We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies | 
pickA brilliant novel that captures the pain of oppression, exile, and refugee life in Canada. Two sisters, with their parents and uncle, are forced out of Tibet into Nepal, in a camp with other Tibetan exiles. One, with her niece, ends up in my neighbourhood in Toronto with its large Tibetan population. I learned so much from this about the Tibetan history, religion, and culture of the community, and was pulled completely into the narrative.
This is a familiar threshold, facing in opposite directions: toward a country I cannot truly enter, and back to a world that cannot be my home. Forward or back. No step makes sense. So I must remain between two realms. This fence under my feet is a tightrope I can never leave. At our camp, at my school in Kathmandu, in the West: all along I was standing here at the edge of becoming, where the needle trembles but cannot move.
February #bookspin:
1. Doppelgänger
2. The Book of Goose
3. Run Towards
4. Thank You Mr Nixon
5. When We Were Sisters
6. An Immense World
7. A Better Man
8. The Art of Gathering
9. A Small Place
10. Saving Time
11. Citizen
12. H is for Hawk
13. The Reason I Jump
14. Fruit of the Drunken Tree
15. We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky
16. The Bandit Queens
17. Big Men Fear Me
18. Don‘t Bite the Hook
19. Some People Need Killing
20. Greenwood
pickFinished wonderful, heartbreaking book today. A story of family, exile, hope, suffering, belonging, search of home. Tears in my eyes in the end. I also realized how little I really know about Tibet and its people, will be learning more. Highly recommend this book.
Having to put Daisy Darker aside to get reading the entire Shortlist of the #GillerPrize for my #ShadowGiller duties. First up is the book I actually own, I bought since it sounds so like a book I‘ll love, I just hadn‘t read it yet! @Lindy
Bought this one yesterday. Kind of think maybe, perhaps it might appeal to the Giller judges? I‘m usually wrong, but the book looks completely up my alley anyway so I bought it. 😚 #ShadowGiller
pickFrom 1960, when Chinese soldiers forced them to flee to Nepal, this immersive novel follows 3 generations of women in a Tibetan family. While studying at university in present day Canada, the youngest of these recognizes a holy artifact, a ku, in a private collection.
I felt deeply moved by this story of stateless Tibetans & their desire to return to their homeland. An excellent audiobook production with 3 narrators. #ShadowGiller2022
This is how you break a heart: with a wire fence that shows everything that cannot be touched.
(Internet photo of border between Nepal and Chinese-occupied Tibet)
He thinks it‘s profane to call a mountain by anything but a deity‘s name.
