Bulk Review: Non-Fiction

I've been wanting to read more non-fiction for a while. But I don't always have the mental bandwidth to read non-fiction. I personally feel like that genre requires more thinking than fantasy as a genre. It's kind of like the difference between watching a movie over watching a documentary. I decided to do a bulk/mini review for some of these since I didn't have a lot to say about them individually, but I still wanted to share them on my blog. 

They're listed from more recently read to latest.

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Living Resistance Day by Kaitlin B. Curtice

This book talked about God/religion more than I thought it would, and those parts were the ones I think I disconnected from. Over the past few years, I've gone through some deconstruction from religion. Which, for me, has been distancing myself from it for me to 'heal' from some of the religious trauma I had to deal with as a kid/teen and a little into my early 20s.

There are great parts of this book, and parts that leave me feeling conflicted. There is some good insight, but the parts rooted in Christianity remind me of the platitudes often said by religious folks I grew up around. Vaguely empty, and morally superior. I'm not saying or implying the author is or feels this way, but it is the way the religious folks I grew up around sounded like. 

I don't know if you are still comfortable in your religion, this could be a good book to read. I think it's one my Gran might've liked, or at least benefited from reading.

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Why Indigenous Literatures Matter by  Daniel Heath Justice

 

I think I went into this expecting and hoping for more of the stories themselves. I felt like I was rushing to read it though because it was a library borrow. I'd like to buy a copy so I can take my time going through it. It did feel a bit like a textbook, I don't mean that as a bad thing, the way the format is, is set up made it less like a "traditional" non-fiction. 

I hope to find another book like this that covers the same topic but shares more of the stories. I checked the author's Goodsreads, and it looks like they write fiction as well so I'll be checking my library for his other work. (His other non-fiction as well.)

 

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Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

This book didn't do a lot to change my mind. I've felt for some time that the current prisons system in America isn't doing what it thinks it is. The data in this book is a little outdated, this book came out 20 years ago. I don't know how impactful this book is to people outside the US, because as far as I know America is the only country that has a prison "industry", which is the problem in my opinion for everything wrong with prisons in the US. 

I do think it would be interested to read, for lack of a better word, "sequel" for this with updated stats. Because I honestly think they'd be worse than they are when this book was written in 2003.

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Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: by Angela Y. Davis

I read this book in January, and I forgot to make notes on my thoughts. I do recall it being very impactful, and a little surreal. This book came out nearly 10 years ago and everything was still very topical. This is another book I'd like to own.

I do think I should've re-read this (or listened via audiobook) to refresh my memory for this bulk review, since it was so long ago since I first read it.