nb_leftist's reviews
299 reviews

The Halo Graphic Novel by Tsutomu Nihei, Simon Bisley, Mœbius, Ed Lee, Lee Hammock, Brett Lewis, Jay Faerber

adventurous dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

I used to be a big Halo fan when I was younger, now I’ve switched to other stuff like Warhammer 40k, mostly because there’s a lot more of it out there, but I picked this up for like 5 dollars after I saw that Tsotumi Nihei, the author of Blame! (one of my favorite mangas), wrote one of the stories in here, and woah! I liked the other stuff in here, especially the one by Moebius, but Tsutomu Nihei’ dart is crazy beautiful and horrifying. Definitely worth checking out if you interested in Nihei’s work or if you down with Halo. The only thing I’m disappointed with is that there’s not a lettering artist on some of the stories and just rely on the Halo font, which is fine, but I never realized how much character lettering brings to a book.

The Marvels Project by Ed Brubaker

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

It’s okay, I agree with the other reviews. It’s pretty in many cases but the background characters are forgettable, I genuinely can’t revenge a single non-man character and I just finished reading it, and it’s short. But, I did still enjoy it.

Incident at Vichy: A Play by Arthur Miller

dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I liked it. Miller does an incredible job with dialogue and, although there is some weird stuff in here (particularly the racism towards the Romani person referred to as the G-slur, and the overplayed commentary on the dehumanization of the), the commentary on the banality of evil is quite compelling.

Oblivion Song Compendium by Robert Kirkman

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

3.25

Definitely not the best comic I’ve read, the art is bland in places, and I wish it had more to say, but I still liked it. 

Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto by Legacy Russell

adventurous hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I always love finding more cyberfeminist stuff, though I do think this makes some of the same mistakes as Gender Nihilism where it doesn’t focus too much on the material reasons why gender is enforced and argues for refusal. I do still like it a lot though. I really enjoy the focus on art.

A History of Language by Steven Roger Fischer

informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

Interesting. It's super informative and, since reading this, I've realized that mainstream linguistics (focusing on language trees, syntax, etc.) are not super interesting to me. Instead, I enjoy thinking about the mental process of understanding language. I also like thinking about the methods of power always present in language. Neither of these are really focused on in this text but I did not expect those to be focused on.

Power Politics by Arundhati Roy

informative reflective fast-paced

3.25

I cannot remember which piece of Arundhati Roy’s which I read first, I believe one of her pieces was included in “Intersectionality: Foundations and Frontiers” and I remember liking it. Although I did like the writing style and there was a lot of info I did not know about India, the ideas were not new. This does not necessarily say anything bad about Arundhati Roy because I have read a lot, but still important to note for myself. Worth a read.

An Essay on Liberation by Herbert Marcuse

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

I love Markuse. I read One-Dimensional Man earlier this year, and as he says in the introduction, this essay is a combination of Eros and Thanatos and One-Dimensional Man, and is (slightly) more accessible to a broad audience. I liked it but none of it was new (since I read One-Dimensional Man), definitely worth a read.

The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence by The Care Collective

fast-paced

2.0

This is my rewrite of this review because I accidentally deleted my first one and cannot get it back :(

I was so excited for—and then disappointed by—this one. I assumed it was going to focus more on building local community through focuses on care and a rejection of neoliberal capitalist profit-motives. Instead it is a generic call for globalist capitalism to be “re-regulated” and for it to rely on “care” rather than profit. It does not provide any plan of action and follows the age-old leftist tradition of saying that we have an opportunity right now, as if it will be slightly easier than it would have been when we didn’t have “an opportunity.” It also praises AOC as bringing care back into the mainstream, which may have been the thing in 2020 for some leftists, but reading it now after AOC’s condemnation of Palestinian liberation struggles rings wack.

At best, this is a good introduction for sympathetic liberals who want to get into leftist literature, but I would give something else as this is quite surface level and still ends at a conclusion of social-democrat reform rather than the needed revolution. Sad day, I was excited for this one :( 

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I don’t really have much to say, and the stuff I do have to say has certainly been said before. My absolute favorite piece is the interview between Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich, the way they establish the connections between her piece on the erotic and her piece on poetry as a necessity made those piece significantly more interesting. I also cannot get over the piece on the erotic or the piece on learning from the 60s.

Her writing is not only important for its contents, but it feels important to read. It makes the reader themselves feel important.