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The universe is an ongoing explosion.

That's where you live.

In an explosion.

Also, we absolutely don't know what living is.

Sometimes atoms arranged in a certain way just get very haunted.

That's us.

When an explosion explodes hard enough, dust wakes up and thinks about itself.

And then writes about it.

CHARLES

THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING: A NEW HISTORY OF HUMANITY

This book is an absolute game-changing history of humanity that wipes the slate clean when it comes to most everything we were taught about our origins in prehistory. Graeber—the author of Debt, who coined the phrase “'the 99%”—and Wengrow begin here by dismantling the deeply unscientific influence of Hobbes and Rousseau on our understanding of the human timeline and how their bad assumptions can still be found in the works of contemporaries like Jared Diamond and Steven Pinker. After, they move on to a jaw-dropping discussion of the actual evidence for the incredible variety of ways people actually lived before and during the rise of “civilization.” All this is done in service of an Activist point of view; clearing the way for a more sophisticated understanding of who we are, where we come from, and the rich possibilities for real change in our societies now.

REVOLUTION IN OUR TIME: THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY’S PROMISE TO THE PEOPLE

A long-overdue history directed at kids, this introduction to the woefully underappreciated Black Panther Party is easily one of the most important children’s books this year.

MUTUAL AID: AN ILLUMINATED FACTOR OF EVOLUTION

Kropotkin’s most famous work, re-released here on the eve of its 100th anniversary. For those unfamiliar, Kropotkin was a Russian aristocrat who gave up his birthright and became one of the most important godfathers of modern anarchist thought. Mutual Aid was a direct attack on Social Darwinism by dismantling the cliche of “survival of the fittest” and replacing it with the much more accurate concept of “mutual aid as a factor in evolution.” To this day, Mutual Aid continues to be validated by each new breakthrough in our understanding of how the evolution of species actually works. This gifty volume is illustrated and includes an introduction by David Graeber.

LEVIATHAN FALLS (EXPANSE #9)

The last volume of The Expanse, one of the best sci-fi epics of the 21st century. This book will be followed quickly by the last season of The Expanse TV series, easily the best sci-fi show since Ronald Moore’s Battlestar Galactica. If you know what this is all about, you’ll definitely want this. If you don’t, I highly recommend the show and the first volume of the books, Leviathan Wakes. Fantastic stuff.

DANGEROUS VISIONS AND NEW WORLDS: RADICAL SCIENCE FICTION, 1950-1985

An exciting history/re-evaluation of literature’s disowned younger sibling: science fiction. Focusing on its radical shift to the Left in the 1960s, the essays here give long overdue credit to some of the sci fi greats that have only recently begun to find their way to acceptance within the pantheon. I’ve always found it to be teeth-grindingly frustrating how often the themes and tropes of sci fi are found in critically praised novels by “literary” authors without anyone ever giving props to how the same material has been dealt with for decades by very talented, but very ghettoized writers (I’m looking at you, The Road by McCarthy and you Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro, etc.). Our current apocalyptic trajectory as a society, for instance, has been predicted and discussed countless times over the decades in little pulp paperbacks with ridiculous cover art and found on spinner racks in grocery stores, only to be ignored by all the critics and award givers of literature. Meanwhile, the great themes of modern literature (alienation, transformation, absurdism, symbolism, the relativity of truth, etc.) are arguably dealt with just as well or better in the lesser known gems of sci fi. Anyway, this book will make the point better than I can …

Words as feelings

Losing my Welsh: what it feels like to forget a language

When my mother said she was lonely, I knew I had to relearn my Bengali language

The deep roots of writing

Gesture Talks

Africa’s colonisation of the English language continues apace

The Ebbing Language

The Strange Persistence of First Languages

Mother Tongue

What Do You Lose When You Lose Your Language?

If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?

Why learning a new language is like an illicit love affair

Thoughts into words

A concept: You decide to visit your local family-owned coffee shop on a brisk, rainy day. You’re greeted by the shop’s owner with a warm smile as you make your way to a seat near the window, resting your thick coat on the back of the chair before you sit down. A waitress approaches you and takes your order, a warm croissant and single black coffee, no sugar or milk. Silence falls upon the shop, as you are their only customer so early in the day. You gaze absentmindedly out of the window, thinking of your dead lover, a single tear falling as the thunder booms.

Are you still alone

in bed? Is it morning yet where you are? The smoke turns to rain as usual. Listen, my love. This year is just a visitor & next year’s

ghost. Take care of it because yes—yes, you do deserve flowers for once in your life. You will be the only one left. So hold my hand & call me

tomorrow. We are all here.

— Michael Wasson, from “Your Shadow Invents You Every Time Light Fails to Pass Through You,” published in Poetry

legit the best advice i can give you: feed your friends

any time someone is in any kind of crisis or upheaval, offer to feed them. tell them they don't have to choose what it is if they can't make decisions, just ask about allergies and preferences and tell them you're just gonna make food happen at their house.

friend having a baby? delivery gift certificate to order food to the hospital after the kid shows up.

someone's relative passes away? offer to make them dinner.

buddy gets laid off? ask if you can order them lunch.

pal stuck in a depressive episode? offer to drive them to fucking mcdonalds, if that's what they want.

people in crisis are tired and sad and angry and the last thing most of them are doing is thinking about feeding themselves. so if you have the ability or time or money, providing that is always, always a good move.

legit i do this all the time, and it is 100% always appreciated. i have taught all my friends that when something happens, we feed each other. it makes people feel extremely cared for, and I cannot recommend it enough.

dopedressdealer & tattoochella in paris

Exactly

“Study me as much as you like, you will never know me. For I differ a hundred ways from what you see me to be. Put yourself behind my eyes, and see me as I see myself. Because I have chosen to dwell in a place you can’t see.”

— Rumi (via purplebuddhaquotes)

“December’s wintery breath is already clouding the pond, frosting the pane, obscuring summer’s memory…”

— A Familiar Rain, John Geddes