The Maris Review, vol 125

The theme of the week is that there are actual ways to fight back against the monstrous people who are in power right now

What I read this week

End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

Doppelganger changed the way I viewed the world and is entirely essential. End Times Fascism didn't quite change everything, but it does provide a useful way to understand and organize all of the information about the things that keep me up at night.

The book explores all of the ways in which fascism is different this time around. It's End Times because in the last fascist golden age (??) Hitler and Mussolini didn't have access to nukes; the supervillains in charge now mostly do. It's also End Times because global warming is coming for us all except for the oligarchs who have private bunkers. And it's End Times because AI is threatening our very way of life and the race to AIG has made the natural world (including us) is expendable.

I appreciate the books juxtapositions because I hadn't considered that the religious fundamentalists who are ready for the end times to come to happen have much in common with tech billionaires. The religious people (many of whom are in charge of American policy right now and who have a vested interest in Israel) are stoked for the rapture because that's when Jesus comes back and takes all of the believers up to heaven and leaves the rest of us nonbelievers on Earth to rot or whatever. The tech goons want AI to become all powerful and thus to end the world as we know it. Who cares if reaching Artificial General Intelligence sacrifices the environment and most careers and the emotional and intellectual well-being of most people, because the very rich will be fine! The commonality between both: they don't give a shit about what happens to the masses as long as they get their heavenly rewards.

If fascism is about blaming groups with very little power for the problems plaguing us rather than the systems and the people who are actively exploiting us, then at least we can savor how, as Klein and Taylor detail for us, tech billionaires are deathly afraid of us. They know that they're working to eliminate our livelihoods and our natural world and our mental capacity, and they know that we are or, at least will be, furious.

Until then we can take comfort in the fact that objections to the building of data centers has been a bipartisan effort. And nuclear disarmament happened before and it can happen again. And, of course, the new progressives in politics are providing a lot of hope, starting with our New York City mayor who genuinely seems to like people and art and nature.

It was a mindfuck to be reading this book when Vanity Fair's New Establishment list was published. The list contains two socialists and then all of the tech gurus who were mentioned in End Times Fascism as fascists set on destroying the world as we know it. And they all get glamour shots.

What are we even doing here?

More AI nonsense: I have seen so many different, sad attempts to make books interactive and the truth is, as always, very few people want this. We readers, we mostly just want to read.

Book prizes are good, actually

For my Lit Hub column I wrote about how truly excited I am every year when longlists and shortlists for all of the big literary prizes are announced. Books are being devalued so much in American culture right now, and I am always happy when there's a time to celebrate them. Especially the ones that aren't big bestsellers but that more people need to hear about.

Now that the shortlist has been announced, I'm excited for a bunch of these lesser known titles all while keeping in mind that a healthy book ecosystem wouldn't feature 6 out of the 10 finalists for Fiction and Nonfiction coming from one publisher (Penguin Random House).

It's National Banned Books Week and shit is not great

PEN America released its latest report in time for Banned Books Week and there are a lot of books being banned. And we need PEN to stick around because their book ban reporting is unmatched. They're doing a lot of important work.

There are also a lot of wins to be had in fighting back against book bans. Most of the country doesn't want them! They are not popular. You can donate to Authors Against Book Bans if you want to help us fight.

And also

I'm so grateful to Josh Lambert and Dan Sinykin for reporting so deeply on the numerous glaring flaws in PEN's recent study about antisemitism in publishing. I was happy to sound very petty but also morally astute in my quotes in the piece. Once again, we beg PEN to let the people fighting against book bans do their important work without absolutely unnecessary distractions.

Great Alternatives to Amazon Prime Day

Bookshop has free shipping today and tomorrow, so now's the time to buy some books and feel good about it!

Also, Libro.fm is running an Indie Bookshop Appreciation Sale with a lot of good sale options like The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy and Voyagers by Meg Charlton, and a modern classic: All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg.