Book cover of Oil Beach

Book description

Can the stories of bananas, whales, sea birds, and otters teach us to reconsider the seaport as a place of ecological violence, tied to oil, capital, and trade?

San Pedro Bay, which contains the contiguous Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, is a significant site for petroleum shipping and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Oil Beach as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love this book because it ties our insatiable demand for stuff to local, regional, and, indeed, global pollution and environmental destruction that threatens human and animal life.

Each chapter presents an eye-opening case study, my favorite of which explains all the steps that occur to bring bananas from far-off places and into grocery stores through Southern California’s largest ports. In fact, while Oil Beach spells out the impacts of oil refining, shipping, and trucking on humans, I love it, especially because it focuses on birds, whales, and other non-humans. The sad irony of oil-coated birds being treated at a…

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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

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