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A chronicle of how the author, his friends and acquaintances responded to life under a totalitarian regime, The Captive Mind gives us a glimpse into life in Poland after it was swallowed by Russia following World War II. It’s an engaging, well-written account and makes you consider how you might react in such an environment. Hopefully, none of us will have to make such choices.

@SeasonsChange@retro.pizza it's really good. Eighty pages in, I can definitely recommend it. His writing is so darn descriptive and eloquent, and he really fills in the backstory of the genre.

@PhilWill@aus.social I was surprised to see that it's thirty years old! He has a real gift for the written word. Very eloquent, his descriptions of everything are a joy to read.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Reading again, not for the last time.