She defines the gift economy as, “wealth is understood as having enough to share, and the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away. In fact, status is not determined by how much one accumulates, but by how much one gives away. The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed in gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles of reciprocity” (p32-33, Serviceberry). Continue reading
What becomes fraught is the expectation of ‘truth’ in nonfiction writing. And the truth I speak of here is not an ‘ultimate truth’ that is objective (although there are always objective truths in what we write). The ‘truth’ and the ‘expectation’ can be thought of as the relationship between the reader and writer. Continue reading
This book seems to confront me, forcing me to question my own life, career, relationships, and goals. I am always a firm believer that good novels make us ask questions about ourselves. It isn’t just about escaping, but instead escaping within ourselves and discovering something new. Continue reading
So, I thought. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so terrible to make a summer reading list written and recommended by an avid reader and book-loving human with some literary qualifications up her sleeve.
Below, you’ll find six books that I highly recommend for reading over the summer. Some are new releases, and some are recent. There is a mixture of fiction and nonfiction. They are weird, serious, and hilarious. Hopefully, there is something for everyone. You get extra points if you read all six over the summer and let me know what you thought of them in the comments below. Continue reading
I find it so strange that two books, both by Japanese women, both discussing themes of societal and cultural pressures around femininity, work (domestic and paid), and food, would have such wildly different receptions. Continue reading
An unexpected revelation of how an old high school friend died breaks Goldberg out of this listlessness. And he becomes acutely obsessed with how his old friend, Seth, died. Rumours fly as Goldberg reaches out to old school friends. He decides, in true male millennial fashion, that he will do a podcast about his friend’s death that will feature interviews that will eventually reveal the truth about Seth’s life and death, like all morbid murder and death podcasts do. Continue reading
The novel is set in a not-so-distant future in Iceland and follows four main characters as they navigate a campaign leading up to a national referendum that would see an extremely controversial ’empathy test’ made mandatory for all Icelandic citizens. It is not a futuristic novel by any means, and the events and setting of the novel actually feel like they could be happening right now – making it all the more unsettling as a reader. Continue reading
John and Ivar live in a suspended state of freedom—John has not yet revealed to Ivar why he came to Ivar’s island. The convictions John had before meeting Ivar, before his accident, seem to have fallen away, and all that remains is love. Continue reading
The double-edged sword of the close-knit community of the fictional country town of Ballyrowan is that it is both beautiful and utterly debilitating. The things that bring the community together over these decades are also what tear it apart. The secrets, resentments, love, and anger are all-consuming and impossible to untangle. Continue reading
I’m often thinking about human relationships with the environment – how we’ve used and abused the world around us collectively for such a long time. I’ve been grappling with how I have tried to push back on some of these things and how to make a practical and effective impact on what I do and … Continue reading
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