What I'm Reading (Early Winter)

Here's a delayed report-out of what I've been reading from October through December, outside of the speculative books that I usually discuss on this blog.  

• Mutualism by Sara Horowitz. This book is about the history of unions, churches, and other mutual aid groups in relation to the history of the social safety net, and an argument for why we need to return to hyper-local, community-focused solutions to save us from the next wave of economic crises. It was an interesting argument, but I'm not sure that I buy it entirely. I agree that without a sense of community, our sense of responsibility to the whole, and thus our desire to act outside of our own needs, can only continue deteriorating. At the same time, a lack of federal action risks leaving people outside of the network of care (and we all know who that's been historically), and I think that's a risk we shouldn't accept. 
• Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison (not pictured). I really enjoyed this book. It made me think in a different way about what I'm writing and reading, and that can always only help the writing quality. I think this is going to be the type of book I flip open when I need to feel inspired. 
• Begin Again:  James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, by Eddie Glaude. This was a really interesting interrogation of the fiction and non-fiction work of James Baldwin as reactions to the particular time in which they were written, juxtaposed against the events of the last few years. This went really well in conversation with Nesrine Malik's We Need New Stories. 
• Grow and Hide by Colleen Grogan. I bought this book because Colleen was one of my favorite grad school professors, and I thought it was going to be the history of the Medicaid program (which is where I do most of my research in the day job). Instead, it was a comparison of public perception and actual government actions around provision of and funding for public health more broadly. One one hand, this is definitely written like a text book and not like the fun pop-science or pop-history books I've been reading, so it took forever to slog through. On the other, this book set some ideas to percolating for a historical fantasy. 
• Sarah Maclean's entire backlist (mostly not pictured). I re-read the 15 adult romances published by Sarah Maclean in preparation for her latest, Knock Out. One of the best things about reading such an expansive world is all the easter eggs and recurring side-characters. I caught a few more on this read than I did on my last full read-through in 2018. Additionally, some of the books that really spoke to me then were perfectly pleasant this time around, and the books that I disliked on the last read were the ones that made me sob this year. If any romance readers out there haven't read these, I highly recommend them.