M-L-M Mayhem!

Since I haven't had the time to post anything substantial for a while, and since the fall my general business has made my posting rather sparse, I figure I'll expend a post promoting some of the non-fiction books I'm currently reading.  Like many people I have the tendency to read several books at once, moving back and forth between them (and sometimes in the same hour), so as to not get bored by one narrative.  If a book (fiction or non-fiction) becomes more engrossing than others than the others will temporarily be set aside, but usually I'm cycling between multiple books––some of which connect to what I'm researching/writing.  So aside from rereading Capital , as mentioned in the previous post, here are some of the non-fiction books I've been reading at the same time. 1) Governing by Debt (Maurizio Lazzarato) I expected to dislike this book, due to my problems with its predecessor ( The Making of the Indebted Man ), and am only reading it because, des...

Some of my colleagues underline and annotate books with pencil; I suspect this habit might have to do with the fact that, when returning to a text after years of intellectual development, they will have the option of erasing embarrassing marginalia made by their younger selves. Unfortunately, I have always preferred to use pens instead of pencils––not for any political reason, mind you, but simply because for some reason I own more pens than pencils and because I don't like the way that pencil smudges and fades.  Hence, whenever I return a particular book years after my initial reading I am met with more permanent traces of my previous self that can only be effaced by deliberate scribbling, a clear sign of guilt. Recently I have started re-reading Capital ––between other books I'm reading for the first time––in the interest of consolidating aspects of my ideology and practice.  I first read volume one during my MA, volume three by the end of my first year as a PhD student, a...