11corvus11's reviews
886 reviews

Really well done short book introducing actual beginners to C Programming. Uses analogy and examples to walk you through concepts. writer definitely understands how to teach. (I wish i wouldn't have looked at his author page though, sheesh, more programming books and less of the others, please.)

I have mixed feelings about this book. In the beginning I was trudging through it because I found it to be rather unlikeable. I should confess that I thought from the title that this book was written by someone who was a sex worker or would have lots of sex workers sharing their experience. This is a topic I have some prejudices about so I was hoping to learn more and that mixed with public health was interesting. The title is wrong. I think it should just be called "Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS" alone.

That said, the author initially came off as another researcher with disdain for her participants- proudly emotionally detached and pseudo-logical but with plenty of subtle cheap shots at waria especially. I almost put it down for this reason.

When I pushed through and got to the second third of the book I really found it interesting. Pisani became more nuanced as did her critiques of government and other funding systems as well as participants in studies. I found the sections that focused on sex work (victimization vs circumstance vs just work) and harm reduction in drug injectors extremely interesting and enlightening.

I think the book could have been better organized. It seemed to shuffle around a lot. I think it could have been much shorter. I wouldn't read it again but I don't regret reading it, especially the parts I really enjoyed.

It's difficult to give this book anything less than 5 stars because it contains the work of people I admire and consider mentors and friends. That said, I can't decide between 3 or 4 stars.

It's an academic text. If you aren't into reading academic essays, move along.

My favorite pieces in it were Taylor's "Vulnerability and Dependency and the Ethics of Care," Kim's "The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Michael Vick," and jones' "Eros and the Mechanisms of Eco-Defense." Those three essays make the book worth reading in my opinion. They brought fresh ideas to classic concepts and are the reason this book is bumped up to 4 stars instead of 3. Some of the discussions of moral ambiguity were also good. Sunaura Taylor's piece really hit home for me and I would say is my number 1.

Gaard's "Toward New EcoMasculinities" had promise, but it was disorganized and made my knee jerk multiple times (the use of "women born women" in reference to Halberstam's "Female Masculinity" which is inclusive of trans people and aside from the transphobia connected to wbw, I hate the term because no one is born a full grown adult woman; also, I can't get behind Annie Sprinkle being quoted in any ecofeminist or animal lib essay given that she openly and unapologetically (to my knowledge unless things have changed over the past few years) has admitted to sexual abuse (my words, not hers) of her girlfriend's dog. Some folks disagree with me, but I'm as kinky as they come and even I know that the power dynamic between a human and a dog is not something that allows for consent.)

I skipped the second half of two essays in the book because they were so jargony, there seemed not to be much more to them than big words. Many of the other essays did not particularly move me mostly due to the information not being new (which isn't bad, depending on where someone is at when they tackle this book.) I did appreciate the introduction giving the reader some history of ideas and conflicts within diverse eco-feminist movements. I would, however, like to have read more about ecofeminism spanning outside of human and other animal relations since I have read a lot about that already.

So, I recommend reading chunks of this book to everyone. Cover to cover, maybe not so much, but it's a great effort and I am happy to have read it.

*maybe a lil bit of spoiling in this review*

I enjoyed this volume. I think it could have been a tad more nuanced with some of the activist allegory of pacifist vs violence dynamics, but I liked Quentin Quire and friends anyways. I also acknowledge that perhaps the lack of nuance was intentional to exhibit the affects of drugs and teenage ideological rage. Overall I was fairly sucked into the stories and did not find them at all predictable.

I haven't picked up any comics in years, but it's good to be experiencing the psychadelic and humorous adventures of Grant Morrison again. I picked this up on recommendation that it was a good place to start for someone who hasn't read any of the X-Men comics but felt intimidated by it's over half-century run. Morrison nods to a lot of old stories and X-Men history that I knew about from other sources but still manages to write a story enjoyable for a newbie. spoiler- one criticism is of the professor losing part of his disability. I don't know how I feel about that and how it is handled. and as always, usual criticisms about how women are represented by some artists.

Spoilers

This book has the best artwork of the 3 volumes and is worth reading for that alone. I liked the other two and I got to the cover of this one, excited about Magneto and the continuing story. I know from some of Morrison's other work that as a series progresses it basically goes batshit insane and it's often for the better. I didn't mind the last story doing this, despite it being hard to follow and seeming so oddly disconnected (I am sure intentionally) from the rest.

But, the handling of Xorn and Magneto... I don't even know what to say. For someone who added so much interesting dialogue to comics that often are all action, how could you turn Magneto- a perfect vessel for that kind of dialogue- into a one-dimensional Hitlerian drug addict? At first I thought it was funny- sort of a jab at his epic deliveries of ridiculous statements. I laughed at "Vegetable!" and other things. But, then it kept going and got worse and worse. I know Morrison takes risks, but this just felt lazy. I also don't see anywhere along the way how Xorn was setting things up for this... This short stint of badly handled Magneto soured the rest for me. Luckily I was on the last book. And the art was spectacular enough to keep me immersed. The end was ok. I wish he would have left Magneto out of it entirely.

This is my first Oliver Sacks book and given his popularity I went in with high expectations. They were unfortunately not met. I don't fault a person writing pop-neurology for focusing on structural and biological aspects of hallucination. That said, I found this book boring. It read basically like repeating themes of "people with this hallucinate that and here is an example." I would have liked to have read more about what differentiates hallucinations from psychosis, how our pathologizing of any perceptual abnormality has led to said abnormalities being labeled dangerous when they are not, etc. He touched very briefly on these topics then quickly shied away.

There also was a lot of "this is true because I say so." Many stories were told of how people's religious, paranormal, anxious, etc experiences were just hallucinations without any explanation of how he knows this to be true. I am an atheist who leans far more to the side of science than ghost hunting, but I also am not easily swayed by the idea that we know and explain everything easily with such a young field like neurology, psychology, neuroscience, or anything else.

That said, it wasn't all bad. There were some interesting case studies and fun stories about Sacks own experiences that made him relatable. I don't regret reading the book. I may give Sacks another try since other reviews indicate this is not one of his best books.

I feel privileged to have read this. It's poetic, honest, humble, brave, and many other things. It does something that I think many people considered radical don't do enough- it talks about the times we didn't know what we know now. I don't want to take up much space with this. I am glad I read it.