Hutchins Library News Blog

Welcome again to another edition of “From Our Shelves,” where I read  a book from our collections and provide a short review. Today's selection is  Logged in and stressed out: how social media is affecting your mental health and what you can do about it (link to library catalog record). 

This book not only shows that social media can affect your mental health. It also gives you the tools and advice to do something helpful and constructive about it. If you are feeling stressed or distressed in some way about your engagement with social media, this may be a book for you.Naturally, if things are really bad, you should seek a trained professional. Still, the book does provide some practices and tools to help folks minimize their stress over their online activity. 

Overall, this can be a good book for college students in courses like wellness, health, psychology, and some general studies classes. 

Welcome to another edition of “From our shelves” where I read a book from our collection and write a short review about it. This week I am reviewing Antifa: the antifascist handbook by Mark Bray.

The term “fascism” seems to be in the news constantly. We also often hear the terms “anti-fascist” or “antifa.” If you want to learn more about what antifa is and its history, this book is a pretty good primer that goes over the history of anti-fascism, Antifa, to today. The history starts around the 1920s with the rise of Hitler and Mussolini then the author takes us through to the 20th century and into the 21st century. 

The book has six chapters including history of the movement, interviews with anti-fascists from around the world, though the focus is a bit Eurocentric, tactics and philosophy of the movement. The book offers an accessible text, and unlike other texts on the topic this one does not get bogged down in theory and jargon. It also includes a list of resources for further reading. 

You can find the print edition of the book Antifa: the anti-fascist handbook in the library's General Collection Stacks (second floor) under call number: 320.533 B827a 2017 (link to catalog record).