Welcome to Litsy!

#BookReport
This week I only managed to finish my at work audiobook but I‘ve also made significant progress in Daughter of the Forest. I also started Borderline for a book club buddy read but am holding it back as a reward for finishing some of my challenge reads.

#WeeklyForecast
My goal this week is to finish Daughter of the Forest and get well into Watership Down. I‘m also planning to work on Hiding in Plain Sight in audio at work.

I did this in audio and found that Kendzior‘s sincerity really shone with her narration. The essays are still relevant even though they are nearly a decade old and I find that infuriating. The topics get to the heart of systemic injustices in America and the ways that people have just become complacent with the status quo despite the real harm that they are enduring. It really made me want to engage more in any little way I can.

This is a solid group of essays. Sure, they were written a bit ago. But, sadly, we are still dealing with the issues she writes about, and plenty have gotten worse since 2016. So they felt relevant for me, even though her featured events are old news. Her writing is readable, but her narration just so-so. I‘m anxious to listen to her podcast, Gaslit Nation though.

Full review http://www.TheBibliophage.com
#thebibliophage2019 #letterv #litsyatoz

Well, I‘m almost finished with this so I thought I‘d let you know I‘ve been reading it. I‘ve been following her on Twitter for a while, and this is just as insightful, if significantly more dated.

Well- if I wasn‘t already fired up about the state of our country prior to reading this, I am now!! Excellent read. The book is a compilation of essays Kendzior had published for Al Jazeera, so there are times that some of the things she writes about can seem a bit repetitive—-but they SHOULD be, because they are important!! 👇👇👇👇

👆👆👆👆👆👆 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

Look, I'm on the same page as Kendzior in many aspects. But this collection is flawed. 1. It's not edited, it's just an anthology of al-Jazeera essays from 2013-15ish, and focuses heavily on academia and freelancing. Not "the view from flyover country". It's very repetitive. And 2013-15 issues are pretty old hat to anyone paying attention. Skip this collection, read a few of her writings online instead.

Check out the hobbit mcmansion I found on my walk! Tagged book is my current audiobook..... honestly it's pretty dated for 2019 and isn't saying anything new but it's not bad either.....

I‘m giving this a pick, but I‘m somewhat torn. I appreciated what the author had to say, and I felt she presented points well. However, I also felt the collection was more repetitive and less focused on “flyover country” than I expected. As a lifelong Missouri resident, I was looking forward to essays that clearly discussed Midwestern examples. Except for a few, I felt these could have been written anywhere in the U.S.

#audiobook #nonfiction

One more for my #Nonfiction2019

I‘m counting it for “Something From Another Point of View”

The essays collected here may be from a few years ago now, but they are no less timely or topical...sadly for us. They chronicle the disappearing middle class, even in what were once considered well paid careers, rising racism, lack of resources from intellectual to human necessities like water. I found the audio on Scribd, posted some of the quotes I could find from Google Books, but I‘ll definitely be picking up a print copy as well to revisit.

So even if there is life saving info for you, already researched and published, you and your lawyers, doctors, etc, may never see it or even know it exists because it is behind a paywall!

I‘m suddenly missing my college research in the library days, where I could look things up in a card catalog, find the printed journal, and read or photocopy the article for myself....and I never thought I‘d miss those days.

No wonder elites are getting a bad wrap, even they are being ripped off by higher ups and no information is getting out.

This reminds me of the old saying, a lie can travel around the world faster than the truth can escape from behind its paywall.

Well...that‘s insanely wrong!

“Those the public are taught to fear are often the ones in danger.”

Her essays on race are just as on point @Daisey

Listening to this one today while I‘m in the waiting room.

I‘d definitely recommend these essays....especially to anyone discussing the offering of some Student Loan forgiveness and the voices who immediately pipe up with ”that‘s not fair” I paid mine.🙄

This is a pick, but with reservations. She has a clear eye for current issues and can articulate her arguments well. I felt, however, that a lot of her focus was coming from the place of intellectual elites, who are suffering under the current economy, but whose lives are still very different from the majority. I had thought this book would look more at the average worker. Nevertheless, there is a lot of value and relevance in this collection. 3⭐️

A prescient but truly depressing read. I‘ve been following Kendzior on Twitter for a while and her takes are always good. This was a really worthwhile listen of her collected articles from ~5 years ago, which were true signals of what was to come.

‘A gaslit nation becomes engulfed in flames‘

The woman who, perhaps, predicted Trump‘s win before any other journalist, put together a collection of her essays from 2012-2014 that collectively help explain his win.

Her dispatches come from Missouri and detail the lives and movements in flyover Midwest and northern South, like where I live. She‘s spot-on. A must-read. 5⭐️

On college, student loan debt, and the so-called meritocracy

When I started in veterinary medicine, I was already an adult with a bachelors degree. I had to shadow at a veterinary clinic for 6 months, then I got hired on for 25 hours a week at $8 an hour. That is not an uncommon starting pay for veterinary assistants, btw.

Then I went to veterinary school and got paid per year ⅔ of the amount of loans I owed at my first job. Again, pretty common.

I wish I could highlight and share this entire section.

My next two posts are for @BarbaraTheBibliophage who requested quotes from this book. I am so impressed by these columns. She really goes where few journalists have.

The section I just started reading is how the Muslim world is not all of one mind. This quote is from the previous section on jobs and the economy.

Barbara, if I owned this book I‘d mail it to you in a heartbeat.

I was browsing the library‘s Overdrive collection, and found this. It‘s essays written during the second Obama administration that are supposed show how the coast lost touch with the flyover and allowed Trump to win. I‘m intrigued. We‘ll see...

#nonfictionNovember #nonfiction2018

Once I learned more about the author (writing from St. Louis), I so liked her attitude, outlook, & honest writing style. Her essays, originally published between 2013-14, all respond to current events- still making waves today. It's uncanny how issues of racism and income inequality especially remain prevalent, especially, now. The book was originally published as a whole 3 years ago and was republished again with an epilogue addressing Trump.

Excellent anthology of essays published by the author over the past decade. The title is unduly limiting. It's not only about flyover country. It's about class struggle in the United States and how the current system is set up to fail those who rely on it most. It had excellently argued social arguments about why charity is no substitute for social justice, the evils of exploitation, and the legitimacy of complaining.

Book 4- Originally published in 2015 and republished in 2018 with a new forward and a new epilogue by the author, this collection of essays focuses on topics faced by the majority of Americans in the early 2010s - poverty and economic disparity, the rising cost of education, the diminishing value of that education, racism, who decides whose humanity matters, and more. A bit repetitive because most were previously published.

‪Sarah Kendzior‘s updated version of “The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America” is released today. I highly suggest everyone read this great book of essays. ‬