Books like The Time Bind — picked by fans

Nobody really knows what the “American Dream” is. The term was only coined in the 1930s and is used in many different lights. Perhaps it has to do with opportunity and success, perhaps with space and private property, perhaps with just having more stuff. By revisiting the writings of some of America’s founders and greatest 18th-19th-century intellectuals, Hunnicutt comes up with a surprising hypothesis: that the original dream was for people to have free time to spend in creative community activities. Goals relating to material advancement were only means to an end. It was time that early Americans considered as the greatest gift but we, their descendants, have been too busy to notice.

If you think you have a crazy schedule, imagine what it would be like to go to work every day on Mars, while living and working on Earth.

Mars’ day is thirty-six minutes longer than ours, so your standing daily meeting at 9am will begin tomorrow at 9:36am, the day after at 10:12am…and eventually, at two in the morning. I loved learning about how the Mars Exploration Rover scientists at NASA ate endless ice cream and checked their Mars-time watches in an attempt to turn their own bodily clocks off and stay awake despite constant jetlag.

Reading about how they turned themselves into robots, especially during our own “Zoom-era” of constant meetings and emails, I wonder how much the demands of our contemporary, hustling, always-on workplaces do the same to us.

Reading this book is like listening to your incredibly knowledgeable historian friend talk about medieval society over drinks. Janega’s turns of phrase and sharp observations make me laugh, and at the same time, I feel my mind soak up knowledge like a sponge.

This book is about what medieval people thought and why, going back to the philosophies and influences of ancient Greece and Rome. It tackles medieval beauty standards, sexual practices, family life, and work life. It addresses fart jokes and eyeliner, as well as ideas about biology and class disparities. We see women farming, ruling, weaving, brewing, and writing.

Janega argues that it is through seeing the past truly that we can "imagine new futures," making the necessary changes for "a more equitable world."

Jennifer Morgan’s history of childbearing in the Black Atlantic cracked open an entirely new field, exposing how American society has for centuries relied on Black women’s work as mothers. Her attention to the role of reproduction in the perpetuation of racial slavery in the Americas during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries exposed how European imperialism had, from its inception, relied upon pushing Black women into dual roles as labourers in the fields of new world plantations and also as labouring mothers. Morgan’s analysis of European travel literature highlights how white men’s perceptions of Black women’s bodies was shaped by these dual roles, as for example in the recurring trope that depicted African women as able to suckle infants over their shoulder whilst attending to other sorts of labour. 

For those of us who grew up thinking we were the weaker sex/gender, this is a must-read book. When the deck is not stacked in favour of upper-body strength and short bursts of speed, and when factors such as height and weight are controlled (as the latter is, for example, in wrestling competition), women may actually be the stronger sex. I was particularly intrigued—no, annoyed—to read about sports that became segregated by sex only after women proved their superiority (for example, skeet shooting and rifle shooting).

This science fiction and mystery story is about an astronaut from a world without men crashes on Earth and blows all our minds… except we’re also reading a story about a woman living in our 1970s, and a parallel Earth where WWII never happened… it gets a little confusing, in a really fun way.

Russ uses this engaging, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic multiverse story to explore topics of sex essentialism and gender fluidity in a way that still feels bracing and mind-expanding today.

You could say this is as much a philosophical treatise as a novel but that makes it sound like it isn’t any fun, when in fact it’s a blast. If you’re open to a far-out read you will not be disappointed.

In 1975, Hilary Callan published a paper on diplomats’ wives using the term incorporated wife.

In this edited volume, she and Shirley Ardener applied that concept to a broader set of occupations. I find it brilliant because the term alludes to the idea of marriage as two bodies becoming one while calling out the asymmetry of this corporeality, wives being “drawn into the ‘social person’ of their husbands”, as Callan puts it in the book’s introduction.

The term also connotes the couple as a corporation, which has helped me to think about how diplomatic couples work together. With its collection of articles, the volume acknowledges differences depending on context. At the same time, it shows how one general mechanism – the incorporation of wives – has consequences far beyond the personal.

I was deeply moved by this book because it beautifully integrates Zen Buddhism with a powerful focus on compassion and social justice. I am struck by how Manuel combines teachings on mindfulness with insights into racial and gender justice, making the book a profound guide for both personal growth and activism.

The way Manuel encourages cultivating tenderness towards ourselves and others really resonated with me, offering a deeply spiritual yet practical approach to addressing social inequalities. This book has enriched my understanding of both spiritual practice and social awareness, making it a vital read for anyone committed to a compassionate and informed approach to activism.

The more I learned about the social structures and constructs that perpetuate violence against women, the more I saw how deeply rooted the ideas are in the stories that we tell—the stories that we’ve been telling for centuries. Why aren’t women believed? Where do the misogynistic tropes come from?

This book shows how our culture’s origin stories have been shaped by men, and as Lesser writes, “embedded in the stories are the values and priorities we live by, and what we believe about women and men, power and war, sex and love.” What I love about this book is that it reimagines if women had been the storytellers, and empowers readers to redefine women and power. 

Professor Paglia’s books are a tad academic for most people’s taste, but I find it important to feature her here.

In this book, she stirs up important questions around gender and sex. It seems that we are steadily moving towards a growing acceptance of diversity to the point in which androgyny is even becoming a desirable trait.

Being genderfluid myself, I’ve sometimes asked myself these questions daily. In order to have more spiritual sex, it’s important that we accept and acknowledge our desires, and I’m all for supporting the full expression of feminine and masculine in both women and men.

On top of this, Paglia is a real provocateur, which I like and can relate to. Truly one of the bright minds of our time.