Book Review: Wild Souls

 

Image: The color of the book is a cream background with a collage of nature illustrations in the center. There are cut up images of fish, flowers, a moth, a bird, and a cheetah. Across the top in black is "wild souls." Below that in red "freedom and flourishing in the non-human world." Across the bottom in black is "Emma Marris." There is other text too small to make out.

This is gonna be a long one as I have so many thoughts. Emma Marris' Wild Souls is an important exploration of our relationships with the more than human world. I have been looking for a book with this approach for some time. I often find myself divided between texts that examine hierarchy and control of other animals but are often limited more to domestic species or that do not tackle certain ecosystem conflicts in enough detail and other texts of science or journalism where in wild animals are treated as homogeneous categories, disposable when necessary, that humans know best how to control. Marris' decision to focus on ecology and non domesticated species for the most part while also examining anthropocentric control and framing of the natural world puts this book into a niche category that blends various points of reference and analysis.

I found most of this book to be honest and inquisitive about all of the gray areas that go into our relationships with other animals. The sources that Marris draws from are ones that I recognize from all sorts of fields including philosophy, ethics, biology, ecology, and so forth. She spends time speaking with various people and groups including visiting remote indigenous tribes and discussing their relationships with nature and other animals.

One of Marris' central questions is about the value of "nature" and what actually is "natural." It is often taken as fact that what is labeled as natural is best in terms of how humans should interfere in the lives of other animals. Yet, the definition of "natural" is often changed to suit whoever is making the decisions. What is wildness when we've altered things so much that even wild animals depend on or are destroyed by us more than anything else? How fuzzy is the binary between domestication and wildness? When should we intervene in a species adaptation to a threat we caused?

I appreciated her examination of zoos and other entertainment industries in far more honest ways than most folks writing about conservation do. Zoos are businesses with some of the best PR on the planet. I have seen people who are normally caring and cautious be duped by dishonesty and misdirection. Marris discusses how many "conservation" programs began as rebranding of an abusive industry and currently exist to increase captive populations for the purposes of profit making entertainment. Zoos encourage animal ownership as ornaments or forced companions while letting people think such exploitation is helping animals. She acknowledges what some research has shown- that the "education" zoos provide is not most visitors reason for attending nor is it effective enough to outweigh the harmful indoctrination that wild animals belong in zoos and as possessions. If children required zoos to learn and care about a species, dinosaurs would not be so prevalent in their upbringing.

Actual conservationists (some of whom will utilize the resources from zoos) support preserving wild populations while zoos breed them for domestic life and entertainment. The AZA- who many zoo defenders claim is the gold standard for "good" zoos- even used to revoke accreditation to zoos that would send elephants to sanctuary when they were old. They regularly have opposed sanctuaries as they believe they take away breeding populations for zoo attractions. Is it really conservation if it's done to deliberately deprive the individuals of freedom?

Expanding upon this, Marris explores ecology and general environmental concerns about preservation of threatened species. Is the genetic "purity" of a species more important than the survival of individuals who may benefit from hybridizing as an adaptation to human encroachment into their areas? Hybridization is sometimes characterized as a net negative for species "fitness" but this is not always the case. For instance, polar bear and grizzly bears hybridizing may provide an advantage to shifting climate and habitat. Is the treatment of introduced species- often with extreme violence and deplorable suffering for an existence that humans force them into- helpful in the long run? How does that affect humans relationships with other animals and how they see them? When is it defensible to kill one animal to save another? Is it okay to breed and feed rodents to birds of prey and a sanctuary? Is it defensible to kill cats to save native birds? How often are we choosing the easy way out only to find that it is ineffective or less effective than something that takes longer?

Marris does mostly well and discussing some of the ways that oppression ingrained in humanity affect our relationships with other species. For instance anthropocentrism, toxic masculinity, appeal to nature, speciesism (which she does not name but describes,) etc. However there are times where she does contradict herself in the text in frustrating ways. This would have been a five-star book hands down if it weren't for the weird rant she goes on in the middle about hunting, vegans, and animal farming all of which she selectively ignores information about- including in her own book- to shallowly analyze her family. It was as if all of her beliefs and assessments went out the window in order to mimic what the hunters and fishers in her family told her.

It starts off good. She discusses how remote indigenous tribes such as the Matsigenka seek to exist within an ecosystem and how this affects their hunting and views other animals. Indigenous ecosystem management is also an important topic she explores. Colonial "ownership" of land is much easier to corrupt if it isn't corrupt and ineffective from the start and less hierarchical forms of management by those who live within a space are often going to be more effective and respectful. Moving forward to indigenous people who are more integrated into cities and such, she does sometimes fall into tropes that uses the beliefs of some specific indigenous people or tribes to excuse overall anthropocentrism. I assume her intention was to show respect and not push colonial thought, but it's also colonialist to frame all indigenous people as magical Disney princesses that animals consent to lay down their lives for.

This is not to make value judgments about sustainable, and especially subsistence, indigenous hunting. This is again a massively diverse practice that has had a variety of effects and has also changed over time. The introduction of guns among other things has imbalanced ecosystems across the board and accelerated decline of many species hunted by anyone with motor vehicles and weapons. Indigenous people hunting was and is not the same across the tribes nor continents and some tribes have used cruel and wasteful methods. Some practices still today are not considered in line with ecosystem respect nor cultural tradition by other indigenous people. Some indigenous people in climates and habitats that allow for it have chosen more plant based styles of eating, even if their ancestors had not, due to the modern state of farming of other animals and reduced habitat of hunted species. Some indigenous groups, especially in the arctic, must hunt to survive whether one wants to or not. Modern day indigenous folks living in the author's neighborhood and hunting with guns are very different than the Matsigenka people residing in forests who farm crops and do not use guns nor arctic indigenous folks whose closest store charges $50 for a pound of rotting produce. Extinctions have also followed humans pretty much everywhere they migrated to when they first left Africa. People were just trying to survive much of the time with the limited information that they had. We don't need to rewrite that impossibly difficult struggle for it to be real and culture to be important. Some of these things are discussed near the end of the book which is another reason this weird section doesn't fit. Most importantly, all of these groups are very different from the author and her family and that's where this diversion gets most frustrating.

Marris portrays herself and her family's hunting as in opposition to the horrors of animal agriculture- as if she and those who hunt are all vegan outside of hunting, something I've only encountered in one single primitivist in decades of taking to people and reading hunters' words. More annoyingly, Marris then goes into the ways that she respects vegans soooooooo much for various reasons, but then details extremely ignorant taking points on the speciesism bingo card as if they counteract the positives: Vegans also kill things! Crop deaths! Forced veganism! All of course wrapped up in a ribbon of indigenous tokenization. 

She does not mention that said hunting caused countless extinctions and loss of biodiversity, including leaving only 200 white tail deer left at one point. Only with extreme taxing and regulation were SOME of the many species destroyed by hunting brought back. Deer are now imbalanced in the other direction by urbanization, habitat loss, feeding/baiting, and HUNTING of their predators as well as humans choosing to kill the biggest trophies of their species leading to evolution in reverse. She does not talk about how most of the agriculture of plants, and thus crop deaths, exist to feed farmed animals to be slaughtered for meat eaters. She does not talk about how animal agribusiness is one of the top things that pushes indigenous people off of their land, disrupts their hunting practices, and turns many into climate refugees. She does not talk about how settlers bringing over farmed animals to the Americas was one of the biggest causes of disease that wiped out massive amounts of indigenous people. All of the previous discussion about lead ammo wiping out vultures doesn't make a single appearance in discussion of her family's hunting and eating of animals. She of course did not mention that if everyone stopped consuming farmed meat today and hunted instead that the entire wild world would cease to exist in about a day or two if it even lasted that long. She portrayed her husband and the rest of her family as making balanced pacts with nature.

