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I found this book in the Out Of Print section in Bluestocking Books in San Diego. It's a fascinating look at the way ordinary Polish people thought about the Jewish communities in Poland from the interwar period to 1985. A fascinating ethnographic resource and a set of affecting stories from the Holocaust, among other things. I recommend it, if the topic interests you.

This is a book whose premise is its most interesting contribution. In 1959, it was, as the reverse blurb says, "an extraordinary novel", but no longer. Anyone who is interested in the lineage of post-apocalyptic fiction should consider reading it, but it is both heavy and heavily outdated, both in social sensitivity and in technology. The latter is understandable, as the silicon integrated circuit was invented in the same year as the novel's publication; the former less so, and I caution anyone who is not willing to read extensively on such topics as the religious justifications for denying people euthanasia against reading much of the third act. By the time you get there, it is fairly clear what will happen.

The core argument of this novel is that the Catholic Church is the vehicle of humankind's material salvation in the face of Armageddon, which is certainly an uncomfortable notion. That said, I found it interesting and mostly enjoyable.

I would not recommend this book to most, but it serves as an acceptable introduction to the concepts and vocabulary of contemporary neopagan-adjacent witchcraft.

Unfortunately, Diaz uncritically repeats tales of the "burning times", and strongly promotes Wicca-specific constructs as being universal among witches, which spoils it as an introductory text.

I enjoyed this book a lot. If you, like me, have a visceral reaction to fragmentary sentences, you may find it difficult to get into, but the writing remains gripping and the topics discussed are absolutely fascinating; throw out your grammar purism and learn.

I've been involved with high technology, especially networked technology, my whole life, but I hadn't heard of most of the people this book discusses, nor their projects. I think any technologist could benefit from being more informed about the intersection of racial politics and technology, and this book does a good job bringing that intersection into the spotlight.