Category Archives: book recommendations

Book recommendation: When Doing the Right Thing Is Impossible, by Lisa Tessman

book recommendations, philosophy

I’ve been meaning to read Lisa Tessman’s When Doing the Right Thing Is Impossible for some time – and I’m very glad I finally got around to it!

This book is both accessible for a general audience and dense with food for thought. When we see people around us, in the news, and maybe ourselves in positions where some sort of moral failure seems guaranteed, that can really wear on us. But I think it feels better to openly acknowledge that reality, as Tessman does, than to try to fool ourselves about the possibility of always keeping our hands clean.

I’ll admit that I went into the book already very sympathetic with the conclusion that, indeed, sometimes one is going to violate a moral duty no matter what one choose to do, but I wouldn’t have been able to articulate why nearly as eloquently and thoroughly as Tessman has. I’m less sure where I stand on Tessman’s constructivism, but that is something to continue pondering for the future (for me).

If lots more people would read this book and take some of the central ideas on board, I think that maybe we could be both more forgiving of ourselves and each other, and also more motivated to change social structures for the better – so that the moral dilemmas she discusses wouldn’t arise quite so often in the first place!

Book recommendation: Solidarity, by Leah Hunt-Hendrix & Astra Taylor

book recommendations, justice,

I can’t tell you how many times, over how many years, I’ve said, “Why don’t people write/talk/study about solidarity more? I want to read a book about solidarity! When is someone going to write a good, detailed book focused on solidarity?”

Well, the universe (or more specifically, Astra Taylor & Leah Hunt-Hendrix) listened and granted my wish!

Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea is a great place to look for a more-than-introduction to the important concept of solidarity. Whether you are an activist, a historian, a philosopher, or just an engaged member of a community (large or small), this book almost assuredly has something that you didn’t already know about and that is worth thinking about some more. I know that I’m going to be returning to it again and again!

a color image of mountains in the American West superimposed with a gold foil dollar sign

Book recommendation: Billionaire Wilderness, by Justin Farrell

book recommendations, climate, justice, ,

Yale sociologist Justin Farrell’s new book, Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West, is an amazing piece of scholarship that provides detailed insight into how wealth concentration is shaping the human (and more-than-human) communities in Teton County, Wyoming, which is both the richest county in the United States and the county with the highest wealth inequality (on various measures).

Farrell’s research, both qualitative and quantitative, is meticulous and presented in clear and accessible prose. The excerpted interviews provide candid (and sometimes stomach-churning) insight into the hearts and minds of both the ultra-wealthy and the working poor whose labor makes their lifestyles possible in Teton County and thereabouts. For various reasons that Farrell thoughtfully articulates, rural communities are under-researched, and accessing the ultra-wealthy for research purposes is challenging. But we can no longer afford to neglect such research and this book provides a model for much work that is yet to be done.

I strongly recommend this valuable book to anyone who is working on or simply interested in issues relating to climate change, conservation, wealth inequality, and/or social justice more broadly.

Book recommendation: The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber & David Wengrow

book recommendations, , ,

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity was one of the first books I picked up purely for my reading pleasure after liberating myself from the ridiculously demanding work schedule that I had as a university professor. I am so glad that I did (that is, both pick up the book and leave that job behind)!

The book cover of The Dawn of Everything

This hefty book has been getting a lot of press, positive and negative, so there are already tons of places that you might look for a summary, if you are so inclined. I’m not so sure that one can really successfully summarize a book like this one, though, so I’m not going to try.

I will mention some of the things that I most appreciated about it. From the start, it forced me to confront (not for the first time) the shortcomings and miserable failures of my own education when it comes to the indigenous cultures of North America. As the book progressed, I learned a lot about various cultures across wide swaths of space and time. Gaining a greater understanding of the great diversity of ways in which humans have intentionally chosen to organize their societies would be reason enough for many people to give some time and attention to the book.

But what I probably found most valuable for getting the old brain juices flowing were the authors’ discussions of some very fundamental freedoms. Over many years as a student and then also as a teacher, I’ve thought a lot about the ways in which many of us are socialized into obeying authorities rather than deciding for ourselves what a good life looks like (and how best to pursue it). This book enabled me to think about a whole host of related issues from a new angle, and I suspect some of the ways it has changed my thinking will be quite long-lasting.

Of course I’m neither an anthropologist or an archaeologist, so I don’t have the right kind(s) of expertise to assess the methods used to collect, analyze, and interpret data in the background research, but the book did also help me learn a lot about the preoccupations, habits, and assumptions that are common to many practitioners of those disciplines, which was both interesting and useful for me.

Book Recommendation: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler

book recommendations, justice, philosophy

Oh, wow – it is great to end the summer with a really spectacular novel. Everyone should go out and read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (and that goes double for any budding scholars interested in philosophy of mind and/or cognitive science).

Don’t read any blurbs or reviews first, just get straight into it!