Refusing to properly confront many humans' reliance on excessive amounts of animal killing and consumption was a major flaw that really let me down. It made it hard for me to focus on the rest of the book because up until this point she had broken with the party line of a simplistic way of looking at a relationship to other animals based entirely on extraction and anthropocentrism. THAT SAID, to be fair, the amount of text I have spent ranting about this was a choice I made in part to include information and links I wish had been in the book. The actual section is a rather small part of the entire text. If you are like me and find yourself angry with this section, I do encourage you to move forward and read the rest. She returns to the grounded explorations of our interactions with the greater than human world eventually.

I appreciated her discussions about island ecosystems and the slaughter of introduced species. In terms of dealing with species conflicts, Marris covers many practices that were familiar to me but others that were enlightening. She offers a heinous account of rat poisoning acknowledging the severe suffering as well as how many other animals, including threatened and endangered ones, are poisoned by it. On the other side of the coin, it was exciting to read about long-term plans to train native species to adapt to introduced species that were threats to them. The idea of helping to create a set of knowledge that they then pass on to future generations is one I can definitely get behind. However long-term results are very hard for people to accept, especially if success may not be seen until after we die and the next generation takes over. I really liked the way she juxtaposed the problematic culling, including celebratory killing contests and blame campaigns, of human-introduced species with other perspectives and effective ways of solving problems. Rather than attempting to return nature to a previous state- something completely impossible- there are efforts to help nature adapt, some more invasive than others and none perfect. I learned a lot here that I had not heard about before.

Marris does well to use these sections to tie things back into discussion of hybridization as being an adaptation that may be important for survival and how adherence to false ideas of genetic purity should not be seen as correct by default. She also does finally discuss extinctions of species caused by the arrival of indigenous humans and then exponentially worsened by colonialism that lead to a cascade of extinctions and irreparable ecosystem destruction- finally combating the one sided way she discussed hunting and fishing previously.

Marris does not claim to have all of the answers and I appreciate that, as much as I wish that we had them. She and I can agree on the one bit if advice she does choose to give: "Make room for other species and fight for climate justice."

Despite the nonsensical hunting vs veganism rant, out of place and in conflict with the rest of the book, I count this book as one of my favorites examining humans' intervention in the lives of other species. I enjoyed the complex discussions and the reality that there are no perfect answers much of the time- Just less harmful ones.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: A Little Queer Natural History

Image: the cover of the book is a cream background with large lettering whose cookies fade across the rainbow. Zig zagging with these words are rectangles depicting photos. The top right is a fungus, below that to the left is a dolphin, below that to the right is a plant landscape, below that to the left is a pill bug on a leaf, below that to the right is a lizard and under that a sparrow. The yext alternating with the photos is "a little queer natural History" and "Josh l davis."

Going into reading Josh L. Davis' A Little Queer Natural History, I expected something of a coffee table book: Nice photos with some captions and information and the book can certainly function that way. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how much more complex it was. There is not a ton of text in this book, but it packs a lot of information and is definitely more than just a list of facts about the greater than human world.

I have known for some time of the colonial, patriarchal, white supremacist, etc nature of some of the more widely known naturalist publications and study out in the ether. There are also plenty of issues in the sciences today of people projecting their own insecurities, anthropocentrism, inability to admit wrong, ability to accept new ideas, and so on onto their research subjects and publications. This book however gave me some details I definitely had not heard about before in regards to studies of specific species.

Many of the things that I have read which discuss instances of other species not fitting into shallow binarist and heteronormative boxes focused more on detailing what these features were than the historical resistance to understanding them. Despite ALQNH's short length, Davis manages to highlight quite well the kind of bias that is so destructive to the sciences as well as greater respect for animals including human beings.

The photographs in the book are beautiful, the descriptions of the animals are vivid and inviting. The only objection I have there is that the author sometimes refers to animals as "it" which is archaic and also not in line with what I assume are goals of the book. I expected better.

I thought a lot about what makes other species "queer" while reading this book. I generally object to labeling anything different from the norm as queer (much like many cishet academics unfortunately try to do.) It is a political identity of gender, sexuality, and connection and also reclaimation of a slur. How can we apply this to other animals for whom what we call queerness is the norm? It is a bit tricky. However, I agree with how the author has done so in this book. Because humans' studies of other animals are so entrenched with bias, we end up projecting these things onto other animals anyway such that we share the effects of queerness with them. We are connected both in the great scheme of things and with every assessment and discovery of our behavior.

The oppression that queer human beings face is both strengthened by the bias placed upon other animals and other animals suffer oppression that is based on these biases. This is not only seen in incorrect assessments of wild animals' behavior and the resistance to reporting queer expressions in their worlds, but also in domesticated settings wherein farms, zoos, breeders, etc kill, forcefully/non-consensually breed, mutilate, separate, etc gay/intersex/asexual/etc animals who they cannot treat as products of consumption/entertainment/etc.

The fragility of many of the white men, and sometimes other demographics, who have discussed the greater than human world is a warning that all of us should heed but especially those of us in naturalist communities or scientific fields. How much more could we have understood at this point if we were more open to the rest of the world not being exactly like dominant culture falsely believes we are? Humans have a way of trying to force other animals into our own oppressive boxes while also refusing to grant them the consideration of being like us enough to deserve liberation or even the mildest respect. It is a horrible dance that is captured quite well and the little snippets of history that we get when reading about the species in this book.

I'm keeping it quite general because I want people reading to have the ability to experience the specific stories anew. I will say that many of the overall lessons of the book are that there is great diversity in nature. While I do not believe naturalness in and of itself denotes whether or not something is right, those who do use this as a cudgel to oppress lgbtq people are doing so outside of reality.

It is quite sad when I think about it. What must it be like to be these people who can only see the world through ideas so stunted that they deprive themselves of understanding and wonder? Reading about the naturalists and scientists who dared think outside the box being met with such resistance is incredibly frustrating. Reading about how every discovery was (and often still is) used to further the oppression of LGBTQ people gives me feelings of anger but also of connection to other species. There is no liberation in this world if we do not confront our relationships with the vast majority of beings on this planet with us.

The species in this book also teach us that socialization, sex, intimacy, expression, and so forth do not exist solely to reproduce or further ones genes (regardless of how many otherwise educated people may still insist that this is so.) Thank dog for that.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: Red Star Hustle / Apprehension

 

Images: the covers of both books in the double press are shown. Both are cyberpunk street scenes with bright neon colors. On the left is Red Star Hustle showing a night street from above with a person running downward with neon green graffiti art on the building walls. Across the top in bright red is red star hustle. Below that in yellow is nebula award winning author Sam J Miller. To the right is the second book cover showing a person standing in the center of the road viewed head on. There are buildings on both sides towering past the top of the image and a spiral galaxy can be seen in the distant sky. Across the top in yellow is Mary Robinette Kowal, hugo and nebula award winning author. Below that in large letters is Apprehension.

I was pumped to see Saga Press put out a double book like this. It has been a while since I have seen one of these fun texts where you flip it over in the middle and start anew. The draw of the book for me was a favorite author - Sam J. Miller - putting out the novel Red Star Hustle. I was not only excited to read more from him, but also to see him take on a cyberpunk space opera style that I had not previously seen from him. The bonus was getting to be introduced to a second author who I was not familiar with previously- Mary Robinette Kowal. Her entry Apprehension was attractive as a sort of crime thriller space opera of a shorter, novella length.

I have never reviewed a double before, but it seems best to just review each book. I was worried that might be a large disparity in quality between the two making them difficult to rate. Both books ended up being about 4 stars for me. Imperfect but highly enjoyable.

