quarantine reading
A few publishers have kindly offered free and discounted ebooks through the quarantine:
Archipelago Books has thirty free ebooks from Witold Gombrowicz, Musil, and others. I downloaded Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga (“Fifteen years prior to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, we watch as these girls try on their parents’ preconceptions and attitudes, transforming the lycée into a microcosm of the country’s mounting racial tensions and violence...”)
Haymarket Books has ten free ebooks including How We Get Free edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.
Verso has five free ebooks, including Peter Frase's Four Futures, which would be pretty great to read right now. All the other ebooks are 80% off. You should grab Playing the Whore and Being Numerous. They are also publishing fiction now, including fascinating work like Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval and Will and Testament by Vigdis Hjorth.
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Two books I read this week that I really loved include Disfigured by Amanda Leduc and Temporary by Hilary Leichter. And I've got an advanced copy of Sara Hendren's What Can a Body Do? that is extraordinary. Look out for it/preorder.
Here are several other books I've picked up in recent weeks:
Including: They are Already Here by Sarah Scoles, Mem by Bethany C. Morrow, The Dollmaker by Nina Allen, Black Forest by Valérie Mréjen, The Only Ones by Carola Dibbell, Sharks, Death, Surfers by Melissa McCarthy, and Fiebre Tropical by Juliana Delgado Lopera.
I normally don't list what I'm reading or about to read here, but I'm making an exception in case anyone is set to do a last run at the bookstore of their choice and would like some ideas.
Right now, with delivery drivers and postal workers around the country overwhelmed with packages, while terrified they are at risk of COVID-19 infection, I can't 100% recommend purchasing physical books. If your local bookstore offers curbside pickup (which they might need to phase out soon) that works, but otherwise please consider ebooks and audiobooks. You can purchase digital editions through various independent stores with services like Kobo and Libro.fm. (That also goes for my book! Get the ebook! The physical copy isn't going anywhere.) Really, the best thing you can do right now is purchase gift cards from the places in your neighborhood that you want to stick around.
I'm not sure what the next day looks like, let alone how we'll get through this crisis, or how long it will take; but there are small changes we can all make to keep things from getting worse.
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Thanks for reading.