My Hero Academia Volume 36

My Hero Academia Volume 36, by Kōhei Horikoshi (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Now that I'm caught up, I'm reading these once every few months, so I'll list them separately.

The "final battle" continues. I notice that the anime that I'm watching on Hulu has almost caught up with the books. This past Saturday, Monoma copied powers that allowed him to use Kurogiri warp gate abilities to separate all of the villains into groups where heroes would be waiting. (Deku unfortunately gets snagged and dragged into the wrong portal.)

As shown on the cover, the highlight is the showdown between brothers Dabi and Shoto. Dabi notes that Endeavor didn't come himself and assumes he's too ashamed to be there. This doesn't bother Dabi because he wants to destroy everything Endeavor holds dear before disposing of him.

At the coffin in the sky, Tomura Shigaraki still has the power to create more hands from his body as a natural ability. However, his Decay quirk is being negated by Monoma who is standing by Aizawa so that he can use his ability past the normal time limit. (Aizawa has one eye bandaged -- I don't remember if he lost it entirely -- and his ability isn't what it had been.)

Without Deku, they can't finish off Shigaraki.

Three month wait for the next book.

In Defense of Witches (Chollet)

In Defense of Witches
Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial
by Mona Chollet (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a pandemic book club selection. I listened to it as well as read it.

The club decided that we would try our luck with nonfiction for a month. It didn't go much better.

The Introduction was over 40 pages. That in itself tells you that the book was going to drag. The overall sentiment was that this book should've been an essay. I wouldn't been fine with a Buzzfeed article, or if the 40 page introduction had been the entire book. Not much to add afterward.

The book was short on witches and long on generic feminism, and also the fact that all women are witches, so every woman is still on trial. Not something I buy, but the author made an effort to make the case. Granted, you had to get through a lot of the book before there were more mentioned of Gloria Steinem than there were of Donald Trump or Rush Limbaugh. The author also states that feminists aren't out to kill all the children and then spends dozens of pages supporting the assertion that women would do better for themselves if they don't have children.

Speaking of children, there could've been more about the midwives delivering babies. Now these were women who were accused of being witches if for no other reason than more of their babies lived while those delivered by doctors had a higher mortality rate. The answer was simple: hand-washing. And cleaning in general. Cleanliness is next to godliness after all. Actually, that last statement was NOT made in the book. That was something I read decades ago in an article that mentioned that many of the midwives in question were, in fact, nuns. Mothers wanted the nuns delivering their babies and not doctors.

Even leaving out the religious connection, more about this would've been more about the defense of witches.

An extra chapter about some of the witches killed in Salem or in England, France and the rest of Europe might've been appreciated.

At our meeting, the book didn't get higher than an average rating. Some good ideas but rambled too much. For the record, there were 4 women and 2 men in the webspace.