Red Star Hustle follows two main characters points of view: a young sex worker in space who is framed for the murder of one of his clients and an agent tasked with tracking him down. I saw that other reviews found it too sexual, but I did not. I am not into long drawn out graphic sex scenes and I did not find those in this book to be so. They captured the romance between the protagonist and his love interest- heir to a massive empire whose details I will leave out so as not to spoil things. There was a fairly decent variety of characters of varied demographics with complex flaws and strengths. Addiction is a factor tying many of the most prominent characters together at different phases- long term sobriety, acceptance and attempting to start, and one who has not fully grasped his own addiction. 

I assume the author or someone close to him is in 12 step programs because there was a lot of that in addiction discussions. As a person who owes much of my own escape from the horrors of addiction to the community found in 12 step programs, I get it. That said, I wish there was a little more variety. 12 step programs don't really work much for more than community and are highly flawed- including the demeaning of treatments that are now shown to be very effective such as suboxone and treating any mistake as something that forces you to start all over with your "clean time." Unlearning this stuff took me a bit of education and humility. I don't think 12 steps programs are bad, there are great mutual aid elements, especially within groups who splintered off and removed some of the garbage, just that they should not be considered the gold standard. I will end this tangent by saying that this represents a variety of addictions well but is limited in the solution.

Miller is excellent at world building and I really felt immersed in the spaces he created in this book from inside ships to elaborate societal structures and inequities. The complex portrayal of sex work was also welcome. I enjoyed the entire story and felt it had a satisfying ending. I do think the book needed to be longer in order to properly explore the twists and turns the story took. There are at least three different times where Aran has an epiphany seemingly out of nowhere about an elaborate plan and shift in storyline. The first one I forgave despite not knowing how he came to the conclusion. The others though were too much. I enjoyed the book enough that I gladly would have read another 100 pages if they helped integrate the twists a bit more. I am not talking about excessive exposition, but anything to show how Aran came to the conclusions he did. 

I am happy to have another Sam J Miller book on my shelf and look forward to anything he puts out next. I would love more cyberpunk stories. We essentially live in the stupidest cyberpunk timeline here in the USA at the moment and I crave something a bit more queer, flashy, and somehow uncharacteristically optimistic.

Kowal's Apprehension felt like a good piece of fiction to pick up next. It allowed me to keep my head in outer space for a little while longer. This book also had a great mix of characters. I loved that the protagonist was a badass older woman with a southern USA accent and a variety of trade histories including neurosurgery. Characters like these can sometimes be written to a fault- either a grandma character whose whole identity is that, or a older person who is exactly like everyone else. I appreciated the inclusion of things like arthritis, disability, complex trauma, fragility, etc along with wisdom, strength, perseverance, family, and so on. She's a grandma driven to protect her family as well as someone digging into a mystery.

It is difficult to speak too much more about the novella without tons of spoilers. I will say that I enjoyed the thrill ride that Kowal took me on and felt immersed in the story. I do feel the book also suffered a little from a sudden shift in the ending. The book almost feels rushed and like a different book altogether when then end is wrapped up. It would have been cool if more time was spent wrapping things up.

Overall, I was happy to experience another story from a favored author and to be introduced to a new one. I look forward to read more from both Miller and Kowal in the future.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: Little Red Barns

Image: the cover of the book is a black background with cream colored writing interspersed between sequential identical icons of small red barns and a cream colored factory. The top says "little red barns." Then, divided by icons is "hiding the truth from farm to fable." Across the bottom is "Will Potter, author of green is the new red."

I am a long time follower of Will Potter. His old site Green is the New Red was a bit of a companion to me in my organizing days before my health knocked me down too much. Not only did I often feel isolated from other leftists who were frequently unwilling to face exploitation of other animals and environmental destruction as important issues, it was just a scary time all around existing through the height of the green scare. Maybe that is not a correct way to frame it, as the damage has been done, the laws like the AETA and Ag-Gag still exist, and people are still being charged with "terrorism" for things like rescuing abused animals or property destruction with no harm to the living. Back then, animal and earth activists were labeled the #1 domestic t-word threat in the USA and the feds came down on these movements like a never-ending avalanche. There are still people languishing in prison from outlandish sentences, ones who were returned to high security prison for blogging, and others who were freed due to entrapment and the state withholding evidence (but not before their lives were torn apart.) The surveillance at the time was so suffocating that even the most banal and unthreatening actions such as blogging about animal suffering or having a completely legal sidewalk protest would still attract feds. I suppose since then I have seen the feds acknowledge that nazis killing people might be a tad more important than people rescuing chickens or filming animal torture, but it is still bad.

It was exciting to see Potter put out his newest book Little Red Barns as it is an important catalogue of past and present that is very relevant to the current dystopian state of things, especially in the USA. Animal agribusiness industries have brilliant front groups and advertising that has allowed them to frequently skirt the response to blatant violence towards other animals, decimation of neighborhoods they use up and destroy, and being top causes of climate change. The myth of humane slaughter and "family" farms is a big part of that as well as the utilization of wealth to influence political action. To salvage my mental health, I chose to limit my consumption of media that speaks of harm to animals in detail many years ago. I make few exceptions. Reading this book in its entirety is one of those. Do not misunderstand me- this is not simply a book of horrific descriptions of abuse. But, there are some descriptions woven throughout the text as it is impossible to convey the reality without mention of it. Potter describes his own awakenings to this info and encourages the reader not to look away.

There is a frank discussion about media saturation with violence. When should we witness harm? What purpose does it serve? When is it responsible to look away? When does it motivate us to act and when does it desensitize us? I often see this discussion about harm to humans, but this is one of the rare times I have seen it addressed regarding harm to other animals as well. Potter is not the first, but brings it to another audience.

Given my aforementioned history, I expected to know a lot of the content in this book already. I lived through many of the things he discusses. I thought I would pick up some new info here and there while enjoying Potter's work as always. This book was a much bigger experience than that for me. There were facts like learning that the AETA was actually written in part by animal exploitation industry ceos that should not have surprised me but did. I always knew these powers were huge but did not realize they were actually writing the laws as well. I also didn't realize just how absolutely horrific and disgusting the treatment of people living in neighborhoods where these farms exist is. I knew about the shit sprayed into the air at times, the poor air and water quality, and other forms of hell. I did not realize you literally have to use your windshield wipers to see past the feces while driving and that you can never open your windows. Potter visiting these places, interviewing people, and cataloguing the experience was something I had never read before.

Potter also breaks down all of the arguments in favor of exploitation of farmed animals (and all of the resulting effects upon wild animals, environments, humans, etc) and combats them frankly. His arguments are not devoid of passion, but he relies heavily on concrete evidence and explanation of what is going on behind all of the closed doors and red tape. He shows well the connections to fascism and other forms of oppression. Near the end of the book, he discusses how seeing the big picture in regards to how all of these oppressions are interconnected was illuminating to him. The only thing I think he could have improved upon here is inclusion of the feminist organizers, writers, sanctuary workers, etc who have been discussing these ideas for some time. It would have wrapped the whole thing up nicely.

I found Potters writing style in this book to be interesting as well due to how intimate it was. He went out of his way to acknowledge his own biases and combat them in his reporting. He often writes in a more detached journalistic style, but this book is full of bits of memoir. It meant a lot to read things like this in part because of how much I related to Potter. Being aware of what occurs on these farms and slaughterhouses, what they do to the people who live in neighborhoods that rain literal shit, what they do to the soil and climate, and so on is taxing. On top of that, spending so many years doing what often feels like screaming into the void trying to change things is very defeating. It becomes more taxing when otherwise liberation minded people ignore it. Watching the same leftists who would break a window to save a dog from a hot car turn completely reactionary in regards to the suggestion that farmed animals should not suffer in the same way is beyond depressing. But, I digress. This is all a recipe for mental health crises and I was very grateful to see Potter speak frankly about it. 

