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#bookreviews — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bookreviews, aggregated by home.social.

  1. europesays.com/ie/728456/ Protocols by Andrew Huberman: A book about the brain that could change lives – The Irish Times #BookReviews #Éire #IE #Ireland #Technology

  2. PARE: 100 Reminders for the Unwavering Self

    PARE: 100 Reminders for the Unwavering Self explores the complexities of identity, growth, and self-acceptance. The book encourages readers to embrace their layered selves while letting go of what no longer serves them. It aims to foster conversations about code-switching and belonging without guilt, celebrating the strength found in personal journeys.

    amadanesi.com/2026/10/09/pare-

  3. Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" But walls fall when their makers grow weak, not when others grow bold. The Soviet empire was rotting from within.
    #books #bookreviews #ReaganEra #HistoricalRead #WeekendReading
    thisgrandpablogs.com/berlin-wa

  4. Book Review: Heaven’s Ditch by Jack Kelly


    Author: Jack Kelly
    Title: Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal
    Publication Info: New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2016.
    Summary/Review:

    I thought I was getting myself into a book about the history of the Erie Canal.  And it is – but it’s about so much more – using the thread of the Erie Canal to connect the stories of turbulent changes in Western New York in the first half of the 19th century.

    The canal itself is an engineering wonder constructed by the state of New York under the leadership of Governor DeWitt Clinton.  Did you ever wonder why the canal crosses the entire state rather than a shorter route from the Hudson River to Lake Ontario?  Turns out that option was discarded due to too great a difference in elevations, the hazards of navigating Lake Ontario, and that they would still need a way to get around Niagara Falls to reach the other lakes.  Kelly offers a lot of great detail of the engineering challenges especially in Lockport where the “flight of five” locks was constructed to carry the canal over the Niagara Escarpment,

    While workers excavated the canal, the growing Western New York region became the “burned-over district” at the heart of the religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening. The term originates with the Presbyterian minister Charles Grandison Finney. Other leaders emerged to found entirely new religions.  William Miller predicted the end of the world on a specific date, and even though it didn’t come his followers eventually evolved into the Adventist movement.  Meanwhile, Joseph Smith, Jr. founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints based on a new scripture he claimed to have found inscribed on golden plates in a hill in Palmyra.

    Western New York was also a hotbed of social movements, including abolitionists (many overlapping with new Christian denominations) and women’s suffrage.  In 1826, a former Freemason named William Morgan planned to publish a book exposing Masonic secrets.  After Morgan disappeared and was presumed murdered, the scandal launched an anti-Masonic movement that grew into a political party.  The Anti-Masonic Party held the first presidential nominating convention in 1832, and their candidate – William Wirt – won 7 electoral votes!  And if to tie together this book with a cosmic coincidence, Morgan’s widow Lucinda ended up becoming one of Joseph Smith’s “plural wives!”

    The book can be disjointed as jumps back and forth among different threads.  But I found the details of this histories and the connections among them fascinating.

    Recommended books:

    Rating: ***1/2

    #AmericanHistory #BookReviews #Books #ErieCanal #Evangelicalism #Mormonism #NewYork
  5. The U.S. funded Afghan fighters to push back the Soviets in the ‘80s. But what came next was chaos.
    #books #bookreviews #ColdWar #Afghanistan
    thisgrandpablogs.com/ghost-war

  6. A MOVING, MULTIFACETED WORK combines autofiction, memoir, cultural theory, art analysis, and deeply poetic prose to capture the polycrisis of today and frame it against a particular moment in the 1980s through the vivid lens of friendship. A MINUS

    bookshop.org/p/books/triage-cl

    @bookstodon

    #book #Books #bookreview #bookreviews #bookstodon #fiction #autofiction #culturaltheory #criticaltheory #Blackwriters #Blackwomenwriters

  7. Book Review: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward


    Author: Jesmyn Ward
    Title: Sing, Unburied, Sing
    Narrator: Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Chris Chalk, Rutina Wesley
    Publication Info: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2017
    Summary/Review:

    Sing, Unburied, Sing is a family drama set in contemporary Mississippi.  Central to the story is a road trip in Leonie Stone and her children Jojo and Kayla travel to pick up Michael, her boyfriend and the children’s father.  The story is narrated by three characters:

    • Jojo, a 13-year-old who feels that he must care for 3-year-old Kayla due to their mother’s inattentiveness.  He also has spiritual gifts and can see ghosts.  His grandfather Pop is his is role model.
    • Leonie, a woman with a troubled life who became a mother at a young age.  Her relationship with Michael is one that reinforces both of their substance abuse problems.  When she’s high, she sees visions of her brother Given who was murdered as a teenager.
    • Richie, the ghost of a 12-year-old who knew Pop at the penitentiary many decades earlier.  Jojo can see Richie, who follows the family back from the prison.

    The book touches on many themes including racial prejudice (especially within the carceral state), generational trauma, and African spirituality and the supernatural.

    Recommended books:

    Rating: ****

    #Audiobooks #BookReviews #Books #Fiction #MagicalRealism #Mississippi
  8. A short book by Timothy Snyder. Read the book. You will identify your country's leader in its pages. Then, you will get hints on how you should behave

    goodreads.com/review/show/8922

    https://link.amazon/B0ap9SFwO

    #tyranny #bookreviews #bookrecommendations

  9. Donella H. Meadows's book is brilliant. Not only does it apply to the worlds of climate change and ecology, but it will also apply to business, politics, and many spheres of activity. Read the book. Study it.
    https://link.amazon/B0eKQwD7B
    goodreads.com/review/show/8909

    #bookreviews #bookrecommendations

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