User Profile

SocProf

SocProf@bookrastinating.com

Joined 1 year, 5 months ago

@masto.ai/@socprof. Interests: sociology, journalism, science-fiction, but not exclusively.

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2024 Reading Goal

33% complete! SocProf has read 4 of 12 books.

Kyle Taylor: The Little Black Book of Social Media (The Little Black Books) (EBook, Byline Books) 2 stars

How much data does Facebook really have on me? What is a cookie on the …

Not much there there

2 stars

This reads a lot like a cheaper version of Jaron Lanier's book on why you should leave social media. The title is misleading. It's a rehash of argument against social media: they steal your data, they push people to extremism, etc. If you have read anything about social media in the past few years, there's nothing new here.

David Neiwert: The Age of Insurrection (Hardcover, Melville House) 5 stars

From a smattering of ominous right-wing compounds in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, to …

Be afraid, be very afraid

5 stars

This book is a continuation of the arduous and thankless work that David Neiwert has been doing for decades: tracking, documenting, and analyzing far-right movements in the United States, under their many iterations. This "longue duree" allows him to see the continuities and ruptures in these movements. However, the present volume makes clear that something has changed, as noted in the title: the far right is now in full insurrectionist mode, from talk to collective action, with an amplified eliminationist rhetoric and obsession with civil war. Neiwert examines this through the early days of the Trump presidency, through the COVID pandemic where the far right latched onto a willing anti-vax movement, through the January 6 insurrection that never really ended, but returned to the local level. But contrary to his previous volume, Neiwert does not offer solutions, except outorganizing this rising fascist movement.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Silver Nitrate (Hardcover, 2023, Del Rey) 3 stars

Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of …

Another Winner from SM-G

5 stars

Silvia Moreno-Garcia provides another horror novel, also steeped into Mexican culture, in this case, the movie industry, mixed with occultism, and Nazis. She also includes the usual plucky heroine leading the action. She's an engaging writer.