Despite the level of struggle expressed, Potter still manages to end the book on a more positive note. It reminds me a bit of the book Hope without Hope. Even though we are often up against unstoppable forces, we need to keep going. There is no movement in history that was one and done. Things will always be shifting and we will always need to evolve with that. 

I definitely recommend this book to pretty much anyone. It's especially important for folks without knowledge of animal agribusiness industry, government repression, and so on- even if they don't consider these things as personally relevant. These effects spread across the planet and to other movements. It is very important for folks who believe that "humane" exploitation both exists and is easy to choose over factory farming. It is important for folks concerned with climate change. It is also a good book for folks who may already agree or think that they know the info therein. There is a lot here that I did not know. The connection and validation of personal struggles in and around these movements is also a big benefit to reading this. 

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: Naturekind

 

Image: the cover of the book is a navy blue background with an illustration of a maze of green leaves that morph into silhouette of various animal species. Humans, bats, bees, horses, fish. Across the top in white is Melissa Leach and James Fairhead. Across the bottom in white is Naturekind: language, culture, and power beyond the human.

Naturekind is an interesting book wherein Melissa Leach and James Fairhead take an approach to the idea of language and communication that I haven't quite read about before. BioSemiotics is not a field I'm super familiar with, so I enjoyed learning more about it. Going in, I expected this book to be another discussion of how other animals have language and communication that is complex in a myriad of ways much like our own. The authors take a much wider ranging approach. While I do have some criticisms, overall I found the book to be rather enlightening in ways that I think a variety of audiences can learn from. The authors not only discuss communication with and between other animals, but also stretch it out to plants, forests, soils, and cities. 

Those of us who have read a lot about these things may bristle at this idea, wondering if it is going to be a misrepresentation of something in order to demean the expression or care for other animals (such as when disingenuous people claim "plants scream and feel pain!" in order to avoid discussion of harm and exploitation of farmed animals.) I'm happy to tell you that that is not what the authors are doing. They argue language and communication are more diverse and comprehensive. There are human languages and communications, that of other animals, and that between humans and other animals that are relatable to readers for obvious reasons. However they expand the idea to call attention to the interweaving of everyone and everything in each environment. There is no need to anthropomorphize plants and places in order to discuss interwoven communication and approach an important understanding of interconnectedness between everyone.

This another book I am reading yet again as a non-academic person in this particular field. That said, I found their book to be fairly readable and accessible. It is jargony but in a way that requires more time and attention, rather than a way that makes it impossible for the layman to read. The book also references many others I have read about animal language and communication which I was pleased to see. The review of the literature in general is pretty wide and impressive.

One of the best parts about this book is a tenet woven throughout every chapter: the importance of seeing individuals rather than species solely as homogenous groups. While appreciation for and understanding of species as a whole is important, humans often lose sight of the individual which can lead to significant problems both in study and in the capacity to do harm. The authors note that there is not a single human language nor style of communication. Thus, we should approach others knowing that there will be individual, cultural, dialectical, etc differences within and across species.

The book also takes note of how power dynamics can affect communication, however I think they did not focus on this enough. Unfortunately, most in depth discussion of other animals (who received full chapters) were of domesticated species or others in captivity and focused specifically on humans' communication with them rather than their communications with one another. 

There was not enough discussion about how chickens, horses, bees, etc behave outside of exploitative (egg farming, horse riding,  breeding, and selling, honey production) environments. There is even a quick mention near the end of "respect" for chickens including the act of eating them when they're killed for not producing eggs enough anymore. The authors are including a perspective rather than stating this as personal belief, but I still found it frustrating that there was no discussion of the chicken's desire to exist even when she is no longer a site of capitalist gain. They discuss dressage- widely accepted as including cruel practices- as "mutually beneficial" for humans and horses. They also make the mistake of discussing colony collapse of bees while focusing on honey bees. This is one of the most successful misdirections of the honey industry. Native bees are the ones in danger and suffering collapse. Honey bees are a non native species introduced by honey producers that competes with native bees, possibly making colony collapse worse, while also being victims of it collaterally. Apiaries are also not magical sites of human and bee communication when they're inseminating queens and cutting off her wings so she can't leave in order to produce and sell honey. 

This repeated focus on humans' desires and communication seems to detract at times from what it seems the authors are trying to do with this book. I expected much more discussion of how other than human animals communicate with one another both within and across species. The focus on the human creates an anthropocentric through line in these stories which allows for the neglect in attention to the aforementioned exploitative relationships. I believe if the authors intended to focus most on domestic species that they should have visited sanctuaries rather than farms or discussed native bees if they were going to focus on colony collapse at all. 

I do like how the authors regularly discussed a variety of indigenous peoples relationships and practices with other animals. To see something on the scientific side be discussed in tandem with cultural practices including spirituality is an interesting exercise. They also discuss the problem with seeing indigenous people as part of nature separate from other people and the problems this creates. That said there is still a little bit of romanticism there likely born from wanting to show respect. Given that the book is focused on communication and language, I would for instance challenge the idea that animals "give their lives" to hunters as patently false. It only works as an argument if one completely ignores communication from other animals. There is no bear scene from Yellowjackets happening in this universe. Discussion of some people's need for subsistence hunting or their cultural existence in a web of ecology does not require anthropocentric misdirection away from what individual animals are desiring and experiencing. Overall though, I do think they navigated anthropological information and tandem with biosemiotics and ways that made a lot of sense.

When the book gets into communication via plants, forests, soils, immune systems, and even cities, I found myself pleasantly challenged in terms of how I think about these things. This is where my own anthropocentrism peeks through as my very human brain wants to analyze how these things are like humans. Thankfully, they often aren't and don't need to be. There is still a rich web of interconnected communication that is difficult to verbalize. These authors manage to create a vision where we can better understand how these things are connected and how information is transferred and shared. They helped me think about things as all part of a larger collective existence. I really enjoyed these parts of this book for that reason. I don't believe I've previously encountered this sort of discussion that was not disingenuous or anthropomorphic*. Rather than forcing nature into anthropocentric definitions of language and communication, the authors expand upon these ideas instead.

The conclusion does well to wrap up a variety of ideas expressed throughout the chapters focusing on each category of species or environment. There is a small discussion about why some will choose not to kill other animals when possible, but I would have liked to read a bit more about that given how much of their study was focused on sites power dynamics between humans and other animals. It seems possibly that the authors lean in that direction, and I believe they would have a lot to add to the discussion if they would have spent more time on it. I understand that this book is more of an exercise of describing things that exist rather than making an ethical argument of some sort. Yet, I still would have liked a little more balance in this area.

Even though I do have of criticisms about the discussions specifically of other animals, I am still rating this book highly. It adds to the conversation in ways I've never seen before. It left me thinking a lot about communication topics outside of animality in ways that reach throughout all of my own interactions with the wider world. It also helped me better understand biosemiotics in general as well as how these particular authors are expanding ideas therein.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

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*I do not use the term anthropomorphism to demean other species like many people do. What I mean is the direct application and insistence that someone else has human traits in ways that are not possible. An example would be when you see a barbecue sign with a dressed in a t-shirt serving up his own dead body on a plate or the claim that vegetables cry in pain as they are picked because they release biological communication elements. Anthropomorphism is NOT the idea that other animals have language and communication or have complex emotions and experiences even though some people like to pretend that that is what is in order to avoid acknowledging the oppression of other species.

