre and Erlind seem to be like us—sort of, mostly, or rather just enough for assumptions to be made that aren’t questioned or examined until far too late. Gender is a dominant feature in how we see ourselves. For the Bandari, their definition of “gender has a very different meaning and [their] instincts can drive a crowd to madness” (back cover). They are gender-fluid, and do not divide themselves into two genders, rather “every other age-appropriate person is a potential lover and life mate” and “in a life-paired couple, each is equally likely to engender or gestate a child” (402).
Yes, I heard echoes of Le Guin and The Left Hand of Darkness. One key
difference is that Le Guin’s Gethenians are humans, descended from the Hainish as we Terrans are. Another key difference and perhaps of more importance, is that Le Guin’s Gethenians are only sexually active when in kemmer. For Ross’s Bandari, “Sex [is] something [they] enjoy often and enthusiastically with their age-mate friends,” and this can lead to a “permanent lifelong pairing” (403). For Terran humans, understanding this sexuality will be difficult, to say the least.
There are misunderstandings between the native species and the Terrans, misunderstandings that lead to violence and retaliation and interference and open conflict. “Soon everyone—scientists and soldiers, rebels and lovers, patriots and opportunists—are swept up in a cycle of destruction” (back cover). Who is at fault? And what does it mean to collaborate? To betray one’s species? Does loving an alien, as does Lexis, a Chacarran, and it seems, so CelestiniBellini, a Terran, make one a collaborator? And collaboration, cooperating, working together, joining forces, this seems to be the way to fight back—or is fighting the way to stop the violence? Can there be reconciliation? Peace?
Can something be created that is new and different? Of value? Is there common ground?
And the issue of power? How is power used and abused by both the Terrans and the Bandari. The Terrans have “the power of advanced technology, the power of military superiority…” Both species have “the power of idealism, power that comes from love, power that comes from political advantage …and especially power that relates to gender” (401). What happens when powerful technology encounters the power of love, idealism, and morality? What happens when greater physical power and strength misreads a gender-fluid people as binary? Weapons can kill the silent witnesses that come to protest at the Terran compound, but will weapons stifle the power of that silence?
These two cultures, alien to each other, are explored in depth through the lives of such people on the planet as the aforementioned Hayke, a farmer, who follows a way of life, a philosophy—or is it a religion (there are echoes of Taoism and Quakers)—called the Way, Alon and Birre, lovers, then mates; their families, and Lexis, a professor who takes a Terran lover. On the ship, we find intense scientists, such as Vera Eisenstein, the resident genius, and her protégé, Sarah Davis, and Celestin Bellini, a soldier and Lexis’ lover, and the captain, Hammadi.
Can there be forgiveness? Compromise? Understanding? Will collaboration result in good or ill, no matter which definition is used, or is it somewhere in the murky middle?
Ross didn’t make radical changes in the plot from 2013 to 2020. But, these people—Terran and Bandari—they are deeper, layered, and thus more dynamic. When Alon grieves for his (admittedly not an accurate pronoun, as Ross notes) lost child, we experience the stages of grief with him. He lost his unborn child in a horrific way. Is what happened forgivable? Are there things that are unforgiveable?
This rich novel, with its “first-rate world-building from a writer gifted with a soaring imagination and good old-fashioned Sense of Wonder” (C.J. Cherryh, back cover) asks the reader to think and think again. Read Collaborators again, if like me, you read the first version. You will be rewarded with a stronger, more nuanced, and a more passionate story. Read the Bonus sections at the end—and experience world-building, and species construction. Take the time mull over gender and power and collaboration. Be prepared to keep reading. This novel is a real page-turner.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
September 4, 2020
A Killling Frosts, by Seanan McGuire
A Killing Frost by Seanan McGuireMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Big McGuire and October Daye fan here.
