Tootfinder

Day 16: Mayra Cuevas & Marie Marquardt
Okay so this is cheating, but they're co-authors of multiple books together, and there's no way for me to separate their contributions... I've already got too many authors I'd like to list, so why not?
I read their book "Does My Body Offend You?" and absolutely loved it; it's a celebration of teen activism while also being a deep exploration of feminist issues through practical situations that bring out the complicated side of things, which the authors refuse to reduce back to a simple formulaic answer. It has a supporting cast of appropriately-complex male characters that help in exploring the nuances of issues like the line between female empowerment & male gratification, and it brings race and macho culture into the conversion as well.
CW for sexual harassment & deep discussion of the resultant trauma.
I'll cheat again here to sneak in mention of two male authors whose work resonates with theirs: Mark Oshiro's "Anger is a Gift" has a more pessimistic/complex take on teen activism along with a gay romance (CW for racist cop murder), while Jeremy Whitley's graphic novel "Navigating With You" deals with queer romance & disability, while having a main character pairing that echoes those from "Does My Body Offend You?" in a lot of ways. Another connection (to non-men authors this time) is with "Go With the Flow" by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann. Their graphic novel about teen activism and periods is a bit more didactic and has a much lighter tone, but it does necessarily have some overlapping themes.
To bring it back to Cuevas & Marquhardt, their writing is great and their ability to discuss such complex topics with such nuance, all wrapped up in a story that feels completely natural, is amazing to me, and makes their book feel like one of the most valuable to recommend to others.
In writing this I've realized a grave oversight in the list so far that I'll have to correct tomorrow, but I'm quickly running out of days. The didn't-quite-make-it list is going to be full of more excellent authors, and I'm honestly starting to wonder whether it might actually be harder to name 20 male authors I respect now that I've found the sense to be mostly somewhere between disgusted and disappointed with so many of the male authors I enjoyed as a teen.
#20AuthorsNoMen (cheating a bit)

Car culture at its absolute worst meets an unjust legal system. Parents lose a son and are then convicted of a felony because they let him walk across the street. Gift link https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/opinion

Opinion | They Let Their Children Cross the Street and Now They’re Felons
They went to jail when their boy was killed. Why don’t road planners bear some guilt?

Car culture at its absolute worst meets an unjust legal system. Parents lose a son and are then convicted of a felony because they let him walk across the street. Gift link https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/opinion

Opinion | They Let Their Children Cross the Street and Now They’re Felons
They went to jail when their boy was killed. Why don’t road planners bear some guilt?

Very good. Gift link, they're should be no paywall.
Fully MAGA-fied Christianity
“Trump and the MAGA movement capitalized on, and then amplified, the problems facing Christian communities, but they did not create them,” @Peter_Wehner argues:
https://w…

Fully MAGA-fied Christianity
Politics, especially culture-war politics, now provides many fundamentalists and evangelicals with a sense of community and a common enemy.

In spite of having read several of Iain Banks' non-Sci Fi oeuvre I had never been remotely tempted by the culture novels, though I have friends who raves about them at Uni. Then I spotted this on a summer reading table at the library, which I suppose shows the value of a good librarian...
#IainMBanks #Culture novel. Actually, surprisingly my first. That's the gift of both train travel and a good book. #bookstodon #booksky #FlyingLess

Long trip back to Copenhagen starts with EV to Lyon a packed but slowly emptying train to Geneva, during which I have been completely captured by an #IainMBanks #Culture novel. Actually, surprisingly my first. That's the gift of both train travel and a good book. #bookstodon #booksky #FlyingLess