Book Roundup #1

what I've been reading in January, February and March

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There’s a couple of weeks left on the Kickstarter to print my debut photography book Beauty Hunting. It’s now fully funded (yay!) but you can still pre-order your own copy. I’ll be printing a very limited edition only so it may be your only chance to own the first edition. Beauty Hunting is an intimate and introspective exploration of the cycles of healing, of finding beauty in the unlikely places, rediscovering traces of myself that got lost along the way, and tending to the hidden wounds we all carry.

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I love books. If my whole life could be just reading books and doing research and learning new stuff (and occasionally swimming with my camera) I think I’d be a very happy person.

That said sometimes I have periods when I don’t pick books up at all - periods when I need to process what I’ve read, let it all stew in my head a bit, or just let my head be empty for a while, with space for ideas to rattle about.

I also don’t have a schedule. Sometimes I devour a book in a few evenings, sometimes it takes me months. I often read several books simultaneously, dipping in and out - especially if they discuss quite heavy subject matter (it’s been 4 months and still have not finished My Promised Land by Ari Shavit or 100 Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi).

It’s the same with photography books. I love them, I buy them, but sometimes it takes me a while to really sit down and go through them - I find that I need to be in the right kind of mood for that.

I’m coming to realise that’s my auDHD (autism + ADHD) at work, and when before I was sort of ashamed of switching between books, or going into deep diver hyperfocus mode, now I just embrace it - and get through a lot more as a result.

All this to say is I thought I’d start a new regular newsletter series about books. To share what I’ve found interesting in case it inspires others to read it, but also to keep a record of what I’ve read. Going for quarterly here, to accommodate my haphazard schedule. Here’s the selection from January, February and March 2024.

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The Parisian by Isabella Hammad

I used to read a lot of fiction, but all my fiction these days seems to come from a TV screen (or my son’s bookshelf). However I came across an article / letter conversations by Isabella Hammad and Sally Rooney and as result, came to this novel which I devoured over a week or so.

In it, a young Palestinian man Midhat Kamal - a dreamer and a romantic - leaves his hometown of Nablus in 1914 to study medicine in France. What follows is a story of love, heartbreak, and political upheaval. I would highly recommend it. Not only it’s a great love story, but reading about the daily life and customs of that era, and that place, gives you a greater understanding of the modern struggle for Palestinian independence too.

Doppleganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein

When do I even start with this book? I’ve recommended it to literally everyone I know. It’s a must-read for this moment in history. I listened to it on audio and I’m currently dipping in and out listening to it again. Naomi Klein unpacks seemingly every single perplexing issue of our time through a doppelgänger lens - conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers, the rise of the far right, wellness influencers, our personal online brands, capitalism, healthcare crisis, Covid response, neurodivergence, deep fakes and imperialism and occupation. One of my favourite things about the book is this refrain of how conspiracy theories often get the facts wrong but the feeling of something being not right, right. As the book description says, “it's for anyone who has lost hours down an internet rabbit hole, who wonders why our politics has become so fatally warped, and who wants a way out of our collective vertigo and back to fighting for what really matters.”

Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

This is the older book by Naomi Klein and not an easy read at all. Again, I got it on audio and now have a hard copy to go through again and make sense of it all - I read it after I finished The Doppelgänger. It talks of the rise of disaster capitalism, on people with power cashing in on the chaos caused by wars and natural disasters - from deadly tsunamis in Asia to the plundering of Russia, from exploiting Iraq to overthrowing legitimate governments in South America. I’d say another must read for making sense of the world and the historical moment we find ourselves in.

The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule by Angela Saini

Is patriarchy inevitable? Have men always ruled? Is there another way? These are the questions this book tries to answer.

From one of the world’s earliest known settlements of Çatalhöyük in Türkiye to communist Russia to modern-day Iran, this book analyses and overturns simplistic universal theories on patriarchy. It touched upon several themes that I then found mentioned in White Women (below) as the basis of white feminism so I’d say read them together for greater understanding of this topic.

White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao

A fairly quick read (only about 6 hours on audio), and I’d say every white woman I know needs to read it. This book touches upon so many themes that are so very relevant to this precise moment in history (white politeness, exceptionalism, the need for perfection, toxic wellness - the list goes on). And to me, it really explains what I found so puzzling previously: the complete silence of so many white feminists when it comes to genocide in Gaza, where the majority of victims are women and children. If you’re like me, you probably think you’re not racist, or not “white supremacist” but these things run so deep you might not register the harmful behaviours (or the lack of actions), thoughts or stereotypes you engage in, and a lot of that thanks to patriarchy (see the book above). It also highlights how white supremacy is killing us all - white women including - so it’s on us, the ones who uphold it, to get into the work and become “co-conspirators” in dismantling it.

The Mindful Photographer by Sophie Howarth

Not many photography books from me this time, but I finally finished The Mindful Photographer by the wonderful Sophie Howarth after scanning through it last summer. I found I tapped into mindful photography practice by accident as I was working on Beauty Hunting, and this book reaffirmed for me many things I already knew instinctively. It’s full of peaceful contemplation (which Sophie excels at - take one of her classes, you won’t regret it) and visual poetry, as well as hands on assignments and inspirational stories. It also led me to discover several interesting works from photographers I didn’t know about before. This book is great for anyone in any genre of photography and includes examples from street, portraiture, nature and more conceptual photography.

Looking for Lenin by Niels Ackermann and Sébastien Gobert

Again, I got this a while back and flipped through, but finally sat down recently to have a proper look. Growing up in Soviet Union, Lenin was everywhere (I remember at one point in a kindergarten, arguing with a friend as to whether a portrait we had hanging on a wall there was looking at me or at her). There are plenty Lenins still to be found everywhere in St Petersburg (formerly known as Leningrad), including a large statue on the way from the airport to the city centre. In this book, Niels and Sébastien travel across Ukraine in 2015-2016, looking for the fallen statues of Lenin and what’s become of them. They discover Lenin in the most unlikely places, gardens, garbage dumps, museum corridors, private living rooms, painted into Darth Vader or re-made into Ukrainian folk heroes. Full of subtle humour but also clever observations about the passage of history, I think I’ll be revisiting this book many times.

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Most links in this post lead to Bookshop.org and are affiliate links - if you buy something on there, I’ll get a a few pennies in return. Rest assured I only ever write about things I’ve actually read. Also, in the recent months I’ve been using World of Books a lot to buy second hand books - or even new ones, as I continue weaning myself off Amazon. Many of the books I listen to on Spotify (not ideal) or Audible (even less ideal but I’ve had lots of credits to spend before I cancelled my subscription!). With some of those audiobooks I end up buying a hard copy anyway: audio gives me a fairly quick way to get through books and if I want to revisit them and highlight stuff I turn to a physical copy. I’m on the look out for another audiobook app that’s more ethical, put your suggestions in the comments if you have any!

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