Nobody Beats the Bisbee
I managed to read 50 books in 2016--well, if you round up. Had I known I was so close I would have done some marathon reading last week. But instead I was busy cleaning my house and spending a long weekend in Bisbee with some friends (including, but not limited to, parilous, locakitty, and clockworkalien).
The new year's weekend in Bisbee was clockworkalien's idea, and parilous did a lot of the planning and whatnot not make it happen. My initial reaction to the idea was lukewarm, since I'd been to Bisbee a few times on day trips and figured there wasn't much there that I hadn't already seen. But I've been in a traveling phase and figured I'd be among my best friends there, so I decided I might as well accept the invitation. The longer stay there did reveal more depth and dimension to Bisbee's charm, so it managed to exceed my been-there-done-that expectations. We stayed in a cabin-like house that was about two-thirds of the way up one of Bisbee's many hills. The deck provided a beautiful view of Bisbee, and a few minutes of walking (albeit with many stairs to descend!) got us to the downtown area. We made a lot of trips there to shop for vintage and antique goods, eat at a handful of restaurants, drink at a couple of bars, and take pictures of all of the weird and wonderful art.
I took advantage of the proximity to the border to take a quick side trip to Agua Prieta along the way. The plus is that it's not a very busy port of entry compared to Nogales's, so it's very quick to get in and out of Mexico there. But there's not much to do in Agua Prieta. I'd suspected as much from reading about it on the Internet, but I wanted to find out for myself. I think a lot of travel advice and travel reviews are written by and for extroverts who have greater needs for stimulation and engagement. I still think that, but I also think they were right about Agua Prieta. It's just a modest-sized town in Mexico, with nothing terribly remarkable to see or do there. I ended up wandering around the north part of town and buying a wooden carving of a bird from one of the shops near the pedestrian crossing point.
Later, at the Copper Queen Plaza in Bisbee, I found some business cards for someone named Keoki Skinner, who is "a 30 year resident and former newspaper reporter" who does three-hour, small-group tours of Agua Prieta that will "show you this city of 200,000 from a different perspective." I grabbed a card and took a photo of it, just in case I lost it. Maybe one of these days I'll give Agua Prieta another look.
Anyway, without further ado, here's my comprehensive list of books that I read in 2016.
1. Ciudad de payasos by Daniel Alarcón
2. Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism by Derrick Bell
3. Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich: Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy by Mary Frances Berry
4. The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza by Max Blumenthal
5. Voices From the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba by Keith Bolender
6. The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature in a Men's Prison by Mikita Brottman
7. We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation by Jeff Chang
8. What Kind of Creatures Are We? by Noam Chomsky
9. Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky
10. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis
11. Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It by Garth Davis
12. Extinction: A Radical History by Ashley Dawson
13. Combat-Ready Kitchen: How the U.S. Military Shapes the Way You Eat by Anastacia Marx de Salcedo
14. Until We Are Free: My Fight for Human Rights in Iran by Shirin Ebadi
15. Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank
16. Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America by Amy Goodman, David Goodman, and Denis Moynihan
17. Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege by Amira Hass
18. Frackopoly: The Battle for the Future of Energy and the Environment by Wenonah Hauter
19. Pollinator Friendly Gardening: Gardening for Bees, Butterflies, and Other Pollinators by Rhonda Fleming Hayes
20. Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt
21. The Massacres at Mt. Halla: Sixty Years of Truth Seeking in South Korea by Hun Joon Kim
22. Magic in Islam by Michael Muhammad Knight
23. March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
24. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer
25. People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy by Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols
26. At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle L. McGuire
27. Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
28. Belize: A Caribbean Nation in Central America: Selected Speeches of Said Musa by Said Musa
29. Planetfall by Emma Newman
30. Do Your Om Thing: Bending Yoga Tradition to Fit Your Modern Life by Rebecca Pacheco
31. Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights by James Peck
32. Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority by Steve Phillips
33. Green Is the New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement Under Siege by Will Potter
34. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez
35. I Still Believe Anita Hill: Three Generations Discuss the Legacies of Speaking Truth to Power by Amy Richards and Cynthia Greenberg (eds.)
