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As an autistic person who often feels isolated from representation in media and art this is such a refreshing read. Non autistic writing, while still entertaining, is just structured differently. And while I've gotten used to it, the opportunity to hear pure unfiltered autistic literature is so special. It feels like I have a more direct connection to the authors than I generally do from non autistic writers. As if the compatibility layer I always use to read books can just be removed. This is of course very difficult to explain effectively but it's just a feeling I get.

All of these stories are very personal and heartfelt and they go into very intense places sometimes, but the tone almost always resolves to positivity. Also, each story has a content warning at the start which is thoughtful.

Some of the stories focus in particular on British life as it is a British book, but that did not really detract from the content in my mind as the stories are diverse. (It not being US-centric is a bit of a nice change of pace anyway)

The stories were short and it was worthwhile to take a long pause after each one to really absorb it and bask in the feelings and thoughts of each author.

All in all I would recommend this book to everyone, autistic folks as well as non autistic folks who want to understand the autistic mind better.

Care is a broad subject, and not easy to pin down to one idea. María Puig de la Bellacasa approaches it from a study of ethics and philosophy. The first section sets out the possibilities for care across different types of human and more-than-human actors, including inorganic technologies. It is dense reading, and not easy to recommend for that reason, but it is also carefully written, with each word chosen for its accuracy and no term used lightly.

The second half of the book presents a possible real-world praxis for the theoretical framework in the first. Puig de la Bellacasa uses her own experiences learning from a permaculture retreat to begin an argument about how care of soil is a critical and central example of a system that requires care. Drawing from science, philosophy, experience and culture, she uses soil to show how complex webs of interconnected actors need to care for one another to maintain healthy soil for present and future generations.

The theoretical framework in this book is one that anyone with an interest in networks and assemblages would find fascinating.