Book Review: Return to the Sky

Image: the cover of the book is a light blue sky background with two adult bald eagles in the foreground. With white heads, brown bodies and a large yellow bill and talons. One bird is perched on a broken tree with their wings spread and another is flying downward about to land with them. In the upper right corner is "Tina Morris" below that "Foreword by Dr Elizabeth Gray, CEO, National Audubon Society." Below that in larger letters is "Return to the Sky." In the lower left corner is "the surprising story of how one woman and seven eaglets helped restore the bald eagle."
 

Return to the Sky was such a refreshing delight of a bird book and memoir. This review includes my usual diversions from the topic as is customary on any book involving animal research and conservation. Tina Morris' and these eagles' work and life are already interesting in their own light. The way this book is written makes it stand out as more than that. Even starting with the title byline, it is clear that this is not a book about one human saving birds. It is about the birds and this human saving themselves. Morris ponders regularly what the birds must go through, acknowledging the struggle and strength in each personality. Being a woman navigating the highly white male dominated science and conservation fields is of course a large part of Morris' history. Yet, still, even when media wanted to center her in the story in the past, she demanded that the birds be centered. Quite often, nature writing is rife with anthropocentrism and saviorism. It pains me to say as a birder that birding and bird conservation books can sometimes be even moreso than average. I often find myself baffled by how little some authors are able to understand or give credit to the birds they study and/or write about. Tina Morris has a way with story telling that is full of respect and compassion while also being concretely grounded in data and rationale. This mix is hard to come by, though it has gotten better with time- led by many women scientists and naturalists over decades and more. Morris quotes Jane Goodall at one point as a driving force involving the importance of respecting compassion as part of the sciences. This shows through Morris' actions and thoughts on the page. 

Another unfortunately common thing in bird conservation and science is for people to sacrifice their ethics bit by bit when encountering the indoctrination coming from fields and industries that involve captive animal research or exploitation for entertainment (such as zoos.) I can speak to these (attempts) at such in my own past education, even in human animal based research fields- questioning is shut down immediately and ethical concerns are addressed institutionally by a few (mostly) animal researchers in a room (IACUCs) who often do worse ethical things in their own labs. Zoos exist as entertainment businesses before anything else despite rebranding as conservation sites (most animals in zoos are not endangered, most animals will not breed while stressed by imprisonment and being gawked at all day, etc.) It can be a big no no to say anything negative about zoos or captive bred animal labs without being immediately met with defensiveness, clever marketing, industry propaganda, and accusations of emotionality and compassion (as negatives,) and so on.

Morris never falls into this trap. She is open minded and excited by each endeavor into working with other animals that she attempts in early life, not entering expecting to find suffering, but refusing to look away when she does. She does not sacrifice ethics when she is confronted with harm to other animals. We learn about her initial education experiences involving a (captive) animal laboratory and then a zoo and I found myself waiting for the disappointment to hit- when the author gives in and wills themself out of the accurate assessment of harm that they have witnessed in order to fall in line with the propaganda of these industries. Morris' strength of character and ability to take objective stock of what she is seeing allow her to avoid this multiple times. She speaks honestly about suffering that she has witnessed and how each attempt at finding ways to work with other animals would fail when realizing the callousness it would require of her. She even gives zoos another shot later, but finds the next place to be even worse than the last. She does not give up. Even when academic research and veterinary programs required (the now often phased out) harm toward other animals in order to progress, she would move on but continue to find ways to work in conservation and research with other animals. I cannot stress this issue enough: we lose countless brilliant compassionate minds to this. Morris is an exception. There are many others who walk away from their education due to refusal to enact or condone suffering of other animals and never look back. 

Morris' tenacity and brilliance ends up landing her in the wilderness alone raising eaglets of an endangered species with the help of others along the way. She has to overcome pretty insidious fears of heights among other things throughout her journey. She discusses her many trials, tribulations, wonders, and successes all while keeping the eagles at the center of the story. Morris also discusses the grey areas of such work- necessary evils one might say. "Hacking" involves taking eaglets from their parents and transporting them to another location to try to bring the species back from near extinction, with no consent of the parents or chicks. At this time, it was not known if it would even work. The conservation process also involves regularly interrupting their lives for various research metrics and robbing them of a life raised by other eagles. It ended up being wildly successful for this species. Bald eagles were previously heavily hunted and along with DDT poisoning barely stood a chance. Regulations could only do so much to stop their decline. The feeding of the eagles was also interesting- Morris had to fish carp from a local area. Being an introduced species, humans had caused the carp to cause imbalance in the area and thus the eagles became part of the balance. Yet, Morris being Morris, she did not love killing fish constantly. It is frustrating to say that this is one of the rare times I have seen these struggles discussed in this sort of book. The reality that we must be clear about what we are doing causes defensiveness, perhaps due to black and white thinking, some people seeing other animals a homogenized subjects of a whole rather than individuals, or due to cognitive dissonance. We should be thinking about what these birds and other animals are experiencing every single step of the way.

The best researchers are those who can balance honesty and compassion with scientific rigor. Endangered species have a tiny bit more protection in research processes, but most other bird research isn't even covered by the animal welfare act as they are captive bred birds. Wild birds were only given meager protections in the past couple of years- long after Morris was working with eagles. She also discusses the need for detachment and objectivity. One comes to feel like a parent to the birds while raising them, but it is important that they stay as wild as possible and do not grow up seeing humans as a source of safety and food. I am glad that Morris was the person who was involved with the intimate nature of the work. 

Morris wraps up the book with important lessons about the dire situation we are in across the planet. She calls for attention to conservation of not only charismatic species like the bald eagle, but of all other species that may not capture the publics hearts and attention the same way. She also calls for a lead ammo ban. Lead poisoning is causing literal extinctions and interrupting hard conservation work like this every day while hunting and gun lobbies fight against said bans. This is why hunting being rebranded as "conservation" is so offensive when then hunting was part of what drove the extinction and the attachment to lead ammo continues to do so. Regulation is where the conservation is and unfortunately lead ammo and sinkers in fishing abound. (For the record, Morris is not anti-hunting. She is merely urging- as many other actual conservationists have- that lead ammo be banned before hunting wipes even more birds off the planet.) 

When I looked at the goodreads page for this book, I was dismayed that it did not have more attention. It is a beautiful, motivating story. It is very well written and captivating. It is written by someone who seems to be a stellar human being in standout ways. It tells the story of a species that was almost gone forever, who I now see regularly soaring along the water through my binoculars. I hope more people will pick this book up whether you are interested in conservation, research, women in the sciences, birding, natural history, or just love a good memoir.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: We See Things They'll Never See

 

Image: The cover of the book is an extreme close up of a face of a person who is looking downward. They have dark brown skin and there are stripes of dripped black and pink paint going down their face and glittering sheen to their skin. Across the top in white letters is "chantellle jessica lewis and jason arday." Down the center in much larger letters is "we see things they'll never see." Across the bottom is "love, hope, & neurodiversity."

We See Things They'll Never See: Love, Hope, & Neurodiversity is an academic text by academics who actually acknowledge and attend to the fact that they are academics. What I mean by this, is that the language they use is actually defined for a wider audience, they acknowledge when there is a strange juxtaposition between their positions in academia and their criticisms, and generally attempt a self aware approach to the topics discussed. This is one of the strengths of the book and is something I find slightly more common in disability based academia. I cannot count how many books I have read that never define neoliberalism or hegemony- even if they aren't solely written for academics. Chantelle Jessica Lewis and Jason Arday do well to imagine an audience wider than academic or well read activist circles reading this book. This is not to say that it is an easy read or lacking jargon, but it is definitely easiER.

