Reading Update

I think memoirs were probably a better choice for my brain's current state these days, given how digestible they are. As opposed to say, long history books about terrible events. But well, all three happened.

I Have Something To Tell You by Chasten Buttigieg

I enjoyed this, as I do most contemporary memoirs I've read - I have to admit to a sort of cheesy curiosity about other people's upbringings and lives that makes the genre work for me, and well, especially so when it comes to gay folks. The conversational tone worked, balancing the serious (death threats, discussion of assault) with the hilarious (so many terrible dating stories, like one dude who didn't mention his husband) and the sweet. On a meta level I think this might be the book most naturally shaped by Internet linguistics that I've read? Or at least, "Being a X energy" reads very much like internet-speak.

"A Problem From Hell": America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power

A 2002 harrowing examination of genocides of the 20th century from an American foreign policy perspective, interrogating the ways the US did and didn't respond. It goes in mostly chronological order, starting with the Armenian genocide and ending with a discussion of the ICJ trials and how 9/11 might shape the future. It also covers the story of Raphael Lemkin's coinage of the term and pushing for the Genocide Convention, and how his new home ratified it forty years later, long after his death.

As someone whose knowledge of most of the mentioned genocides amounted to "it happened" or "I hadn't thought about that part of the world before", I found it fairly easy to follow the book, which outlines events thoroughly. Couple of recurring themes kept cropping up. 1) The continued assumption of external observers that perpetrators were "rational actors" who wouldn't kill if there was no material benefit 2) Literally every ideology has its genocide denial groupies.

One Life by Megan Rapinoe, Emma Brockes

Finished it in a single go! Mostly, I'm struck by the fact that Pinoe has apparently always been this self-possessed, and that 2012!me deciding she was my favorite player was so correct, heh. I'm pretty bad at paying attention to the USWNT when it's not Olympics or WC season - I had heard about her kneeling for the anthem in 2016, but I hadn't realized how widespread the backlash to her doing so was, or the level of internal repercussions. Other things I now understand: the level of team and fan salt towards Ellis' coaching.