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Bookseller Approved Reads!

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By Claire North

In the store

Gripping, poetic dystopian fiction exploring the value of human life and human loss. North's unique voice lends itself well to this bleak, intense tale. Highly recommended.

Plum Rains

By Andromeda Romano-Lax

In the store

Japan, in a not-inconceivable future. An aging population depends on imported personal support workers. A vulnerable Filipina PSW, already threatened with debt and deportation, fears her job is further jeopardized when her elderly employer's son introduces a clever (and potentially empathetic?) robot into their lives. A fascinating portrayal of the clash between memory, maintenance and artificial intelligence.

The Witches of New York

By Ami Mckay

In the store

Do you believe in magic? If you're looking for a fun, fantastic feminist read, this book is for you! A wonderful tale of female friendship set against the backdrop of turn of the century New York City!

Autonomous

By Annalee Newitz

In the store

A drug-smuggling Robin Hood fighting Big Pharma. An AI soldier who may be falling for her human comrade. Secret anarchists, rogue scientists and a wicked plot that ties it all together.

Must Reads!

Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present

By Robyn Maynard

In the store

Delving behind Canada's veneer of multiculturalism and tolerance, Policing Black Lives traces the violent realities of anti-blackness from the slave ships to prisons, classrooms and beyond.

How to Be an Antiracist

By Ibram X. Kendi

In the store

A bracingly original approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society-and in ourselves.

The Skin We're in

By Desmond Cole

In the store

Desmond Cole's Toronto Life article changed the way we think about racism in Canada. His new book delves even deeper into the fabric of race relations.

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

By Robin J DiAngelo, Layla F. Saad

In the store

Me and White Supremacy takes readers on a 28-day journey of how to dismantle the privilege within themselves so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of colour, and in turn, help other white people do better,

Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada

By Rodney Diverlus, Sandy Hudson, Syrus Marcus Ware

In the store

An anthology of writing addressing the most urgent issues facing the Black community in Canada.

Black Berry, Sweet Juice

By Lawrence Hill

In the store

On Being Black and White in Canada, a provocative and unprecedented look at a timely and engrossing topic. Lawrence is a prof at the University of Guelph.

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

By Reni Eddo-Lodge

In the store

"This political, accessible and uncompromising book has got people talking about race and racism in Britain." - Guardian, "Books of the Year".

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

By Carol Anderson

In the store

White Rage is an extraordinarily timely and urgent call to confront the legacy of structural racism bequeathed by white anger and resentment, and to show its continuing threat to the promise of American democracy.

So You Want to Talk About Race

By Ijeoma Oluo

In the store

Ijeoma Oluo offers a hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America - widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy--from police brutality to the mass incarceration of African Americans.

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

By Robin Diangelo, Michael Eric Dyson

In the store

Groundbreaking book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when discussing racism that serve to protect their positions and maintain racial inequality.

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning

By Ibram X. Kendi, Jason Reynolds

In the store

Timely, crucial, and empowering exploration of racism--and antiracism--in America This is NOT a history book.This is a book about the here and now. A book to help us better understand why we are where we are. Co-authored by Ibram X Kendi, who wrote How To Be an Anti-Racist.

This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work

By Aurelia Durand, Tiffany Jewell

In the store

A book that brings together kids, families, teachers, and administrators in conversation.

AntiRacist Baby

By Ibram X. Kendi, Ashley Lukashevsky

In the store

A fresh new board book that empowers parents and children to uproot racism in our society and in ourselves.<

The Fire Next Time

By James Baldwin

In the store

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement.

Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging

By Tessa Mcwatt

In the store

Interrogating our ideas of race through the lens of her own multi-racial identity, critically acclaimed novelist Tessa McWatt turns her eye on herself, her body and this world in a powerful new work of non-fiction.

Reviews

REVIEW: UNCANNY VALLEY

Review By Barb Minett

Date: 10 Feb 2020

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Uncanny Valley: A Memoir

I must admit that one of the big reasons I thoroughly enjoyed Uncanny Valley is that it validated all my biases about Silicon Valley.

For years I have been moaning that the world is being reorganized by young men in their 20s who feel entitled and responsible for creating the zeitgeist of our future world and also that these minds are hard at work creating another app to get us dinner faster, instead of addressing issues such as climate change.

I actually don’t even know anyone who works there, but Anna Wiener does and she brings this burgeoning world to life with wit and wisdom. I feel validated!

Anna started her career with in a New York publishing company and although she loved the world of books and ideas, she was poorly paid (nothing new there). After a couple of years she was forced to look at her future – one in which she would be living with roommates in cramped housing forever and worried about health care and her 401K. A friend seduced her to California, the bubble of tech and all its perks.

She was hired pretty quickly by a search engine start-up and landed in a world where co-workers, almost all men, had no art on the walls, but lots of fridge magnets, deployed internet slang as if it were a vocabulary, used acronyms instead of words, drank wine out of jam jars, lived in their fleeces, bowed down to the 25-year-old founders as if they were kings (many became billionairs before they were 30) and constantly biked, skate-boarded, ran, all the while talking about the latest in bike, climbing and hiking technology.

Also, these influencers constantly used garbage language like “leading edge solutions” and “value prop” as if it were the gold standard for superior communication. 

It took a while but eventually this hot house of technology and misogyny weighed her down.

The sense of her own disposability (ingrained by the publishing industry) was even exacerbated by the fact that (a) she was a woman in tech and (b) was a lowly customer service representative, not one of the anointed engineers who lived and breathed algorithms.

Wiener began to recoil at their fetishized lives which proceeded without friction and to miss her inefficient life in the world of the arts. She even felt guilty that she could command a six-figure income without being able to do anything.

There is a lot of humour in this book.

Wiener never refers to the real companies by name, just descriptions like “the social media company that everyone hates."  But she finally has to face the fact that she was facilitating people with feral careerism becoming billionaires, helping them replace authentic small businesses with global brands, forcing many to leave their homes in cities with skyrocketing rents like San Francisco and Seattle.

This was and remains the kicker. These very same people are at this very moment insisting that they can and should design the cities of the future. Think twice, Toronto, before you give Google and Sidwalk Labs the keys to your city.

This review originally appeared in Guelph Today.

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