Can we talk real quick about how great this cover design by Heather Hansen is? You should definitely judge this book by this cover because it is gorgeous.

Both authors are in the UK, but with the exception of a few details here and there, the book has plenty that applies to the USA and I am sure other areas of the world if not all in some way. The general argument is that various forms of hierarchy need be challenged and dismantled in order to support a neurodiverse populace, all of which will also benefit people who may not currently fall into the neurodiverse and related labels. 

The authors discuss their process for writing the book at length. At first I welcomed this, as the style is unconventional for the field. They include themselves as subjects in the book rather than only writers making statements about the rest of the world. That said, it got to the point multiple times where this was repetitive and took up far to much space before getting to the good stuff. Or an important point would be cut short to return to the authors interactions while writing again. At one point they discuss using speech-to-text to help write and this made a lot of sense to me. When my hands betray me, I use it, and it always needs to be heavily edited down afterward. This book could have used said editing here and there.

That said, once they got to the meat of the book, I found it interesting and at times refreshing in ways it shouldn't have to be. The authors' use of neurodiversity in this book is mostly in reference to autism, but it does not exclude other groups like some writings regrettably do. Calling someone with, say, schizophrenia "neurotypical" because they are not autistic is pretty ridiculous in my opinion, but I digress. The authors also discuss several topics that are highly neglected in disability discourse, often by the more privileged demographics (middle class+ white folks with low support needs for instance.) One of these is service/care workers. There is often discussion of a social model where care is a given and support is around every corner without confronting who currently offers that support. They discuss who is often doing this labor- poor folks, bipoc folks, undocumented folks, etc or unsupported family. I would add to this that many care workers are disabled or chronically ill themselves and pushing through it to survive while offering care to others for meager income. I appreciated this discussion greatly.

The authors also discuss the problems with meritocracy- something embedded so far in the center left that some of the main reasons given in our current horrorshow of a country that people shouldn't be kidnapped and sent to concentration camps is that they contribute in very specific ways or have specific traits valuable to capitalism. Lewis and Arday discuss the value of people outside of this and how this framework does extensive harm to movements of liberation. They also include solidarity with aging populations- another thing I do not see mentioned enough in accessibility discourse. The vast majority of people will not lead a full life without disability. The amount of access needs humans have often increase with age, so it should be a given that aging folks are automatically part of the discussion. Yet, I sometimes see it as only a footnote if it is discussed at all.

They wrap of the book with a set of recommendations for a more supportive neurodiverse society. Many of the suggestions are apt, but I wish more time had been spent discussing them. I think if we could cut out a big chunk of the repetitive stuff about the authors' writing process and fill that space with more of their thoughts on the solutions at the end, the text would be stronger.

Overall though, I found this discussion of neurodiversity to be important and helpful. It is one of the more inclusive things I have read regarding accessibility at large and I appreciate that the authors found a way to write it together that served both them and their audience. 

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: Free Gifts - Capitalism and the Politics of Nature

Image: the cover of the book is a painting with a bright blue background and a dining table with a rust colored tablecloth in the foreground. On top of the table are the heads and bodies of several species of animals including a hod's head, a basket with a rabbit, pheasant, and other birds are strewn about. There is also a fruint bowl and a pile of vegetables. In the upper left corner is "free gifts" in white. In the center in yellow is "capitalism and the politics of nature." And in the right corner in white is the author's name Alyssa Battistoni.

It can be difficult to review an academic book like Alyssa Battistoni's Free Gifts - Capitalism and the Politics of Nature as a non-academic- or at least as someone who never specialized in this particular field. I feel the need to make the caveat that as a result I may have missed or misunderstood something. I would say that this book is fairly dense and somewhat jargony, but still readable if one is able to take the time and focus denser texts require. The amount of literature that the author reviews throughout the text is impressive. She introduces several new terms. At times I had to go back to bookmarks or to reread things to figure out what was the author's argument and what was an assessment of another writer. That is less a criticism of the writing style and more and acknowledgment of my own stressed out attention span while reading this. 

Battistoni's assessment and summation of capitalism and its history taught me some things that I don't often see in discussions about the topic. The author frames the ability to refuse pollution or to impose pollution on others is a form of class rule. She also discusses past feminist movements' attempts to argue against the idea that labor associated with women (child rearing, housework, etc) being "natural" or nature oriented is inaccurate, and thus said work should be paid. (The author also acknowledges the BIPOC women doing said labor for white women.) Battistoni turns this argument on it's head by acknowledging that something being natural should not mean that it's exploitable.

There is also much discussion about the struggle to categorize nature. Some neoliberal solutions (sometimes seen as a necessary evil) to convince capitalists to believe that respecting nature is in their favor can backfire when they run into a part of nature that resists exploitation, or where the "profit" being discussed is not solely monetary and immediate. There are pieces of the natural world that are capitalized upon and exploited to extinction and others that resist commodification. There will always come a point we're nature is not seen as profitable by capitalists even if it IS infinitely more "profitable" to the human race and the more than human world to protect. It is too costly to capitalism to exploit everything, therefore the socialization of nature as a public source (the public here includes other species,) is a better alternative even for neoliberal and further conservation proponents. Another argument I appreciated is the author's discussion of how many across the political spectrum argue that to protect or respect the natural world would mean destroying our own lives and luxuries. There is a sort of black and white thinking that we are either in this high waste capitalist dystopia or complete primitivism. The author offers ideas that show how one can reduce destruction and exploitation without necessarily taking away quality of life and in fact can often improve quality of life.

Battistoni's language is often on point, such as saying things like "more than human world" or "other than human animals." Yet, at times it's still feels like the author is looking at other animals through a lens of product and capitalism alone. I found that the author focused a bit more on nature as a homogeneous whole for the sake of argument which is advantageous in some ways and disadvantageous in others. There are sections where I felt very engaged by her discussion about how capitalism affects other than human animals, ecosystems, etc. However, more than once, said discussions focusing on those victims were often cut short to return to centering the effects on humans. Perhaps this is an unfair criticism given the broader topic of the book, but it seems like a missed opportunity to treat other animals as an important category of beings with a variety of conscious experiences who are very much active members of systems of exploitation. I also felt that the book missed the opportunity throughout multiple sections to engage with the idea that animals are part of the working class. Battistoni occasionally references thinkers who are more in line with animal liberation but in my opinion doesn't engage enough with their ideas. She also discusses power imbalances between humans and other animals deftly, but still needs to push a little further in my opinion.

This lack of inclusion can cause other problems when one is making an argument about whether or not certain actions would be effective and combating capitalism. There's is occasionally a worn dichotomy made between individual change (portrayed as useless or capitalistic) and systematic change (confronting those at the top) which tires me to no end on the left. Harm to ecosystems and other animals have occurred since long before capitalism ever existed. The death of the ocean and ecosystems worldwide are not solely capitalist issues. Extinctions, exploitation, cruelty, etc have all occurred throughout human existence even back to the most primitive of times. So, one can claim that organizing workers in these industries would be combating capitalism, but by conveniently leaving out the animals victimized by said industries, it makes it seem that combating capitalism would solve the problem whereas avoiding harm to animals when possible would not. I do not think there is a fair dichotomy that actually exists in the world between individual change and systemic change. Furthermore, many systemic changes are a bunch of individuals making changes together.

The author does acknowledge that we can never return to a planet of the past, which is an important distinction often missing from some leftists assessments of the world. The author does not see through rose colored glasses nor does she make the argument that an anti-capitalist framework would suddenly solve all of the problems with society. She makes the far more grounded argument that a more socialized system offers more options to confront problems head on. Many collective liberation, (animal inclusive) anarchist, and indigenous authors' texts support this author's thesis that we must move forward from where we are and incorporate decolonial knowledge without assuming that we can undo everything that has been done and return to a mythical pristine nature harmony that never existed. We must envision and create something new.

