Some reading and listening

[darkemeralds]

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor, read by Rita Moreno.

For a Supreme Court Justice, Sotomayor is a heck of a good storyteller. She's only a few years older than I am, and though her life has been about as different from mine as a fellow American's can be, I'm surprised at how much I identify with the limitations, challenges, and mores that we've both seen dramatically altered in our lifetime.

It's a memoir, not an autobiography, and it's wonderfully frank and personal. Rita Moreno narrates with real sensitivity, and there are sections where she reads gorgeous Puerto Rican poetry in Spanish that will knock your socks off.

Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber, read by Grover Gardner.

It's my fourth time through this demanding and fascinating look at money, slavery, religion, and morality across pretty much the whole of recorded human history. One of the best things about it is how Graeber puts "the Western world" in its place as the laggard, unsophisticated latecomer to economic processes invented centuries earlier by India, China, and the Arab world. I still don't know what conclusions to draw from it other than plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose and "the Occupy Movement is probably onto something," (and "Thank God I'm out of debt-not-counting-my-mortgage") but it's a fascinating listen.

Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After by Bella dePaulo.

A bit of a whine, a bit of a rant, but it offers some eye-opening ideas about its subject matter. Like, why should my Social Security vanish when I die just because I don't have a spouse? Confirms my sense that my single-hood is very different socially from that of my divorced and widowed friends and relations.

Foucault in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern

IDK. IDEFK. Foucault was a big noise in my university years (the 80s), one of several whose ideas I pretty much completely failed to grasp, and the other day Heidegger came up in conversation with ravurian, and I went to the library, and there next to Heidegger for the Perplexed was this slim volume. I figured ol' Michel was worth 90 minutes.

One thing I've learned about from the book so far: composer Jean Barraqué (one of Foucault's lovers). I don't begin to understand this guy's music, which is Serialist and extremely abstract, but it's weirdly compelling, and this sonata is one of the few pieces of music I've ever found that I can listen to and think at the same time.



And in lighter reading: I'm back on a Supernatural kick. roxymissrose has some great classic recs here--Amnesia fics. It's a whole category. God, I love fandom.

Comments

[grrlpup]

That's two posts in a row on my DW reading list that recommended Debt! I had vaguely heard of it before but will move it up to the top of my list.

Justice Sotomayor was the guest on NPR's Fresh Air earlier this week. I caught only a few minutes while I was driving, but it's probably available as a podcast on their website by now.

[darkemeralds]

I'll be interested to know what you think if you decide to read Debt. It came my way a couple of years ago via a reference from communicator, who, as I recall, was most interested in the jubilee/debt forgiveness aspect of the book.

It's possible that Graeber's central purpose in writing the book was to argue for a mass debt forgiveness in the wake of the big breakdown of 2008. From what I understand, he's affiliated with the Occupy movement, and of course Occupy people have been busy in the last year or so buying bad debt with donated funds and forgiving it--one of the most direct and meaningful acts I've ever heard of.

I can't help wondering if Justice Sotomayor is considering a political run of some kind...

[nanila]

I love Rita Moreno's voice. I'll have to listen to that memoir. Thank you for the recommendation!

[darkemeralds]

I hope you enjoy it. It's both thoughtful and--dare I say this about a Supreme?--entertaining.