Reading Update
Dec. 10th, 2020 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaggedwolfCompletely unrelated to reading of any kind, but new Starship Iris on Jan 4th! I am looking forward to it greatly. Maybe I'll write up that primer for it for one of the December talking days...or give into the 2010s era tumblr powerpoint slides style...
Eight Plays by Ovidia Yu
A collection of plays from a Singaporean playwright. It was okay? I liked the last play most - Hitting (On) Women is about a woman finding out her abusive female ex had passed away. The specific political commentary felt less heavy-handed and more naturally integrated into the play's story compared to the other ones.
One Billion Americans by Matthew Yglesias
"This was a fun one" is probably a weird thing to say about a book on public policy, but it's how I felt about it. The book essentially relies on two facts (1) Many Americans want to have more kids than they do, but are stopped by policies that make the US not a great place to have kids (2) Many people want to immigrate to the US, but are stopped by policies that restrict immigration, and then argues that encouraging both groups would actually make the US better off as a whole.
Honestly, I have low expectations of seeing the kind of technocratic competence and efficiency required for the policies described in the book, but it was nice to read about. My SG brain also still can't comprehend people managing to stop new housing construction/school mergers/wind farms/etc. via yelling at public meetings, with all the bad/good consequences it entails. Or Americans thinking congestion pricing is beyond the pale when ERP is just a given in my head.
High School by Tegan Quin, Sara Quin
Tegan and Sara's memoir. My first audiobook! Well worth listening to instead of reading because the chapters were interspersed with recordings of their music from that time. An entertaining, thorough retelling of their time in high school, featuring a lot of drugs, parties, and writing songs on guitar. Man these guys had a wild time.
Eight Plays by Ovidia Yu
A collection of plays from a Singaporean playwright. It was okay? I liked the last play most - Hitting (On) Women is about a woman finding out her abusive female ex had passed away. The specific political commentary felt less heavy-handed and more naturally integrated into the play's story compared to the other ones.
One Billion Americans by Matthew Yglesias
"This was a fun one" is probably a weird thing to say about a book on public policy, but it's how I felt about it. The book essentially relies on two facts (1) Many Americans want to have more kids than they do, but are stopped by policies that make the US not a great place to have kids (2) Many people want to immigrate to the US, but are stopped by policies that restrict immigration, and then argues that encouraging both groups would actually make the US better off as a whole.
Honestly, I have low expectations of seeing the kind of technocratic competence and efficiency required for the policies described in the book, but it was nice to read about. My SG brain also still can't comprehend people managing to stop new housing construction/school mergers/wind farms/etc. via yelling at public meetings, with all the bad/good consequences it entails. Or Americans thinking congestion pricing is beyond the pale when ERP is just a given in my head.
High School by Tegan Quin, Sara Quin
Tegan and Sara's memoir. My first audiobook! Well worth listening to instead of reading because the chapters were interspersed with recordings of their music from that time. An entertaining, thorough retelling of their time in high school, featuring a lot of drugs, parties, and writing songs on guitar. Man these guys had a wild time.