Such a powerful collection of 13 short stories: almost all with South Asian/Canadian characters reflecting complex issues related to queerness, family and relationships, racism, transformation out of oppressive identities and expectations (hence “Chrysalis”), abuse, and paranormal/Magical realism/spiritual elements. Each one is very different, and a few fall flat for me, but the lyricism and deep explorations of complex issues are captivating.

Somewhere in the city, the family into whose hands I was born mourns the boy I never was, fails to see who I am, who I've always been. The failure is theirs, not mine, and I am strong enough to let them go, to speak of my body with gentle words, to make of myself a woman who is sparkling and strange and whole. There is space for all these things. This too, after all, is love.

Today, I am a fat woman. I don‘t think I‘m ugly, I don‘t hate myself in the way society would have me hate myself, but I do live in the world. I live in this body, in this world, and I hate the way the world all too often responds to this body. Intellectually, I recognize that I am not the problem: this world and its unwillingness to accept and accommodate me are the problem. But, I expect it‘s more likely that I can change before this culture.

#Bookspin October
1. Saving Time
2. Cerulean Sea
3. The covenant of water
4. The Bandit Queens
5. An Immense World
6. Woman on the Edge
7. H is for Hawk
8. Saving Time
9. H is for Hawk
10. Swimming in the Dark
11. Afraid of the Sky
12. The Prophets
13. The Bandit Queens
14. Big Men Fear Me
15. How Much of These Hills
16. Some People Need Killing
17. Greenwood
18. Swimming in the Dark
19 The Covenant of Water
20. It‘s OK that you‘re not OK

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
“The first time lightning struck Bhupati's shrine to Goddess Lakshmi, it set her face on fire.”

Loved this last year so chose it for my book group pick this year: our discussion tonight was interesting and fruitful, although not everybody loved it. It was good to have an artist in the group. Good insights about how dedication to community is part of resisting the attention economy, the value and challenge of attentiveness, and our own relationships with social media, and how they vary with younger age groups.

#Bookspin September
1. Saving Time
2. Cerulean Sea
3. The covenant of water
4. In My Own Moccasins
5. An Immense World
6. Fresh water for flowers
7. H is for Hawk
8. Saving Time
9. H is for Hawk
10. Swimming in the Dark
11. Afraid of the Sky
12. The Prophets
13. The Bandit Queens
14. Big Men Fear Me
15. How Much of These Hills
16. Some People Need Killing
17. Greenwood
18. Swimming in the Dark
19. When We Cease
20. It‘s OK that you‘re not OK

To stand apart means giving yourself the critical break that media cycles and narratives will not, allowing yourself to believe in another world while living in this one. It is a perfect image of this world when justice has been realized with and for everyone and everything that is already here. To stand apart is to look at the world (now) as it could be (the future), with all of the hope and sorrowful contemplation that this entails.

What we need are systems that light up our better selves, the parts of ourselves that want to look out at a world in crisis and join in the work of repair. Where do we find the models for that? Perhaps we should look to the roads not taken.
#SheSaid

#Bookspin for August:
1. Saving Time
2. Cerulean Sea
3. The covenant of water
4. In My Own Moccasins Al
5. An Immense World
6. Fresh water for flowers
7. H is for Hawk
8. Saving Time
9. H is for Hawk
10. Swimming in the Dark
11. Afraid of the Sky
12. Trespasses
13. The Bandit Queens
14. Big Men Fear Me
15. How Much of These Hills
16. Some People Need Killing
17. Greenwood
18. Swimming in the Dark
19. Trespasses
20. It‘s OK that you‘re not OK

Here‘s my list of books I‘ve read, although I included a few bailed on. Thanks to @Bookwomble for making this accessible! Like others, I was not into number one at all and didn‘t even finish it.

My TBR from #NYTBest100: about 12 are available in audio in my library and weren‘t already on my list.

I‘ve been looking forward this and wasn‘t disappointed: six excellent essays by Canadian actor and director Sarah Polley that eloquently address really complex themes. She looks at what it‘s like to be a disempowered young actor, navigating whether to speak or be silent as an assault survivor, dealing with chronic illness and injury, childbirth and parenting, balancing childhood fame with an adult career, and more.
#SheSaid
#Nonfiction2024 #Speak

What no one will ever understand is that the world belongs to orphans. Everything becomes our mother. We are mothered by everything because we know how to look for the mothering. Because we know a mother might leave us, and we‘ll need another mother to step in and take its place. The tree mothering its shade. The restaurant door, slightly open, mothering its smell of cookies to us. A blinking walk sign, holding on to mother us across the street.

#Bookspin
1. Saving Time
2. The covenant of water
3. The covenant of water
4. Thank You Mr Nixon
5. Thank You Mr Nixon
6. In My Own Moccasins
7. An Immense World
8. Fresh water for flowers
9. H is for Hawk
10. Saving Time
11. H is for Hawk
12. Swimming in the Dark
13. Afraid of the Sky
14. Afraid of the Sky
15. The Bandit Queens
16. Big Men Fear Me
17. How Much of These Hills
18. Some People Need Killing
19. Greenwood
20. Swimming in the Dark

I start looking for alternatives. I‘m not the type who‘s generally prone to buying snake oil, and I have a strong suspicion of anything that isn‘t backed up by random sampling trials or credible studies and isn‘t prescribed by a doctor. But my life is gone from me now. Doctors are offering me conflicting advice or not at all. And if someone is selling bottles of snake oil with the words “concussion cure” on them, I will buy in bulk. #SheSaid

#Bookspin Yikes, the same list as last month! May was busy!
1. Trespasses
2. The covenant
3. The covenant
4. Thank You Mr Nixon
5. Thank You Mr Nixon
6. When We Were Sisters
7. An Immense World
8. Fresh water
9. H is for Hawk
10. Saving Time
11. H is for Hawk
12. Swimming
13. Afraid of the Sky
14. Afraid of the Sky
15. The Bandit Queens
16. Big Men Fear Me
17. Don‘t Bite the Hook
18. Some People
19. Greenwood
20. Swimming

Another bail…I really liked Serpell‘s The Old Drift, but this one was just too vague for me. I connected with the narrator initially, and different versions of her painful experience, but not how she continued to process it later.

