a sand county almanac (aldo leopold) i just cracked this and damn… i’m sucked into the reverse chronological history of this dude recounting the events that a tree has survived as he works to fell it. i doubt it was set up to be so engrossing, but it’s some beautiful and surprisingly moving writing. whether this is planned or instinctual is something i’d love to know. the diversity leopold describes in wandering around his property in 1940s wisconsin has me reading this with wikipedia in the other hand....

the lost cause (cory doctorow) i always have to take the cory doctorow with a grain of salt. this was a DSA fever dream, and i say this as someone who leans heavily in that direction. the main character is a pretty flat charicature of a liberal kid that grew up in a MAGA household. gramps was a MAGA who died; leaving him the owner of a house that he opts to turn into a four-story walkup to house climate refugees....

robbed 1.45 miles by block party.

shop class as soulcraft (matthew b. crawford) a few years ago i learned there were no meaningful shop class options available in the local high school. the wood shop available today is sad and pathetic compared to the shop class i had in a middle-class midwestern suburb in the late 1980s. gen-X is probably the last generation to have shop class. there’s a lot swimming around the core “philosophy” in this book....