The author also encourages the reader not to fall into despair. While things are very bad and they have continued to get worse, that is not a reason to give up entirely. This is another test where I have encountered the "hope without hope" idea that basically fuels me daily- even if only due to the reality that things can and will get even worse than they are now without intervention. The author holds on to some hope that there are still some things that can be healed, some things that can be prevented, and some things that can be overcome.

Overall this was a heavy book with a lot of information that took me a long time to read. I have my criticisms but also believe that it adds a lot of important points of discussion and examples of what a better and more cooperative world could look like.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: Read This When Things Fall Apart

 

Image: The cover of the book is an illustration of a person standing in waist deep water staring out towards a dark blue night sky. The person is drawn in black with long hair and surrounded by lily pads. The water is surrounded by tree silhouettes and flowers. The sky has constellations drawn connecting the stars. The moon in the center has "read this" in black letters. Below that in soft yellow is "when things fall apart" Below that in green "letters to activists in crisis." And on the bottom in yellow is "edited by Kelly Hayes."

I read the anthology Read This When Things Fall Apart at a time when my life had fallen apart within a country falling apart within a world falling apart. This book brought up a lot of feelings. I believe that things like burnout, loneliness, relationship conflicts, and lack of support systems for disability, illness, and aging are some of the biggest threats to activist movements. We can never run long on fumes, vibes, adrenaline, excitement nor despair, urgent anxiety, immediate crisis, and so on. I was never one to find balance in any of these and it is part of what resulted in my own stepping back from most organizing years ago. On top of inevitable things like illness and massive life stress, hyper focusing on activism without building relationships outside of it is a common issue (and is even encouraged by some movements and cultures.) This sort of isolation means that many people do not have anyone to hold their hand and ease the pain of experiencing and/or witnessing the many horrors of the world. Or if they do, they are sometimes too close to offer what someone may need. Enter Kelly Hayes who put together a collection of letters from organizers/activists to others.

The collection follows a similar format with each entry: "Read this when X," followed by words from organizers who then sign off with, "Sincerely, X." The actual content of each entry was a bit variable. Some letters feel very intimate, like the author is sitting there with you and connecting on a personal level. Other entries read a bit more like essays, discussing changes we need to implement and sharing experiences to learn from. 

While all entries had their strengths, I had a few favorites. "If You're Witnessing the Unthinkable," by Eman Abdelhadi about genocide in Gaza (and beyond) was immensely heart wrenching yet hopeful and supportive. It brought tears to my eyes while also leaving me a little more open minded about the future. Aaron Goggans' "If You Are Struggling with Your Mental Health" was a refreshing follow up to the more flawed entry preceding it (more below on that.) He does well to discuss the intertwined relationship between the sensitivity and drive that can both make one good at organizing and also make one vulnerable to trauma. It also introduced me to The Wildseed Society. "If You Are Fighting Deportations and You're Afraid or Discouraged" by Aly Wane brings clarity to the fight against the destructive system of organized terror being waged by ICE and other oppressive institutions. He encourages us to look at the bigger picture and not let details or individual flaws hide the reality of where things could be if we kept going. I also appreciated Shane Burley's entry on fascism. Even though it was one of the entries that felt a bit more like an essay than a letter, it confronts some important truths and conflicts within leftist movements that we need to overcome. Reading this book also pointed me in the direction of other books to add to my endless to-read list such as such as No Cop City, No Cop World edited by Micah Herskind who contributed "If You're Losing and discouraged." I was familiar with many of the authors therein, but this was my first interaction with others.

I found the entry on suicide to be frustrating. It is the longest in the book yet the most flawed. It has strong moments, discussing how mental health causes people to act imperfectly or downright abusive and how this isolates and breaks people apart. However, her entry is less of a supportive letter and more borderline trauma dumping in ways I did not find helpful for such a critical topic that so many of us deal with. Other authors balanced the sharing of personal experiences with the supportiveness of the books format much better. The author also frustratingly diagnoses herself with TWO new illnesses (including DID and a subgroup of PTSD.)* This author was also given a second entry collaboration with another person about disability which is better, but I would have preferred a second entry from one of the other authors instead. I loved this author's work for years, so it is frustrating for that reason as well. Fortunately, the following entry about mental health by Aaron Goggans makes up for the flaws of the suicide entry. 

Read This When Things Fall Apart is another one of those books that I wish would have existed when I was younger. There is so much here that I benefited from even now that could have changed my entire trajectory back then. I hope that it offers support to the organizers of today, especially as I watch my country further expand and strengthen its fascist regime. This is one of the most heinous times in our history- and that is saying something. I fear things will get worse, but hold onto a glimmer of hope. History has taught us how bad things can get and how these things are repeated when we do not learn important lessons. It has also taught me that organized and passionate people can fight those things and win.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

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*I didn't want to make too much of this review about this one entry, so I have added this elaboration as an optional end. This entry caused me to put the book down for a bit and had the opposite of the effect the book is seeking out. I know some will bristle at these criticisms, so here is more info on what I mean: I am not against people looking into their struggles and figuring out what they suspect may be going on before seeking higher care- that is good. I am aware of the atrocious healthcare systems both in the USA and elsewhere that complicate access. Pathologizing every single human experience, fixating on or shopping for diagnoses that are most popular in media or social circles, and publicly misrepresenting illnesses- that can take a long time to properly diagnose even by trained people- in an endless telephone game has become a big issue in some communities. It's Schrödinger's diagnosis- wherein seeking professional diagnosis is avoided because doctors are (oppressive/inept/stupid/inaccessible) yet the diagnoses themselves created by doctors are concrete, real, and require no medical training to assess. This is not just simply an annoying phenomenon- it can result in people NOT receiving the correct treatment or help they need (as many diagnoses share features) which can result in worsening illness that becomes harder to treat or even suicide that this essay is meant to prevent. I have severe OCD for instance which shares traits with other disorders whose therapy worsens OCD. Some self-dxers have even advocated removing diagnoses from definitions of disability- which means removing accommodation funding. Doctors are human which means they can absolutely be shitty, but years of intensive education and observed clinical practice is not the same as googling things, chatting with friends, online tests, and highly biased self assessment. Doctors don't self diagnose either- especially not with psychiatric illnesses- because they understand priming, confirmation bias, and the importance of an external observer. 

The right has their anti-science aspects (ivermectin, mask refusal outside of ICE gestapo, racist "research," etc) and we on the left have our own (self dx, treating covid and cancer with homeopathic "medicine," etc.) The author also mentions being against Medical Assistance in Dying which I know is a stance among some disability justice folks due to valid fears of coercion. However, I am tired of MAiD being organized against at every turn as I know what it is like to watch people die slowly in agony or be resuscitated even with a DNR after attempting to end life on their terms. Is the option of choosing to die of starvation and dehydration (which can still sometimes legally be interrupted) kinder to disabled people facing terminal illness? How can we discuss suicide and what can lead to it without engaging with this topic properly? I have faced some things myself and a 4th cancer could come at any moment. I disagree that the only options are genocide or die in agony. I think we can pair medically assisted dying with better support for disability accommodations.

Book Review: Positive Obsession

 

Image: the cover of the book is a painted rendition of Octavia Butler, a dark skinned woman with shorter cropped hair, two long earrings, prominent glasses, and a black turtleneck. She is staring into the camera against a orange-brown background. Across the top in white is "Positive obsession." Across the bottom in orange and white is "the life and times of Octavia E Butler" and "Susana M. Morris."

