Maggie Nelson's On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint is an ambitious book, which addresses freedom in art, sex, drugs and climate change. For me some of these sections work better than others. She writes about art, sex, queerness and the normality of transgression better than most and these are probably the strongest parts of the book. The concluding chapter on climate change is a (mostly) impressive reckoning with the interdependence of anxiety and freedom in the face of potential apocalypse. In between, the chapter on drugs was less successful in my opinion. If writing about drugs is often boring, writing about writing about drugs is an even greater challenge. Her range of reference is impressive and there are phrases and observations that stop you in your tracks, e.g. "Whenever someone starts talking about “absolute freedom,” you know you’re in the presence of a straw man". Lots here to enjoy and learn from.

On Freedom by Maggie Nelson is a collection of linked cultural criticism essays about the nature of freedom both as individuals and as a collective society.

I had a few download issues with the book and by the time it was sorted, the file had unfortunately been achieved. Happy to re-review if it becomes available again.

In Freedom Nelson explores the concept of freedom through, art, sex, drugs and the climate crisis an extraordinary and at times controversial piece of work. Raising important questions about the world and our freedoms that we should probably be asking ourselves to analyze more.

A thought-provoking, timely, and incredibly written piece of non-fiction. Fans of Maggie Nelson won't be disappointed.

On Freedom is a collection of linked, highly anticipated essays about the nature, complexities and paradoxes of freedom and a heady, iconoclastic work of cultural criticism that examines the concept of freedom through the lenses of art, climate, drugs and sex. Compared to Nelson’s previous books, this certainly feels significantly more academic than just casual reading. Rather than focus on moments of liberation, the book explores how we balance our need to care for and protect others with our need for individual space to move, think, organise, express and imagine. Maggie Nelson is one of the most esteemed writers of our day, and her extraordinary mind is in full bloom in this new work. It is a panoptic survey of a huge range of art and ideas. Nelson is one of the most exciting and original thinkers at work today, and this is one of those books that only comes along once a decade or so and that engages with the most complex, urgent and fascinating issues of our time, from the personal to the civic.

It is also a hugely important thinking book that will open up new ways of understanding the world, will be read for many years to come and will no doubt make a profound impact on the world of ideas and the world of letters. Drawing on a vast range of material, from critical theory to pop culture to the intimacies and plain exchanges of daily life, Nelson's On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint explores how we might think, experience or talk about freedom in ways responsive to the conditions of our day. She examines her abiding interest in the ‘practices of freedom’ by which we negotiate our interrelation with – and our inseparability from – others, with all the care and constraint that relationship entails while accepting difference and conflict as integral to our communion. For Nelson, thinking publicly through the knots in our culture – from the turbulent legacies of sexual liberation to the lure of despair in the face of the climate crisis – is itself a practice of freedom.

It is a means of forging fortitude, courage and company in which she explores ideas of queerness, care and freedom yet so much more. It is an expansive, exhilarating work and a boundary-pushing, provocative read which is fascinating and thought-provoking in equal measure. She explains throughout that the contemporary discourses she has chosen are for good reason. Art is a natural fit: she’s taught art and writes about art. She calls art, along with sexual freedom, her “most native ground.” Her section on drugs and addiction is “more niche, esoteric, but as a sober person I’m interested in substance abuse—the idea of being enslaved, enthralled.” And climate “is what’s on everyone’s mind.” This book is a contribution to the cultural conversation in which Nelson takes the loftiest ideas and tethers them to the ground; she makes important things legible and there’s a warmth to her writing. Also, she doesn’t come to answers but poses questions. The book is full of thinking and feeling and nuanced analysis written in fluid prose. Highly recommended.

My second book by Maggie Nelson and certainly not my last! Her words hold so much beauty and, well, freedom. Not an easy read, but worth every minute.