A review by ruarilpa
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

medium-paced

4.5

I really enjoyed listening to this as an audiobook as I worked on numerous library shifts. One thing that really struck me, which is so not the point, but she's like this book took 15 years of research. And it really shows, it's so expansive and in-depth and soaring and ambitious and also very specific. It just made me sad because, well, I'm not sure if a book like this can even really exist any more in academia. Like who will be able to take that long to write something, to work on something. The anticapitalist book is anticapitalist in its very approach to productivity! Which is slay! I found it really quite moving. Helpfully it popped up in another book I've been reading about music and value, and yeah the main argument -about supply chains and there being pockets of 'not-capitalism' or 'outside of capitalism' within the broader structure - is very good. Congrats queen.