Book 14, of the ongoing saga of October Daye, knight, detective, beloved of Tybalt, King of the Cats (well, one kingdom of Cait Sidhe), fosteriing as her squire, Quentin Sollys, who will one day be High King of the Westlands (what Faerie calls North America), and .... often called Toby by her friends. And as Library Journal said about #13, "the [14th] outing for Daye is just as fresh and exciting as the first. McGuire has built a complex world, where seemingly loose ends are woven tightly into the series." Booklist's description of #12 holds true for A Killing Frost, " the world building in this series has astonishing depth ....McGuire is still giving readers fascinating new pieces of the Faerie puzzle" (back cover).
October and Tybalt are to be married. But, to the surprise of none of her fans, this no easy walk down the aisle. "When October is informed that Simon Torquill--legally her father, due to Faerie's archaic marriage traditions--must be invited to her wedding or risk the ceremony throwing the Kingdom of the Mists into political turmoil, she finds herself setting out on a quest she was not yet prepared to undertake...," complications ensue. An angry and vindictive Firstborn, elf-shot taking her companions down, people turned into trees and toadstools ...
A fine tale, a page turner, recommended.
View all my reviews
July 22, 2020
Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Where the Crawdads Sing is a beautiful book. A murder mystery, a love story and a story of searching for love, a coming-of-age tale, a story about class and abuse and survival, made all the richer and layered by the author's experience as a naturalist and a nature writer.
"For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast," When the town's golden boy,"Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl" (book jacket). But she is not "marsh trash." She is a survivor of abuse of the wreckage of her parents' doomed marriage, and years of isolation. When two young men become "intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens"(book jacket).
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia OwensMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Where the Crawdads Sing is a beautiful book. A murder mystery, a love story and a story of searching for love, a coming-of-age tale, a story about class and abuse and survival, made all the richer and layered by the author's experience as a naturalist and a nature writer.
"For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast," When the town's golden boy,"Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl" (book jacket). But she is not "marsh trash." She is a survivor of abuse of the wreckage of her parents' doomed marriage, and years of isolation. When two young men become "intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens"(book jacket).
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
July 18, 2020
Some Thoughts on The God's Eye, by Anna Butller.
The God's Eye by Anna ButlerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Lancaster's Luck trilogy has a satisfactory ending indeed. Rafe Lancaster, now First Heir to House Stravaigor, is adjusting to his new role. His father is ill, and so when his lover, Ned Winter goes off to Aegypt for the 1902-03 archaeological digging season, he can't. Rafe misses Ned terribly and wishes his lover, fascinated with the "strange Antikythera mechanism--linked to the Aegyptian god, Thoth--heads south to the "emote, unexplored highlands of Abyssinia."
Ned doesn't return at Christmas. No one has heard from. The Straviagor, Ned's father, is dying. Rafe has no heir. Other forces are interested. Will good prevail? Can Ned be found, their love protected?
The Egyptian and archaeological details are rich, as are the details of this alternate reality. The conflict, and what is a stake, could change the world forever. And at the heart of this, a love story.
View all my reviews
July 12, 2020
Some Thoughts on Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People
Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. BanajiMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a n important book, especially as the country is confronting the murder of George Floyd and is consequences by Minneapolis police officers. How do we recognize and try to change the implicit biases "we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality." It is disturbing, this "glimpse of our unconscious biases at work." Yes, this is a Powerful, challenging, and revealing" book. "Blindspot is an invitation to understand our own minds, and in the process, be fairer to those around us" (back cover).
I understand the need for the testing and the academic studies and accumulation of data. That can be off-putting. But this is worth wading through the numbers.
View all my reviews
Some Thoughts on Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People/Banaji and Greenwald.
Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. BanajiMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a n important book, especially as the country is confronting the murder of George Floyd and is consequences by Minneapolis police officers. How do we recognize and try to change the implicit biases "we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality." It is disturbing, this "glimpse of our unconscious biases at work." Yes, this is a Powerful, challenging, and revealing" book. "Blindspot is an invitation to understand our own minds, and in the process, be fairer to those around us" (back cover).
I understand the need for the testing and the academic studies and accumulation of data. That can be off-putting. But this is worth wading through the numbers.
View all my reviews