I count myself among the many people saddened that Octavia Butler was taken from us so soon. I have read every book and almost every story (this book let me know about more that I missed.) Before going into Positive Obsession, I had some information about her life, but it was limited. I jumped at the chance to read a biography (and more) about Butler and the effect she had on the larger world.

Susana M. Morris created a stellar tribute with this book. She manages to navigate past all of the things, that can make biography and literary analysis a slog or impossible to read, with great skill. I will caution readers who have not read Octavia Butler's work to either do so before reading this book or skip over the sections where Morris gets into detail about plots of books and stories. The author has taught Butler as a college professor and it shows in her writing. Positive Obsession is highly readable and flows very well. It is not overly jargony or dry. The author's love, respect, and sheer excitement about Octavia Butler and her work shines through.

This book is not entirely biography in the sense that it does not follow the format of "this happened then this happened" that can make bios dry for me. Morris includes a little of herself in this. She discusses her experiences with teaching and how much Butler has touched and influenced her despite the two of them never meeting in person. There is also literary analysis of each book and story that I would say is a bit more than average for a biography of a writer. I found this to be a good thing. By analyzing Butler's books, sharing personal anecdotes, and telling the history and culture that was surrounding Butler, Morris creates a clearer picture of Butler's life than many biographies manage. It is also simply well done. I felt transported back to when I had read each book. I was often in agreement or enlightened by Morris' assessments of what it all meant to both Octavia and the larger world. Reading this book felt like getting to know someone rather than only about someone.

Morris discusses race and gender in ways that are important and complex. She is able to speak about how Octavia Butler being a Black woman affected her work and life without reducing her to those attributes nor tokenizing her- things that many others unfortunately did. For instance, Octavia Butler was not the first "black woman science fiction author" to win the MacArthur Fellowship (aka Genius Grant.) She was the first science fiction author ever to receive the honor. Morris gives a snapshot of Butler as a highly skilled person in community of writers who is also affected by her own identities in the cultural and political climates of the time. It was interesting to learn more about Butler's political views which I am frankly surprised I did not know more about. I also have decided to reread the Parable series soon due to its bananas prediction of the future. I had forgotten that "Make America Great Again" was the slogan of authoritarianism in that book written long before our current fascist regime was in place. Despite Butler not seeing herself as a prophet, the predictions she made of the future are uncanny. 

There is a great selection of photos in the center of the book taken throughout Butler's life. I also really enjoyed the design format in general of the hardcover. The cover is beautiful and the book feels "just right" in terms of size and so on. I usually don't end up with tons of page flags when I read biographies, but I marked so many sections of this book so that I could return later to stories I have not yet read, quotes from the author, and many standout facts I had no idea about. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to know more about one of the most important fiction writers in history and especially to those of us who have desired something to fill the gap between Butler's final contributions and today.

This was posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Book Review: A Mouse in a Cage

Image: the cover of the book is two white mice in a glass container, one with her paws up aganst the glass and the other half hidden behind her. In the background is an out of focus person with goggles and other PPE looking in at the mice. In white letters- A Mouse in a Cage. In pink letters- rethinking humanitarianism and the rights of lab animals. In gray letters- Carrie Friese.

I was not expecting Carrie Friese's A Mouse in a Cage to bother me as much as it did. I read about the author and decided we likely had some common ground and that she was quite possibly adding new and important ethical analyses to the awful subject of nonconsenting animal research. Instead, I found myself angry and even insulted by some of the author's assessments in this text. This author's sensitivity could have been a major strength in some circumstances. Unfortunately here, she limits her sensitivity to commiserating with those who harm other animals in research and the techs that keep the animals alive in between. She does not spend a single moment shadowing someone who has rescued any of these animals after what they have gone through. I don't expect her to dive into the underground of the Animal Lib Front. There are plenty of above ground rescues such as Beagle Freedom Project. For how many times she mentions the "animal rights" people in conflict with animal researchers, she doesn't speak to a single one. This narrows her scope so much that throughout the book, you see her quieting every emotion she has in order to defend the people she has met. She discusses her upset at watching the slaughter of animals so that their ovaries can be transported to a new breeding program almost willing herself out of it. She repeatedly mentions crying, but almost treats these reactions as a problem.

If this was the only point of the book- shadowing people working in the field and talking about them- I would not have been bothered as much. It is fine as an academic exercise of cataloguing the lives of people and what they think of themselves. As a "humanitarian" extension to other animals exercise, it fails immensely. Not only does Friese fail to go deeply enough into how much sacrifice and harm occurs in relation to actual advances, the amount of red tape, hubris, and grant motivation that go into continuing to harm animals, and the issues with industries funded by it all. The biggest problem about the author's arguments for me is that Friese appropriates terminology from oppressed groups and liberation movements and then reconstructs them to describe oppression. Literal suffering and death of nonconsenting beings with absolutely no benefit to those beings, in order to support the careers and occasionally health advances (and mistakes) of another species.

There is also a very dry detached way that she discusses much animal research. It seems that she is doing so because she wants to avoid bias. She fails at this, instead creating what reads very much like an animal testing lobby propaganda piece disguised as an ethical advancement discussion of some sort. I can guarantee that if she spent time with a single one of the people who has taken in one of the very few animals to make it out of these places alive that she could have actually had some balance here. The author is so worried about being biased that she becomes excessively biased, tapping into the anthropocentric nature of our species- to treat those in cages as objects of use and discussion who only need be understood through the words of those who torment them.

At times, her use of terms felt so wrong that it reminded me of a Pride display on Amazon's front page. The audacity of referring to animal research as "care work" made my blood boil. A term of disability and feminist movements, turned on its head to describe people causing fear, pain, injury, illness, and death in other animals. She first uses this to describe lab tech work- the underpaid people who clean cages and so on. This I disagree with, but understand her point. I have met and worked with lab techs after they left the traumatic profession. They do see themselves as caring for the animals and are not in charge of the research decisions. However, to then extend this to the researchers themselves- who literally design systems which cause suffering and death in millions of animals per year- I was floored. Calling them "carers" as if they are somehow in the same league as actual carers was so offensive that I nearly put this book down for good several times. This is another opportunity where shadowing real carers of rescued animals would have better informed her position. Friese also uses identity politics of humans many times as a vehicle to describe nonhuman animal harm as somehow liberatory. She brings up consent multiple times, so I assume she is going to have a big section where she really tackles that. We get a couple of paragraphs that get nowhere.

Friese allows researchers a platform to tout the well worn slogan that animal researchers want their jobs to disappear- something they can say knowing that they will not work towards this goal and will fight it if it comes. Few if any of these people are going to stop their life's work and go back in time to another field- they have said as much quietly. Part of this is because those who would care enough to do so are weeded out early on. My experience in both getting an education and in research has shown me how swiftly ethical considerations for other animals are silenced. They have created literal front groups funded by everyone from researchers to cage makers to fight against any opposition towards animal harm for research. Furthermore, they consistently tout ethical standards- which the author happily repeats- while criticizing the people who are the only reason those standards are in place- animal rights/liberation proponents. They are allowed to both continue doing harm while also taking credit for the ethical work of others all while being wrapped up in a package of "care." Some will tout themselves as victims of activism while failing to even acknowledge the actual victims of their work.

I have had some extremely stressful events occur while reading this book and couldn't even muster up the energy at times to continue it. I told myself I would keep giving the author a chance and finish it. I thought surely she would get somewhere, interview a rescuer, give me something. I did not realize that half of the book was appendices and was grateful when it ended at 144 pages. This life stress likely taints this review, so I decided not to give a star rating. I did put page flags in the book for things that she said that made sense, but none were deep enough to overshadow this fury the mistakes of the text left me feeling.

This was also posted to my storygraph and goodreads.