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Book review: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
2026-06-16 BOOK-REVIEW> “She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.” > > — Zora Neale Hurston, _Their Eyes Were Watching God_ I’m not sure exactly what put _Their Eyes Were Watching God_ on my radar. It’s definitely outside of my usual fare, but I enjoy a dip into the classics now and then. While I initially struggled to get into it, it was ultimately a rewarding read. more...
Book review: Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography by Andrea Warner
2026-04-05 BOOK-REVIEWOK, so this one’s a bit complicated. I picked the book up on a whim in 2025, after having been a long-time fan of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s music—in particular, I’m most familiar with her album Coincidence and Likely Stories. Although I didn’t know much about her, her music and activism always seemed very much like my kind of jam, and so I was keen to learn more. I checked the book out, and had an excited exchange with the cashier, who was surprised and delighted to meet another Buffy fan. A few pages in, and the book had kicked off with some very heavy details regarding abuse she suffered during childhood, interspersing them with bubbling praise for her natural musical talent. I felt the need to look up some details on this, so headed to her Wikipedia page. That’s when I found out: in 2023, a CBC investigation revealed Buffy’s claims to indigenous American heritage to be false. The fall-out from that was on-going, as one by one, her awards and honours were being stripped from her. Heading to a YouTube music video of hers, I found comment after mocking comment praising the “beautiful Native Italian music”. more...
Book review: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
2026-03-24 BOOK-REVIEWThis book was written in 1931—95 years ago! I'm pretty sure that people have been commenting on how this book is "so relevant, especially now!" for the past 95 years, and I get the feeling that they'll be doing so for many more years to come. It's hard to tell if Brave New World taps into deep fears that we have with modern society, or if it is actually the template from which those fears were formed. As I read this book, I feel like it so neatly slotted itself into the context of all the other science fiction that I've read over the years: books, movies, and games, from Cloud Atlas to We Happy Few and back to Wall-E. I finally understand why it's always compared to Nineteen Eighty Four; these books seem to have provided the two moulds that all of our dystopias have been stamped from. more...
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