SHELF | Working Liyterature

Context is what appears when you hold your attention open for long enough; the longer you hold it, the more context appears. — Jenny Odell, How To Do Nothing: Resisting The Attention Economy (2019)

What does it mean that something is named here? It means that I have access to it and it informs the reading and thinking notes that I file into my system. It does not mean that I inherently admire the author and recommend every book. But what's listed is certainly interesting enough for me to pay attention to as I make sense of the world! At minimum, I am grateful that each book exists and reached me.

Why is this list called both library and antilibrary? Because I list books here regardless of whether I have 'read' them or not. If they are 'finished', I am still looking them up after. If I haven't even started, I list them anyway because unread books can be just as valuable as read ones. TLDR; I do not distinguish between 'read' and unread books here because this list points to what I want to know (more) about overall.

Is this list meant to be a flex? Are you showing off? Rather than see this as me bragging about how many books I have access to or shaming your reading practice, I hope you can see this list as the opposite of gatekeeping, like as:

1. starting points for non-fiction or to encounter ideas and topics you want to learn more about (if you're not much of a reader, ask me to walk you through my notes from a particular book if that's something I'm open to!
2. a practice of citation as feminist memory— although I will always share references for each Thing I make, I still think it is a worthy exercise to put it all in one place, so that so people who are interested in my working collection can have a full list
3. a practice of self-disclosure to show you what informs my lifelong learning (and therefore where my gaps in exposure are too).

Books

Allan M. Brandt, The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America (2007)
amb, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (2017)
Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement: Climate change and the unthinkable (2016)
Angela Chen, Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (2020)
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (2023)
Annie Kotowicz, What I Mean When I Say I'm Autistic: Unpuzzling a Life on the Autism Spectrum (2022)
Arun Kundnani, What Is Anti-Racism? And Why It Means Anti-Capitalism (2023)
Andreas Malm, Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century (2020)
Andreas Malm, Fighting In A World On Fire: The next generation’s guide to protecting the climate and saving our future (2023)
Antony Loewenstein, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports The Technology of Occupation Around The World (2023)
Asma Barlas, Believing Women In Islam (2019)
Azar Nafisi, Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times (2022)
Benjamin Y. Fong, Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge (2023)
C.A. Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945 (2004)
C.A. Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain's Asian Empire (2007)
Carl Zimmer, She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity (2018)
Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time (2017)
Caroline Criado Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2019)
Cindy Milstein (editor), Deciding For Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy (2020)
C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency As Art (2020)
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World (2022)
Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next) (2020)
Devon Price, Unmasking Autism: Discovering The New Faces of Neurodiversity (2022)
Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer (2008)
Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal The Hidden Realms Around Us (2022)
Edith Sheffer, Asperger's Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna (2018)
Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The strategic alliance between Nazi Germany and America's most powerful corporation (2001)
Eric Laursen, The Operating System: An Anarchist Theory of the Modern State (2021)
Farish A. Noor, America's Encounters with Southeast Asia, 1800-1900: Before the Pivot (2018)
Farish A. Noor, The Malaysian Islamic Party PAS 1951-2013: Islamism in a Mottled Nation (2014)
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961)
Harsha Walia, Border & Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism (2021)
Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek, After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time (2023)
Hisham D. Aidi, Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture (2014)
James D'Amato, The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide (2019)
Jane Alison, Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Patterns in Narrative (2019)
Jason F. Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018)
Jessa Crispin, The Creative Tarot: A Modern Guide To An Inspired Life (2016)
Jessica Dore, Tarot for Change: Using the Cards for Self-Care, Acceptance, and Growth (2021)
Jessica Fern, Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy (2022)
Jessica Fern, Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships (2023)
Jess Hill, See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse (2019)
John Wackman & Elizabeth Knight, Repair Revolution: How Fixers Are Transforming Our Throwaway Culture (2020)
Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the End of Sleep (2014)
Jules Gill-Peterson, A Short History of Trans Misogyny (2024)
Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing And The Revolution Of Reciprocal Care (2023)
Khaled Abou El Fadl, Reasoning with God: Reclaiming Shari'ah in the Modern Age (2014)
Laurie Marhoefer, Racism and the Making of Gay Rights: A Sexologist, His Student, and the Empire of Queer Love (2022)
Layla K. Feghali, The Land In Our Bones: Plantcestral herbalism and healing cultures from Syria to the Sinai (2024)
Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents (2015)
Marco D'Eramo, The World in a Selfie. An Inquiry into the Tourist Age (2021)
Matthew Salesses, Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping (2021)
Matthew T. Huber, Climate Change As Class War: Building Socialism On A Warming Planet (2022)
Melanie Mitchell, Complexity: A Guided Tour (2009)
Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures (2020)
Michael Muhammad Knight, Muhammad: Forty Introductions (2019)
Mohamed Abdou, Islam and Anarchism, (2022)
Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Tajdeed-e-Fikriyat-e-Islam) (1934)
Nancy Fraser, Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet—and What We Can Do About It (2022)
Nicolai Sinai, Key Terms of the Qur'an: A Critical Dictionary (2023)
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else) (2022)
Priyamvada Gopal, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (2019)
Rachel Mann, Dazzling Darkness: Gender, Sexuality, Illness and God (2012)
Rafia Zakaria, Against White Feminism: Notes On Disruption (2021)
Ramon Harvey, The Qur'an and the Just Society (2017)
Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (2020)
Rutger Bregman, Humankind: A Hopeful History (2019)
Sa’diyya Shaikh, Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn ‘Arabi, Gender, and Sexuality (2012)
Sa'diyya Shaikh and Fatima Seedat, The Women's Khutbah Book: Contemporary Sermons on Spirituality and Justice from around the World (2022)
Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life (2017)
Sarra Tlili, Animals in the Qur'an (2012)
Shadaab Rahemtulla, Qur'an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam (2017)
Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide For Fighting Antisemitism (2024)
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age Of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight For A Human Future At The New Frontier Of Power (2018)
Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness (1998 edition)
Sönke Ahrens, How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking: 2nd ed. (2022)
Syed Hussein Alatas, Islam and Socialism, (1976)
Syed Hussein Alatas, The Myth of the Lazy Native: A study of the image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th century and its function in the ideology of colonial capitalism (1977)
Tamim Ansary, Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes (2009)
Tamim Ansary, The Invention Of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection (2019)
Terrence Real, How Can I Get Through to You?: Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women (2001)
Terry Eagleton, Why Marx Was Right (2011)
Verso, The Good Die Young: The Verdict on Henry Kissinger (2024)
Victor Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning (1946)
Vincent Bevin, The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World (2020)
Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution (2021)
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1971)