Welcome to Litsy!

So glad I found this. A story of one man who shoulders his whole nation. Caught between what is right (fighting for democracy) and what is best (preserving his followers). I found another hero. Once again, US supports evil dictatorship and ignores human rights because Indonesia has money and partners. All Belo asks is peaceful talks. This is a strong role model. #TimorLeste #ReadingAsia2021 @Librarybelle @BarbaraBB

I‘m struggling with In Extremis and questioning whether it really fits for Timor-Leste, so I tried to find something else. The only thing that I can find available in any format, is a digital copy of the tagged book. Over my dead body am I paying that much for Kindle, especially one that I know based on genre I will most likely hate. 😩 I don‘t have Scribd - do I want to spend $10 for one month to read this? My library & hoopla don‘t have it.

1991: Norman Lewis was 83 when he started travelling around Indonesia, spending time in Sumatra, East Timor (pre-independence) and Irian Jaya, travelling first with his adult son and daughter and then alone. This is a part of the world I knew nothing about, and the author covers a lot of ground - history, environment, politics, ‘travel‘, and what I guess could be described as an anthropological interest.

I went in with low expectations,but really

Morning Litsy! Where did that week go? I‘m sure it only had 3 (very long) days in it. Here‘s my #BookReport

Finished
Notebook. 💚 The guy talks a load of entertaining rubbish 😸

Continued
A Planet of Clay, almost despite myself. Very engaging and readable but excruciatingly tough.
An Empire of the East has been my main read this week - travels through #Indonesia and pre-independence #EastTimor. Fascinating.

East Timor gained independence from Portugal in 1975, only to be invaded by Indonesia less than a week later. The colonial rulers paid little attention to the education of the Timorese. Anafalbetism was high and when the country finally became independent in 2002 (and chose the Portuguese name #TimorLeste) its language was mainly an oral one. This is one of the first books written about the country. Interesting.

#ReadingAsia2021 🇹🇱

There aren‘t many books set in #timorleste but I found this on Scribd. It was just OK really - a lot of history and politics with only one or two really interesting parts. (I enjoyed the chapter on language).

I do wonder if it was me though, rather than the book,so maybe give it a go if you need this country for #readingasia2021 - don‘t let me put you off.

The subtitle of this book says it all. This is a book about the search for identity. Peppered with interviews of families as well as stats & citations, Solomon looks at what it‘s like for parents to raise a child that is fundamentally different from them, like one with Downs Syndrome. He does talk to a few where the parents have the same condition in chapters on dwarfism and deafness and non-hereditary conditions like being the child of rape. ⬇️

In 1991, #EastTimor voted for independence from Indonesia, the country that essentially took them over in 1975 when Portugal left. Instead of a smooth democratic process, Indonesia murdered civilians and tried to remove voters for independence. Here, Birmingham illustrates how he sees Australia to have stood by and allowed it to happen. I would have liked a little more background, as this is something I knew nothing about, but this is a really👇🏼