Top Ten(ish) books of 2024

[@JohntheDuncan]

What's the best thing you've read this year? What's your favourite of my videos from the year?

[@LonkinPork]

Spent this year trying to get myself back into reading after a long hiatus, so I've only finished two books this year. But one was David Graeber's classic _Bullshit Jobs_ and that's a really great book

[@KP-uc1ez]

Domenico Losurdo's 'Western Marxism,' the recent translation ;) I will cheat, too: your globalisation video is still my favorite, however that may pain you to hear

[@JohntheDuncan]

@KP-uc1ez i revisited the globalisation one for a lecture recently and was pleasantly surprised

[@KP-uc1ez]

@JohntheDuncan it's a phenomenonal(ly humorous) demystification of the gLoBaLiZaTiOn discourse, Docta Duncan. It elicits the Parenti chef's kiss lol 🤌🏻

[@Voidsp00n]

A few favourites from this year: Tamim Ansary - Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes Andreas Malm & The Zetkin Collective - White Skin, Black Fuel Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass Adrian Tchaikovsky - House of Open Wounds & Days of Shattered Faith And I really liked your recent video debunking that silly anti-degrowth paper!

[@walkernickel4017]

BEGGING you to do the Bastani fully automated review

[@selmaunsley6683]

Yay let’s pull asteroids closer the planet!

[@andrewlipnick8131]

Tehanu and The Tombs of Atuan are my favorite Earthsea books as well! If you want another fantasy series with great writing and politics, you should check out the Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin if you haven't already.

[@Wossnameguy]

I appreciate the effort to highlight good reads. I picked up the social reproduction edited volume you pointed to years ago and it still is something I find myself coming back to - either to point other people towards, to reflect on in conversation, or even just to cite from in an academic context. Despite having read everything else Le Guin has done I've yet to read Earthsea and maybe this will be the push needed. Looking forward to making my way through this list. Thanks for the work!

[@ruckly1241]

John, your Ecocide video is some of your best work. It is very of the moment and yet will still be relevant years from now, regardless of how much we wish it won't. I can't remember how I found your channel or what my first video of yours was. But your Welfare and Neoliberalism video gave language, context and perspective to what I've been feeling for years. I always look forward to your videos, as I know I will be challenged, in a good way.

[@LonkinPork]

Demon Copperhead's been high on my To Read list because I loved the old Dickens book as a teenager, but I'll definitely check out some of these others. Thanks for a great year, Mr. TheDuncan!

[@JohntheDuncan]

Demon Copperhead was legit so good

[@usernamegoeshere527]

As much as I loved the writing in Demon Copperhead, the entire time I couldn't help but feel like the characters existed to feed a voyeuristic torture porn experience. For context I grew up in rural VA (not as far south or west as where the story takes place, but still a good 25 minute drive from the nearest gas station kind of rural). I am still having trouble putting into words what put me off, but some parts definitely rubbed me the wrong way.

[@twipameyer1210]

Le Guin is great! I read The Disposessed and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and both are worth it! The Earthsea Series was on my reading list already and I'm looking forward to it.

[@EricGranata]

The Poisonwood Bible is my favorite book and kicked off my deconstruction. I read/listen to it every few years. Hit differently after I had kids.

[@sorasorisora]

I see Earthsea, I press like. do you have any tips for reading Edward Said's writings? I tried The Question of Palestine earlier this year but it was on the drier side and needed plenty of Googling on the side (though this was not the fault of the text, it's just that it assumed I had prior cursory understanding of a lot of specific historical moments, which I didn't have). Orientalism was one of those textbooks in uni that I never got around to fully read, only excerpts and chapters given by my lecturers, and they were dense as hell.

[@Voidsp00n]

You should definitely read Le Guin's Hainish Cycle if you haven't already. I think especially The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Word For World Is Forest would be right up your alley.

[@JohntheDuncan]

@@Voidsp00n i love the dispossessed and actually have an old review of the the Word for World is forest up on patreon but i do want to read more of the Hainish cycle

[@selmaunsley6683]

Any Ursula Le Guin is worth you’re time but I’d also say The Left Hand of Darkness and Disspossed

[@isthisthekrustykrab8646]

Not to be a negative Nancy, but I'd be interested to hear what you'd have to say about Bastani's book after a year or two of burying my face further and further in my hands at some of the goings on at Novara (but Bastani most particularly). I remember watching your video on effective altruism and thinking there seemed to be a fair bit of crossover there with the intellectual background of someone like a Bastani. I'm more than convinced a lot of what he says about asteroid mining or whatever is just irrelevant twaddle for what we need to be talking about/planning/organising now, but it'd be nice to hear it laid out authoritatively from someone who's gone to the effort of reading the book, god knows I'm not reading the bloody thing. Glad you're thriving John! Not loving my PhD or the academic journey thus far, but watching your output never disappoints even if some of those inside the academy all too often do

[@sylvrstone]

[@selmaunsley6683]

Didn’t read much but Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein was better than I thought it would be ( the shock doctrine is still her best work) Who’s Afraid of Gender is good if you don’t have a PhD in Gender Studies Ecocide was probably your best video ( but most depressing)

[@emtay7515]

Do you have a goodreads account?

[@JohntheDuncan]

@@emtay7515 i do not

[@knowledgeanddefense1054]

Please read anarcho-communist literature 🙏😭 (I recommend Mutual Aid: a Factor in Evolution for a historical bluprint of a decommodified society's economic basis)

[@LonkinPork]

Based Kropotkin enjoyer

[@misslenorelee6322]

So keen for this. The dopamine i need for reading has just come back