Library
This library is a record of books that I’ve read, with a written response to each. There are no ratings here. I limit recommendations, and I do not write with the aim of reviewing. A book might make me think about something else, I may engage extensively with one passage, or I might evaluate the argument of the text as a whole. The texture of my responses will shift depending on the text.
One caveat: the write-ups from before 2024 read more like book reviews, because that’s what they were. Most started life on Goodreads, a few in graduate seminars, back before this site existed.
Some of my responses are short (perhaps a few paragraphs) while others may be entire essays. The amount written is a reflection not of the quality of the book, but of my own thinking.
My books are listed in reverse-chronological order by when I completed them. Each entry is listed in full bibliographic form, with a short annotation below. Some of these I own, others I do not.
2016
Very much a textbook: information-dense, France at the center, structures over lived experience.
A lucid Austrian School introduction that misses capitalism’s global, colonial nature; an incomplete view.
Gorky, Maxim. Mother. Citadel Press, 1992.
However important it once was, no longer worth the time it takes to read.
An informative sweep of Cambridge’s ethnographic collections; not for everyone, but it serves its purpose.
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N. China in the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Good for those new to China affairs, bad for anyone already familiar; as an introduction it does its job.
One of the finest, most elegant books I have ever read; I was sad to finish it.