Category: Reading List
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Specter of the Past by Timothy Zahn (Thrawn 4)
[Spoilers obviously] Specter of the Past is part one of the hand of Thrawn Duology which itself is the sequel to the original Thrawn Trilogy and the prequel to the Second Thrawn Trilogy. It’s all about Thrawn even though he’s been dead a decade at this point. I was very excited to see a lot…
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The Last Command by Timothy Zahn (Thrawn 3)
The Last Command was a really wild book. The further along it went, the more clear it became that this series is not canon. 🤣 Leah’s children have different names, some major characters die, some relationships change in different ways than they should for the rebels series. Keeping all that in mind, it’s a great…
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Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn (Thrawn 2)
Dark Force Rising was a cool book. I liked the focus on Kardde, who became probably my favorite character in the series so far. He is described as basically what Han might have been in he had not found the rebellion. Like the opposite of Jabba; an underworld crime boss who is honorable and inspires…
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Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn (Thrawn 1)
I’ve been very excited for a long time to start this series. Heir to the Empire is the first Thrawn book. Part of the reason I enjoyed Tarkin and Plagueis so much is that they both focused on the philosophy of power and high-strategy. This topic is essentially the core principle of my life, education,…
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Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel is a lesbian cartoonist who famously gave us the eponymous Bechdel Test. The Bechdel test, also known as the Bechdel–Wallace test, is a measure of the representation of women in fiction. It asks whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The…
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Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein
This book is very dense and very wonky. I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone. If you’re interested in power and politics, then this is a good book for you. The central thesis of the book is two-fold. Klein argues that polarization is different from sorting or categorization because of homophilies. If I know how you…
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Burning Chrome by William Gibson
This is easily one of my favorite books. This was my first time reading it, and I found that I had to take breaks to reflect, and often reread chapters before moving on. Very excellent work by Gibson. I can see the way his thoughts moved in the direction of Neuromancer towards the end and…
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Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
In the 1970s, Michel Foucault was working on something unrelated and discovered an important memoir. Herculine Barbin had lived a short and noteworthy life as an intersex and transgender person in the mid-1800s. Foucault translated and published the memoir. It spread far and wide and impacted many people around the world. Jeffrey Eugenides was one…
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Down Girl by Kate Manne
As a sociologist, this was an interesting read. This book explores the issue of systemic sexism from a philosophical perspective rather than a sociological perspective. It also articulates a normative ethical framework for considering the issue, and the implications for what duty we have in response. This is exactly the topic I most wanted to…
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Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
Wikipedia gives the summary, “Stone Butch Blues is a novel written by the revolutionary communist Leslie Feinberg about life as a butch lesbian in 1970s America.” Generally with a book like this, I try to get the background and plot before I read it, so that I’m able to absorb it all. I started doing…