Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
These are posts about books from the blog Base and Superstructure. Occasionally I’ll read a book worth talking about, and write some thoughts on it. These cover a wide range of topics from the blog.
There’s not much to do in Iowa City other than read – or make cloth masks – given the fact of coronavirus and COVID-19. As I said earlier, one of those recent books is The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov. I dropped a hint in the earlier post that The Naked Sun is relevant to our current situation. How? By revealing the slow social disintegration of the planet Solaria.
Let’s think a bit more about that.
Yeah, I know. I just put out a reading list for the spring. But there’s reading, and there’s reading, right? With stay-at-home orders in most states, we’re now doing the latter. And not a moment too soon, because we don’t need to mess around with coronavirus and COVID-19.
Lots of you are under stay-at-home orders! Even Florida now. As it happens, I live in Iowa and I’m not. This has led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth among local liberals. But if you can’t – or won’t – leave the house, you’re probably looking for something to read.
Maybe I can help with that. Here’s what I’m reading under my personal stay-at-home order.
John Steinbeck wrote about two thefts of the land in The Grapes of Wrath. As readers, we know Steinbeck as the classic author who wrote eloquently about the second theft, the banks’ theft of the dying Oklahoma countryside from its tenant farmers. But many of us know less than we should about the first theft.
Let’s take a look.
Welcome to the third installment of my reading list series! I’m writing on a gorgeous 70 degree March day in Iowa, and I’ve spent most it outside. They won’t all be like this, though. Here’s some recent and upcoming reading for those rainy days, surprise snows, or…coronavirus quarantines.
Iowa winters are longer and colder than the ones I remember growing up in southern Indiana. Finishing up February, we need something to look forward to. For baseball fans, that’s easy. The latter half of February reliably brings us the first spring training games.
Anyone on a trip to Florida or Arizona with 5 bucks in their pocket can see major league baseball players preparing for the upcoming season. The players are shaking off the rust, working on a new swing, or rehabbing a surgically-repaired arm. Even those of us still in Iowa can read about it and dream about what’s on the horizon – baseball and warmer days.
Spring training is a consolation in a cold, dark season. And, of course, it marks the beginning of a new one.
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