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Utopia Book Review

Heidi Sopinka
A searing story of meaning-making and surviving in spite of unfair circumstances, *Utopia* follows feminist artists in 70s LA trying to break free from expectations and find purpose on their own terms. Interspersed with journal entries and flashbacks, this novel collapses the distance between past and present as a mystery slowly unravels. It's about the ways in which we can become closer with someone after they've left us. The language is vivid and arresting at a line level, with short chapters that keep changing focus.

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Lurking Book Review

Joanne McNeil
We need a book like this to help us remember that the Internet we have is more fragile and changeable than we think. That online culture exists in the context of society, and that currently-dominant platforms will eventually give way to something new. McNeil's focus on the experience of users, not tech companies themselves, reorients the discussions about what the Internet was and what it could become.

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How I made a public archive of my Twitter posts

It's past time to stop giving any oxygen to the ongoing dumpster fire that is Twitter/X. For those of us who joined in the early days, it's sad to walk away from the platform that had been a touchpoint for political organizing and local community-building. But it's not that place anymore, and the …

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Democracy Book Review

Joan Didion
In the intertwined lives of politicians, socialites, and war profiteers, the drama of family shame and petty grievances look just as large as the Vietnam war. The characters in this novel are too insulated from consequences to have a sense of purpose, and that makes it hard as a reader to be invested in their stories. Their actions are motivated by a need to run away, to reject closeness, to turn away from inconvenient truths.

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