36. Things That Can and Cannot Be Said: Essays and Conversations by Arundhati Roy and John Cusack
37. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
38. Hungry Capital: The Financialization of Food by Luigi Russi
39. Learning from an Unimportant Minority by J. Sakai
40. Outsider in the White House by Bernie Sanders
41. The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program by Jeremy Scahill and the Staff of The Intercept
42. Bouki Fait Gombo: A History of the Slave Population of Habitation Haydel (Whitney Plantation) Louisiana, 1750-1860 by Ibrahim Seck
43. The ABCs of Socialism by Bhaskar Sunkara (ed.)
44. Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World by David Vine
45. Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical Care by H. Gilbert Welch
46. Serenity: Better Days by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews
47. Serenity Volume 3: The Shepherd's Tale by Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, and Chris Samnee
The new year's weekend in Bisbee was clockworkalien's idea, and parilous did a lot of the planning and whatnot not make it happen. My initial reaction to the idea was lukewarm, since I'd been to Bisbee a few times on day trips and figured there wasn't much there that I hadn't already seen. But I've been in a traveling phase and figured I'd be among my best friends there, so I decided I might as well accept the invitation. The longer stay there did reveal more depth and dimension to Bisbee's charm, so it managed to exceed my been-there-done-that expectations. We stayed in a cabin-like house that was about two-thirds of the way up one of Bisbee's many hills. The deck provided a beautiful view of Bisbee, and a few minutes of walking (albeit with many stairs to descend!) got us to the downtown area. We made a lot of trips there to shop for vintage and antique goods, eat at a handful of restaurants, drink at a couple of bars, and take pictures of all of the weird and wonderful art.
I took advantage of the proximity to the border to take a quick side trip to Agua Prieta along the way. The plus is that it's not a very busy port of entry compared to Nogales's, so it's very quick to get in and out of Mexico there. But there's not much to do in Agua Prieta. I'd suspected as much from reading about it on the Internet, but I wanted to find out for myself. I think a lot of travel advice and travel reviews are written by and for extroverts who have greater needs for stimulation and engagement. I still think that, but I also think they were right about Agua Prieta. It's just a modest-sized town in Mexico, with nothing terribly remarkable to see or do there. I ended up wandering around the north part of town and buying a wooden carving of a bird from one of the shops near the pedestrian crossing point.
Later, at the Copper Queen Plaza in Bisbee, I found some business cards for someone named Keoki Skinner, who is "a 30 year resident and former newspaper reporter" who does three-hour, small-group tours of Agua Prieta that will "show you this city of 200,000 from a different perspective." I grabbed a card and took a photo of it, just in case I lost it. Maybe one of these days I'll give Agua Prieta another look.
Anyway, without further ado, here's my comprehensive list of books that I read in 2016.
1. Ciudad de payasos by Daniel Alarcón
2. Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism by Derrick Bell
3. Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich: Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy by Mary Frances Berry
4. The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza by Max Blumenthal
5. Voices From the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba by Keith Bolender
6. The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature in a Men's Prison by Mikita Brottman
7. We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation by Jeff Chang
8. What Kind of Creatures Are We? by Noam Chomsky
9. Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky
10. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis
11. Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It by Garth Davis
12. Extinction: A Radical History by Ashley Dawson
13. Combat-Ready Kitchen: How the U.S. Military Shapes the Way You Eat by Anastacia Marx de Salcedo
14. Until We Are Free: My Fight for Human Rights in Iran by Shirin Ebadi
15. Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank
16. Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America by Amy Goodman, David Goodman, and Denis Moynihan
17. Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege by Amira Hass
18. Frackopoly: The Battle for the Future of Energy and the Environment by Wenonah Hauter
19. Pollinator Friendly Gardening: Gardening for Bees, Butterflies, and Other Pollinators by Rhonda Fleming Hayes
20. Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt
21. The Massacres at Mt. Halla: Sixty Years of Truth Seeking in South Korea by Hun Joon Kim
22. Magic in Islam by Michael Muhammad Knight
23. March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
24. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer
25. People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy by Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols
26. At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle L. McGuire
27. Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
28. Belize: A Caribbean Nation in Central America: Selected Speeches of Said Musa by Said Musa
29. Planetfall by Emma Newman
30. Do Your Om Thing: Bending Yoga Tradition to Fit Your Modern Life by Rebecca Pacheco
31. Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights by James Peck
32. Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority by Steve Phillips
33. Green Is the New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement Under Siege by Will Potter
34. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez
35. I Still Believe Anita Hill: Three Generations Discuss the Legacies of Speaking Truth to Power by Amy Richards and Cynthia Greenberg (eds.)
36. Things That Can and Cannot Be Said: Essays and Conversations by Arundhati Roy and John Cusack
37. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
38. Hungry Capital: The Financialization of Food by Luigi Russi
39. Learning from an Unimportant Minority by J. Sakai
40. Outsider in the White House by Bernie Sanders
41. The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program by Jeremy Scahill and the Staff of The Intercept
42. Bouki Fait Gombo: A History of the Slave Population of Habitation Haydel (Whitney Plantation) Louisiana, 1750-1860 by Ibrahim Seck
43. The ABCs of Socialism by Bhaskar Sunkara (ed.)
44. Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World by David Vine
45. Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical Care by H. Gilbert Welch
46. Serenity: Better Days by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews
47. Serenity Volume 3: The Shepherd's Tale by Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, and Chris Samnee