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.
So, here’s the thing. I find the intersection of food and politics compelling. Often very compelling. Know what I don’t find compelling? The writing people do at the intersection of food and politics. But then I found out about this book: The Ethnic Restaurateur.
And it sounded promising! Krishnendu Ray comfortably crosses the worlds of food and theory, and I think he gives us plenty worthwhile in The Ethnic Restaurateur.
I recently saw the film Blinded by the Light. There’s a lot here: a young man’s love for The Boss, the struggles of South Asian immigrants to the UK, and a musical with a ton of Bruce Springsteen songs. Stayin’ alive, right? It’s a genuine story of stayin’ alive. But more than anything, it reminded me of a book called Stayin’ Alive. Jefferson Cowie wrote the book, and he also wrote a history of RCA called Capital Moves.
Isaac Asimov published his science fiction detective novel The Caves of Steel in 1954. One of the detectives was a robot. That’s the twist. Lots of sci-fi fans know Asimov for his robot stories, and Asimov invented the word ‘robotics‘. The Caves of Steel became Asimov’s best-selling book to that point in his career. Asimov followed up with the Robot Series: The Naked Sun (1957), The Robots of Dawn (1983), and Robots and Empire (1985).
But that’s just the history. It’s not what this post is about. The Caves of Steel is less a detective story, or a robot story, than a sociological story. Let’s talk about that.
About ten years ago, Alain de Botton wrote a book called The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. It’s a perfectly fine book, not a great book. From the great tradition of writing about working, I far prefer the live interviews of Studs Terkel. And so, I’d greatly recommend his book Working.
But there’s something I do find admirable about de Botton’s The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. Especially insofar as it says something about working in a corporate office.
Welcome to Part 2 of my summer reading list! In my previous post I wrote about some of the fiction I’ve been reading lately. Here’s some of the nonfiction on my reading list.
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