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Alanna

🤗Your friendly local anarchist 🧑‍🎨Freelance Artist/Illustrator 🪴Making pottery, quilts and 🪱a nice home for my worm friends 🫂Trying to build community Toronto

21962 points

0% overlap
Gothic Literature
Intro to Poetry
Fictional(?) Dystopian Societies
Queer Horror
Justice for All
Medieval Times
My Taste
Why Art?
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
How to Read Now
Hello Sunshine (A Graphic Novel)
The Everlasting
Reading...
Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders, #1)
1%
On a Sunbeam
9%
The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive
5%
An Unkindness of Ghosts
76%
The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
32%
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
82%

Alanna made progress on...

1h
An Unkindness of Ghosts

An Unkindness of Ghosts

Rivers Solomon

76%
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Alanna commented on a post

1h
  • The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
    Thoughts on the book’s attitude towards sex from 27% (page 90)

    The broadstrokes of history here is important and all, but I find Vincent’s obsession with injecting the sexual escapades of the men he writes about into the narrative genuinely off-putting, especially in an already highly compressed account that surely has a lot more important things to discuss.

    I understand the irony that’s being painted (the US, a nation with Puritan foundations, turning up its nose against the promiscuous Sukarno and Lumumba, while at the same time providing Indonesian students and generals access to strip clubs in Kansas), but it just feels so off-putting to center the men and the way the men use women’s bodies here (especially given the author’s clear awareness of say, the Gerwani movement and its feminist critique of this all).

    I get that it’s horrible men being horrible men, but why does this matter? Was Lumumba and Soekarno’s sexual appetite really a major factor in the US’ decision to antagonise them (over say, their politics?) Was the sex tape plot a major incident in US-Indonesian relations? I don’t think there’s a convincing case being made here for the importance of these accounts, the actual use of these accounts to further the book’s thesis feels half-baked, unearnest; they feel leery, voyeuristic, sensational.

    Considering how much of the Cold War-era conflicts described here are fought over the rights of third worlders (especially third world women) over use of their labour and bodies, this use of women’s bodies to sensationalise an otherwise important piece of historical journalism just feels unfortunate.

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  • Alanna commented on Alanna's update

    Alanna made progress on...

    3h
    The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

    The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

    Vincent Bevins

    32%
    11
    2
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    Alanna commented on a post

    3h
  • The Everlasting
    Thoughts from 10%
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    11
    comments 4
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  • Alanna commented on OhMyDio's update

    Alanna made progress on...

    3h
    The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

    The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

    Vincent Bevins

    32%
    11
    2
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    Alanna commented on sassenach's update

    sassenach earned a badge

    1d
    Level 3

    Level 3

    250 points

    21
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    Alanna commented on Smilepal's update

    Smilepal TBR'd a book

    9h
    Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World

    Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World

    Naomi Klein

    14
    2
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    Alanna made progress on...

    10h
    Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

    Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

    Pyotr Kropotkin

    82%
    5
    0
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    Alanna commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

    19h
  • I need a good sob

    I have only ever sobbed over one book - 'The Book Thief'. I'm not even too sure why it destroyed me that much but I sat on the public bus and cried my little heart out. I wish to feel this again. Did anyone react the same way to this book and any recs for more books to do the same ?

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    comments 75
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  • Alanna commented on shanethe_readingrat's update

    shanethe_readingrat made progress on...

    23h
    The Second Death of Locke

    The Second Death of Locke

    V.L. Bovalino

    36%
    18
    3
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    Alanna commented on Alanna's update

    Alanna TBR'd a book

    1d
    The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century

    The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century

    Amia Srinivasan

    31
    3
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    Alanna TBR'd a book

    1d
    The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century

    The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century

    Amia Srinivasan

    31
    3
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    Alanna commented on moski's review of Watchmen

    1d
  • Watchmen
    moski
    Jun 14, 2026
    Watchmen
    4.5
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:
    🦸‍♂️
    💥
    🕰️

    anecdotally i was reading this at work over the course of ~four days, had it out on the counter in front of me, and oh my god i have never been complimented on my reading choices by SO many white men in my life. a ridiculous number of white guys stopped in their tracks to exclaim something along the lines of “watchmen!!!! are you reading watchmen??? so cool!!! that’s one of the best books ever written!!!” and i have to tell y’all… they were and are so very right. this book RULES. i was not expecting to be so moved, excited, uplifted, and confounded by this book. i am very new to the comic world and i definitely started w the cream of the crop here. on to the hbo series i go 🤸‍♀️

    52
    comments 20
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  • Alanna commented on Alanna's update

    Alanna is interested in reading...

    1d
    The New Perimenopause: An Evidence-Based Guide to Surviving the Zone of Chaos and Feeling Like Yourself Again

    The New Perimenopause: An Evidence-Based Guide to Surviving the Zone of Chaos and Feeling Like Yourself Again

    Mary Claire Haver

    31
    6
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    Alanna is interested in reading...

    1d
    The New Perimenopause: An Evidence-Based Guide to Surviving the Zone of Chaos and Feeling Like Yourself Again

    The New Perimenopause: An Evidence-Based Guide to Surviving the Zone of Chaos and Feeling Like Yourself Again

    Mary Claire Haver

    31
    6
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    Alanna commented on a post

    1d
  • Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
    Alanna
    Edited
    Thoughts from 70% (page 191)

    I am just realizing that humans used to be called commoners, not just because they were not royalty or nobility, but because of their connection to the land, the commons.

    Kropotkin does not mince words here about the “enclosure” or theft of he commons and it is refreshing. Learning about the theft of the commons (as opposed to empires myth-making about how more and more people just chose to move to the city) was a huge turning point in my own political awakening.

    “In short, to speak of the natural death of village communities in virtue of economical laws is as grim a joke as to speak of the natural death of soldiers slaughtered on a battlefield. The fact was simply this: the village communities had lived for over a thousand years […] But as the value of land was increasing, in consequence of the growth of industries, and the nobility had acquired, under the State organization, a power which it never had had under the feudal system, it took possession of the best parts of the communal lands, and did it’s best to destroy the communal institutions.”

    People did not choose to move to cities en mass during the “Industrial Revolution”. Their common land was taken, so that they were given the choice to starve or work in deadly factories.

    11
    comments 9
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  • Alanna made progress on...

    1d
    Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

    Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

    Pyotr Kropotkin

    77%
    18
    0
    Reply
  • Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
    Alanna
    Edited
    Thoughts from 70% (page 191)

    I am just realizing that humans used to be called commoners, not just because they were not royalty or nobility, but because of their connection to the land, the commons.

    Kropotkin does not mince words here about the “enclosure” or theft of he commons and it is refreshing. Learning about the theft of the commons (as opposed to empires myth-making about how more and more people just chose to move to the city) was a huge turning point in my own political awakening.

    “In short, to speak of the natural death of village communities in virtue of economical laws is as grim a joke as to speak of the natural death of soldiers slaughtered on a battlefield. The fact was simply this: the village communities had lived for over a thousand years […] But as the value of land was increasing, in consequence of the growth of industries, and the nobility had acquired, under the State organization, a power which it never had had under the feudal system, it took possession of the best parts of the communal lands, and did it’s best to destroy the communal institutions.”

    People did not choose to move to cities en mass during the “Industrial Revolution”. Their common land was taken, so that they were given the choice to starve or work in deadly factories.

    11
    comments 9
    Reply