Cory Doctorow

Music Copyright, Creativity, and Culture by Jennifer Jenkins

Jenkins understands it, though. I've been reading, writing, and debating about this stuff since the late 1990s, and I learned something new on every page of this delightful book.

on pluralistic.net · 17 Aug 202626d

THEFT! A History of Music by James Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins and Keith Aoki

These examples are liberally illustrated with links to musical excerpts that bring the subject to life (these are presented as hotlinks in the ebook; if you're reading the print edition, you can use the book's companion website:) https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/musiccopyright/ Interspersed with these histories and analysis are lengthy, extremely on-point excerpts from THEFT!

on pluralistic.net · 17 Aug 202626d

The Open Copyright Casebook by Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle

Jenkins' flair for legal communications carries over to her scholarly work, of course, which is why her Open Copyright Casebook is a standard text for American law schools:

on pluralistic.net · 17 Aug 202626d

Everybody's Perfect by Jo Walton

And now it's Everybody's Perfect, a book that pretty much defines what it means for one text to be "in dialog" with another text. In this case, it's Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance, a stunning magnum opus that tells not just the story of the Renaissance, but the story of the story, all the different ways the Renaissance has been used, abused, revised and recovered, starting with the Renaissance itself. It's a book that will make you rethink everything you know about European history, about the world today, and about the very idea of history itself

on pluralistic.net · 30 Jun 20262mo

Obstetrix by Naomi Kritzer

All told, this is a read-in-one-sitting thriller that does as much to illuminate the workings and dynamics of patriarchy and religion as any gender studies class. It's peak Kritzer (so far), and that's saying something.

on pluralistic.net · 9 Jun 20263mo

Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple

Crabapple's response to this burgeoning movement is this book, a massive, heroic, brilliant, and pitiless history of the Bund that proposes its own answer to "the Jewish question."

on pluralistic.net · 1 Jun 20263mo

Cannon by Lee Lai

The result is something that's beautiful, sharp, critical and lingering. Long after I closed the cover, I found myself mulling over the delicate ways that Lai raised the contradictions, sorrows and beauty of queer love, racial identity, camaraderie, self-control, and self-indulgence. Lai's characters have no answers, only questions that can never be fully resolved. Instead, these questions are the defining puzzles, defeats and triumphs of their lives.

on pluralistic.net · 8 May 20264mo

Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer

Ada Palmer may just be the most bewilderingly talented person I know: a genius sf writer, incredible librettist and singer, wildly innovative educator, and a leading historian of the Renaissance, and last year, she published her magnum opus, Inventing the Renaissance, a stunning book about so much more than history

on pluralistic.net · 25 Apr 20265mo

Privacy's Defender by Cindy Cohn

This book is a beautiful capstone to a brilliant career that defined the fight for cyber rights, and a deep, accessible dive into the defining tech and human rights battles of this century.

on pluralistic.net · 9 Apr 20265mo

Hospital at the End of the World by Justin Key

Hospital at the End of the World is Key's first novel, and it's terrific.

on pluralistic.net · 4 Feb 20267mo

The Universe Box by Michael Swanwick

This is what it means to read a short story collection from an absolute master at the absolute peak of his powers. He can slide you frictionlessly between Icelandic troll tragedies to lethal drone-leopard romantic agonies to battles of the gods and the cigar box that has the universe inside of it. All with the lyricism of Bradbury, the madcap wit of Sturgeon, the unrelenting weirdness of Dick, the heart of Tiptree and the precision of Chiang.

on pluralistic.net · 3 Feb 20267mo

Letters From an Imaginary Country by Theodora Goss

Theodora Goss's latest book of short stories is 'Letters From an Imaginary Country,' and it manages to be one of the most voraciously, delightfully readable books I've ever read and it's one of the most writerly books, too. What a treat!

on pluralistic.net · 11 Nov 202510mo

Science Comics Computers: How Digital Hardware Works by Perry Metzger, Penelope Spector and Jerel Dye

In Science Comics Computers: How Digital Hardware Works, legendary cypherpunk Perry Metzger teams up with Penelope Spector and illustrator Jerel Dye for a tour-de-force young adult comic book that uses hilarious steampunk dinosaurs to demystify the most foundational building-blocks of computers. It's astounding

on pluralistic.net · 5 Nov 202510mo

9 Times My Work Has Been Ripped Off by Raymond Biesinger

Raymond Biesinger's new book 9 Times My Work Has Been Ripped Off is a masterclass in how creative workers can transform the endless, low-grade seething about the endless ripoffs of the industry into something productive and even profound

on pluralistic.net · 28 Oct 202510mo

Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen

It's screamingly funny, devilishly inventive, and deeply, profoundly satisfying. With Fever Beach, Hiaasen makes a compelling case for Florida as the perfect microcosm of the terrifying state of America, and an even more compelling case for his position as its supreme storyteller.

on pluralistic.net · 21 Oct 202511mo

The Weight by Melissa Mendes

The Weight is Mellia Mendes's award-winning webcomic, now collected in a massive, beautifully made graphic novel from Drawn & Quarterly. It will tear your heart out, it will send you to a dreamy world of pastoral utopianism, then it will tear your heart out.

on pluralistic.net · 21 Aug 202513mo

Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders

Charlie Jane Anders' Lessons in Magic and Disaster drops today: it's a novel about queer academia, the wonder of thinking very hard about very old books, and the terror and joy of ambiguous magic. It's my kind of novel!

on pluralistic.net · 19 Aug 202513mo