Reviews are all about perspective
- We need to talk about ‘Stranger Things’I finished watching Stranger Things during the week, it was very enjoyable; even if the ending felt just a little downbeat. Max is a great character – eminently relatable – so it sucked to see her end up in such a bad way . I loved the fact that a new generation ...
- What I thought of ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ by Yuval Noah HarariSapiens is one of those books that I’ve seen being read everywhere. As in, every time you’re on public transport or at a beach, someone seems engrossed in it. There have been a few of these books in my time, such as The Celestine Prophecy, The Secret, Bohos in Paradise, Sophie’s Choice and everything by ...
- What I thought of ‘The Memory Code’ by Lynne KellyHonestly, this was a book I’ve been looking forward to reading for about a year and it did not disappoint me. It presents a basic argument that the odd structuring of various ancient monuments and artwork is actually attributable to the fact that these once operated as technologies to encode cultural memories. Kelly’s book speaks about quite ...
- Hannah Gadsby’s ‘Nanette’ – musings on comedy, stories, art and connectionHannah Gadsby and images of thought So, I went to see Hannah Gadsby on Saturday night. It was one of the best hours of entertainment I’ve ever seen… but not because it was funny. It was raw, emotional and incredibly thought provoking. It was obliterating comedy and I’d like to think through some of the issues she ...
- ‘Zombie Capitalism’ by Chris HarmanWow, this was a long and sometimes arduous read. Zombie Capitalism is an orthodox marxist account of the repeated crises of capitalism. Written by Chris Harman, who is a maxist of some repute, I read the book hoping to see how the Zombie trope was employed to explain/confront capitalism. In 360 odd pages, Zombies were not mentioned, ...
- ‘The Comming Community’ by Georgio AgambenBecause of the need to return the book to the library, I spent yesterday reading ‘The Comming Community’ by Agamben. Translated by Micheal Hardt, who worked with the other prominent recent Italian theorist Antonio Negri on ‘Empire’, I initially started reading this book because I felt it might be useful for one of my PhD students, ...
- ‘Disconnected’ by Carrie JamesI’ve just finished reading ‘Disconnected: Youth, New Media and the Ethics Gap’ by Carrie James. James has taken a ‘glass half empty’ approach to how the internet is reconfugiring ethics in this crazy, mixed up world. I have to say, the book is largely empirical – James directly describes the ethical dilemmas and work around that ...
- What I thought of ‘Move Fast and Break Things’ by Jonathan TaplinWhen Jon Taplin appeared on ABC’s Nightline a couple of months ago I had a string of recommendations to engage with his work – notably from my mum and Joe Hutton – as well as colleagues at UWA. After reading his latest book “Move fast and break things” I understand why. Taplin explores the effect of ...
- What I think of Ryan Holiday’s ‘Trust Me, I’m Lying’I’ve just finished what I have to get done before tomorrow and both my kids are still having their afternoon nap. Gold. After the last post about identity politics I have reflected more on that topic and decided that I’d like to write more about it, as a way of exploring my own ideas and also ...