Book Roundup # 2
Well this roundup is about a month late. I’ve honestly been struggling to write lately (so if you’re my paid subscriber you may have noticed that I paused billing - until at least September). Things are unravelling worldwide and I don’t yet know how to write about what I think or feel - and at the same time I don’t want to write about trivial stuff either.
So this book roundup is my attempt to get back into putting words on paper in a way that somewhat speaks to what’s going inside my head.
Over the past 3-4 months I didn’t read as much as I did over the winter - as I said in one of the comments to my previous post, I knew this would happen as a more “people-y” season kicks in, and the days are longer and I cannot spend as many hours in my “woman cave”, reading / listening to books. But I’ve been listening to a lot more podcasts though, and maybe I’ll do another post with some of my favourites.
Anyway, here are some book books and some photography books I enjoyed since my last update.
WB West Bank by Sophie Ristelhueber (2005)
This book is out of print as far as I know and I enjoyed looking through it (randomly picked off a shelf) when I was over in Martin Parr Foundation Library for a visit.
It contains photographs of settler-created roadblocks in the West Bank, preventing Palestinians from travelling to their fields and homes, and thus deceptively quietly and calmly reveal the daily reality of people living there. There are no words, just pictures of this bruised landscape that says everything.
Anchor in the Landscape by Adam Broomberg & Rafael Gonzalez (2024)
Another deceptively simple book that through photographs of Palestinian olive trees tells a heartbreaking story of occupation and colonialism. The olive tree is a symbol of Palestinian identity, culture, and resistance and thus has long been a target of destruction and theft. Since 1967, 800,000 Palestinian olive trees have been destroyed by Israeli authorities and settlers. Over a course of 18 months photographers Adam Broomberg and Rafael Gonzalez created portraits of olive trees in the Occupied Territories of Palestine, many of which are thousands of years old, and each photograph is accompanied by geographical coordinates of the tree.
If there’s one thing I wished this book had was a story of each tree. Who planted it and when, who cares for it now, and if it has been destroyed (the book contains several photographs of broken and cut trees) then when and how. Olive trees take decades to bear fruit, so when they are planted it’s an act of care not for yourself but for your descendants, and to me nothing quite speaks of the indigenous culture like this simple but powerful act. I would love to know more of their stories.
By the Sea by Markéta Luskačová (2019)
Another almost-out-of-print title I enjoyed at the MPF Library. This book contains a series of photographs made by Czech photographer Markéta Luskačová taken in the late 1970s on the North East Coast of Britain.
Working in the UK at the same time as well-known photographers like Chris Killip and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Markéta sadly is not very well known compared to her male contemporaries (I wonder why, hmmm).
What especially struck me about this book was that she created all of these photographs with baby in tow. Asking for help from strangers on the beach to look after her child while she was working, she has not just photographed the location but became part of the community with the people she documented.
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
I’m a lover of history and trying to find answers by looking at it, and so this book is right up my street - but I think it’s a very interesting (if a little mind-bending) read for everyone. It sort of flips the narrative of history that we have all been taught: there were hunter-gatherer tribes, and then agriculture got invented, and with that came complex societies, big cities and necessarily rulers and top-down laws. The research David and David present tells a very different story. It shows how throughout ancient history humans oscillated between agriculture and hunter-gathering or more informal seasonal allotment-style gardening, with some societies completely rejecting organised agriculture even though they had knowledge of it (one of the little tidbits I found so fascinating because it’s so true but I’ve never thought about it, was the fact that in order to be successful in gathering, people already had to understand really well how nature works, and would have used it to their advantage). It also shows how many ancient societies organised themselves on a community basis, without much need for rulers like tribal leaders or kings, or even elected representatives to tell them what to do. With most of the world grappling with questions about the value of our (not very) democratic systems and many people questioning whether there’s even another way, I think this book offers some hope and answers.
Who Rules the World by Noam Chomsky
I mean… Depressing but essential stuff. That’s all I’ve got to say.
From the book blurb: “From the dark history of the US and Cuba to China's global rise, from torture memos to sanctions on Iran, this book investigates the defining issues of our times and exposes the hypocrisy at the heart of America's policies and actions. The world's political and financial elite are now operating almost totally unconstrained by the so-called democratic structure. With climate change and nuclear proliferation threatening our very survival, dissenting voices have never been more necessary.”
Be a Revolution by Ijeoma Oluo
I’ve been dipping in and out of this book over the past few months - it gets a bit overwhelming sometimes. It’s essentially a number of case studies about people doing what they can, how they can, and sort of turning our ideas of what it can mean to be an activist (something I thought about and wrote about a bit before) somewhat on its head. It also shows that we have to be patient, that change can sometimes take decades, but it’s not a reason to not do anything “because it doesn’t work” in the short term. It reminds me of planting of the olive groves - you won’t get to enjoy the fruits of your labour, but your children and their children, and the whole society will. I think we keep forgetting about that in our culture of instant gratification.
I should add that there were some critiques of this book I came across, with people claiming that Ojeoma didn’t quite get the right permissions, particularly from some of the disabled activists to feature them so prominently, so I’m very mindful of that when I’m reading this book.
Some 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!