I’m interested in a multitude of things, including social justice, socialism, history, poetry, magical realism (fiction), capitalism, race and class struggle, plus stuff like wine, baseball and music.
So mostly non-fiction, though I read maybe two novels per year and maybe one poetry collection.
This link opens in a pop-up window
Steven Ray has read 0 of 18 books.
xi, 165 pages ; 19 cm
The classic account of ambient music, with a new foreword by Michel Faber
David Toop's …
This book ran aground on my bookshelves around three years ago, and I’m finally rescuing it. Looking forward to the stories it has to tell.
The Captive Mind begins with a discussion of the novel Insatiability by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz …
The first of at least two books I'll read this year to help educate myself about totalitarianism and it's effects on citizens existing under it's thumb. It's also the book for which this Nobel Prize winner is most well-known.
"Howl", also known as "Howl for Carl Solomon", is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg …
A short but oh so great collection, including the historic poem which gives the book it's name. In this reread, I discovered that I liked the penultimate poem ('Wild Orphan') almost as much as Howl itself. A nice read to finish up the year.
Song Offerings A collection of prose translations made by the author from the original Bengali.Please …
Beautiful, serene prose. The poems in this collection are largely spiritual / religious in nature, and that mutes my attraction to them as I'm not particularly inclined to believe in a higher power. I know that he wrote other poems and songs, so I might do some research to see what else is available.
Throughout the 2000s Latin America formed the leading edge of antineoliberal resistance. But what is …
An excellent education on the recent history of class struggle and popular / indigenous movements in Latin America, charting their effects, their interaction with the leftist governments they helped elect and ultimately their absorption into and emasculation by the state apparatus. Chapters taking deep dives into Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Venezuela provided great detail, and the literary criticism of George Ciccariello-Maher's 'We Created Chavez' convinced me to acquire that text as well to further my understanding.
Translating a work from its original language can be complicated; it’s a complex art that can easily mar and twist …
In this collection, editors Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older champion realistic, progressive social change using the speculative stories …
"Howl", also known as "Howl for Carl Solomon", is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg …
Reading again, not for the last time.
Song Offerings A collection of prose translations made by the author from the original Bengali.Please Note: This book has been …
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904), a Russian physician, short-story writer, and playwright, wrote hundreds of stories that delved beneath the surface …
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904), a Russian physician, short-story writer, and playwright, wrote hundreds of stories …
Chekhov is revered, and I'm sure he wrote many wonderful, compelling things. But the title of this book is a misnomer. I'd say that three were worthwhile, though perhaps all three had endings that left me wanting. And the other two were meh, at best. So maybe read some Chekhov, just not this particular collection.
A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the …
A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, …
Quite good I thought, if short. It kept my attention, describing the social life of a small town, the marriage of a daughter to a charming if mysterious man, and the events which followed, culminating in a death which everyone knew was coming. Except for the person who was to die.
