!July questions, summer reading
 --- 
agk's diary 
19 July 2022 @ 06:34 UTC
 --- 
written on ipad via ssh.sdf.org in safari
up late, procrastinating
 --- 

I usually make my way through a couple books at a
time, slowly, over months. Last week I finished 
Bulgakov's (1927) The White Guard, about a bourge-
ois Kiev family in the 1918 war in Ukraine. Bulga-
kov, like Chekhov, was a physician, and served in
Kiev in 1918. I enjoyed this one a lot.

During my commute I listen to Bulgakov's (1967) The 
Master and Margarita, about a 1920s visit of the 
devil to officially atheist Moscow. It's creepy and
fun. Before bed I read Sienkiewicz's (1884) With 
Fire and Sword, about the 1640s Khmelnytsky Upris-
ing. It's clear Frank Herbert (author of Dune) and 
probably Tolkien read With Fire and Sword. Scifi 
and fantasy are the children of adventure stories.

Books below aren't what I most recommend, but 
answer Christina's questions. In 2004 I stayed up 
all night reading My Jihad by streetlight and coal-
oil lamp. In her BA thesis, Rachel used Foucault's
social analysis to interpret her participant-obser-
vation of a disaster free health clinic my friends 
and I founded, which radically changed my underst-
anding of what we did. Each book below corresponds
with such stories.

Happy summer reading!

 1. Books I couldn't put down...

    * Arkady & Boris Strugatsky (1972), Roadside 
       Picnic
    * Aukai Collins (2002) My Jihad: one American's
       journey through the world of Usama Bin Laden
    * Cory Doctorow (2010), For the Win
    * Madeline ffitch (2019), Stay and Fight
    * Andy Weir (2021), Project Hail Mary
    * Daisy Pitkin (2022), On the Line

 2. The book I couldn't pick up...

    Any of a number of textbooks.

 3. The book I tried so hard to like... 

    A self-indulgent memoir about the 2010 Gulf of
     Mexico oil spill by my friend Fancy's brother.

 4. Books that changed my life...

    * Alcoholics Anonymous (1939) 
    * David Werner (1977), Where There is No Doctor 
    * Kochan & Wood (1984), Exploring the UNIX 
       System
    * John Arquilla (2001), Networks and Netwars:
       the future of terror, crime and militancy
    * Rachel Judith Stern (2007), "This is solidar-
       ity," not biomedicine: the Common Ground 
       Health Clinic and discursive intervention in 
       racial and ethnic health inequities [thesis]
    * Shin Nawakari (2017), Essence of Shibari:
       Kinbaku and Japanese rope bondage

 5. Books that "saved" me...

     * John Milbank (1999), Radical Orthodoxy, a 
        new theology
     * Gillian Rose (1995), Love's Work, a reckon-
        ing with life
     * Paulo Friere (1970), Pedagogy of the Oppres-
        sed
     * Clarence Jordan (1970), The Cotton Patch 
        Version of Matthew and John
     * Frantz Fanon (1961), The Wretched of the 
        Earth
     * Sembene Ousmane (1960), God's Bits of Wood

 ---
Thank you Christina for good questions!
gopher://gopher.club:70/1/users/christyotwisty/