Why? There is a significant surprise reveal midway through it, and it would be a real shame if you didn’t get the chance to figure things out on your own. This sometimes funny, often thought-provoking, and consistently well-written book starts out as just a regular story about growing up in a family of flawed people, but I’ll leave it for you to decide whether we can say that it ends that way …

Book recommendation: Bird Flu, by Michael Greger

book recommendations, food, justice

I started reading Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching for reasons that had nothing to do with COVID-19. But may I say that it could not be any more relevant to our lives at this particular time?

Dr. Michael Greger does a wonderful job of explaining the science of viruses in general, the history of pandemics (and our political/economic/public health/media responses to them), and the steps that we would need to take to reduce the terrible dangers that pandemic influenza poses to human life, health, economics, national security, and so on. His writing is clear, engaging, and accessible, while being grounded in meticulous research and including copious citations from all sorts of relevant experts around the world.

No joke: this is not good bedtime reading, but it is a great read!

It looks like the full text was available for free on the internet for some time, but that it is temporarily unavailable because Dr. Greger is updating it with new findings about COVID-19 for a new edition, so try checking back to http://www.birdflubook.org/ or https://drgreger.org/pages/selected-writings later to see more about that.

Book recommendation: Zoopolis, by Sue Donaldson & Will Kymlicka

book recommendations, food, justice, philosophy

I’ve always loved animals, but I don’t always see myself in other people’s vision of what it means to be an animal lover. For instance, I don’t keep pets, and lots of people would expect an animal lover to do so. However, I am a vegan, which might be (and I think should be, but often isn’t) expected of people who self-identify as animal lovers. Plus, I generally love learning about animals more than I love interacting with them, but I do find it deeply painful when I witness harm to animals, even in fiction. And I’m seriously committed to environmentalism, which many people think means choosing what is good for whole species and ecosystems, even if and when that means killing or otherwise harming various individual animals.

I suspect there are a lot of other people out there who love animals in some sense, but that maybe don’t fit into stereotypical ideas about what it means to be an animal lover.

For an awesome book that challenges all of us to rethink what it means to stand in an ethically good relationship to non-human animals, I strongly recommend Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka’s Zoopolis. They don’t frame their book in terms of being by or for animal lovers, (though their work clearly expresses love for animals, along with many more intellectual virtues). Instead, they make a powerful, extended argument that existing academic and activist work regarding animal ethics is limited in key ways that can be overcome by shifting to a political model of human/non-human animal engagement. Here’s some high praise from any philosopher: their insights and arguments really changed my mind about a lot of things!

And (bonus!) this is among the most engaging and accessible books in academic philosophy that I’ve had the pleasure to read. It is one of those unicorns that falls into both the “for fun” and “for work” categories that I often use to mentally sort books. Seriously, check it out.

Book recommendation: Agency, by William Gibson

book recommendations

William Gibson’s newest novel, Agency, has a lot to offer to longtime Gibson fans (like myself) as well people who haven’t previously read his work. You’ve got a cast of uniquely talented characters with fascinating personalities spread across the globe in the not too distant future, quick-witted dialogue, surprising turns of events, brilliant social commentary, and plenty of individual sentences that can captivate your imagination by encapsulating a person, a mood, a place, or a complex event all on their own.

As with other Gibson books, what I could say about the plot won’t do it justice, and might spoil the thrill of … well, just read it.

That said, if you are new to Gibson, don’t expect an escapist departure from the nightmare that we are living. Agency is sure to spark some troubling reflections about our present predicament (however you understand that).

Book recommendation: Climate Matters, by John Broome

book recommendations, justice, philosophy

I’m so pleased that news media outlets are increasingly engaging with the climate crisis. It is hard, and maybe impossible, to overstate the need for us all to work together in taking action that will help stabilize the climate that we, and all living things, rely on.

For folks who are looking for an introduction to many of the key issues regarding climate change ethics, politics, and economics, might I suggest Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World, by John Broome? Broome has been writing about climate change through the lens of his economic expertise for decades, but this book focuses on ethics in a way that his previous work did not. I don’t agree with everything that Broome says, but it is a well-informed, accessible place to start that will give you plenty to think over, whether you are new to the climate debates or not.

Book Recommendation: The Overstory by Richard Powers

book recommendations

So I heard about this novel that was about …  trees. I had no idea what a novel about trees would be like. But I like trees (that may be an understatement), so I got my hands on a copy. I started reading it, and sure, trees appeared in the initial parts. But I didn’t immediately see where things were going, or why the reviews I read had framed this as a novel about trees. That said, at some point, I’m not sure when, I really got into it.

What a world that Powers creates! His rich descriptions of all aspects of the varied trees that the cast of characters encounter and engage with took me back to childhood nature walks where I was encouraged to notice and revel in the minutiae of a natural world all around us that is all too easy to take for granted. What I’m saying is: stick with it, even if this book doesn’t immediately grab you.

In fact, if you need a break from a cubicle or other dreary workspace, or if inhospitable weather is getting you down, that might be a particularly good time to get this book, and immerse yourself in a story of twisting and turnings, both in the roots below us, the branches above us, and the lives of the people around us.