Intense, lyrical, pithy poetry and prose, illuminating the collective impact of white supremacy on the Black experience: micro aggressions, discrimination against the pride of Serena Williams, stop and frisk police brutality, and more that leads to collective and individual trauma. Worthy of the national poetry award.
#Nonfiction2024 #RollofThunder

“Get on the ground! Get on the ground now!” And you are not the guy, and still you fit the description, because there‘s only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description. I left my client‘s house knowing I‘d be pulled over. “I must‘ve been speeding.” “You didn‘t do anything wrong. Get on the ground now!”
And you are not the guy, and still you fit the description, because there‘s only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description.

Repeats to use up library holds! #Bookspin
1. Trespasses
2. The covenant of water
3. “”
4. Mr Nixon
5. Thank You Mr Nixon
6. When We Were Sisters
7. An Immense World
8. Fresh water for flowers
9. H is for Hawk
10. Saving Time
11. H is for Hawk
12. Swimming in the Dark
13. Afraid of the Sky
14. Afraid of the Sky
15. The Bandit Queens
16. Big Men Fear Me
17. Don‘t Bite the Hook
18. Some People Need Killing
19. Greenwood
20. Swimming in the Dark

#TLT
#ThreeListThursday @dabbe

“Rise Up”by Parachute Club
“99 Red Balloons” by Nena
“Subdivisions” by Rush

Now Manitoba Premier, Kinew shares a rich story of his journey, as well as that of his father who survived residential school, through pain, racism, and substance abuse to healing and leadership. He honestly covers key elements in Canada‘s Indigenous history, insights into spiritual and cultural practices, and his own path towards being a writer and commentator with his father becoming a key national leader.
#Nonfiction2024 AbsolutelyTrue

I could not get into this at all: while the subject matter of the lives of Palestinian women is relevant and meaningful, I found the writing style, as well as the audio narration, felt much more like it was intended for a young adult audience. I drifted away pretty quickly.
#Bookspin

Fascinating insights into the lives of six defector North Koreans (100 were interviewed) with context re the politics, structures, and culture since WW2, with absolute government dominance as the constant theme. A dedicated Communist, street kids, a South Korean POW, a doctor with no resources, and many more watching their loved ones starve and die. Also good insights into the Koreas/Russia/China/US tensions.
#Nonfiction2024 #HandmaidsTale

Congratulations on reaching 500K Litfluence points and thank you for your giveaway generosity, @DebinHawaii!

Five things that bring me joy:
1. Working with others to make the world a better place.
2. Skyping with my adorable niece and nephew
3. Seeing new shoots come up in my baby tomato tray and pollinator garden.
4. Camping and wilderness time
5. Wonderful books that expand my view of the world!

A brilliant Australian novel about Vietnam-born Ky, the bridge between her parents and their new country, who when she is a young adult learns that her gifted brother has been brutally murdered. There is a thread of murder mystery here, with flashbacks to Ky‘s adolescence, but far more about immigration and mistrust of police, culture and race, teen friendships across class borders, and family struggles.
#ReadingOceania2024 #Australia

To anyone else, Eddie‘s reason would‘ve been baffling. But Ky understood. She hated how well she now understood. After all, hadn‘t she kept every hurt she‘d experienced from her own parents? Hadn‘t she hidden the bullying, the name-calling, the times she‘d been told to go back where she came from, the “ching—chongs,” the pulled-back eyelids, the blondies with their Cabbage Patch kids, the way she was asked why she couldn‘t just take a joke? /1

Moving, engaging, informative: two teen girls, best friends in post WWII France, create a scheme where the more gifted one channels literature through the more middle-class one, whose work is more likely to be accepted. They unexpectedly become separated when the “prodigy”writer is sent to England and the rest of the book explores their friendship, with its strong lesbian subtext, issues of culture and class, and youth power and choices. #Bookspin

April ##Booksping
1. Doppelgänger
2. A Woman Is no Man
3. Run Towards the Danger
4. Thank You Mr Nixon
5. When We Were Sisters
6. An Immense World
7. Ghosts of the Tsunami
8. Hunger
9. Fresh Water for Flowers
10. Saving Time
11. Citizen
12. H is for Hawk
13. The Covenant of Water
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
20. Greenwood

Good collection of essays with different takes on how the Black experience of racism intersects with shame, trauma, and vulnerability. I had varying responses to the essays, but found most of them moving and informational, with a wide range of themes. I particularly appreciated Burke and Brown's dialogue at the beginning about why they wanted to work together.

#SheSaid

#Nonfiction2024 #IKnowWhytheCagedBirdSings

“I‘m going to decorate my house in a Western style,” Denny said, during one of their last phone calls. “Do you mean, like, Wild West?””No, like white people.” “Have you ever been in a white person‘s house?”Ky asked, genuinely curious. “I watch Better Homes & Gardens,” Denny said. “Mom watches it too, but I think she does it to feel superior to white people. She reckons they‘re super impractical and waste money on decorative junk they don‘t need.”

For my IRL book club: canceled by a snowstorm! I expected fluffy: it actually tackles serious issues about gender and trans identity, mutually supportive women‘s communities outside mainstream culture, aging, and, of course, magic. Resilient women brought together in childhood have all developed their own specific powers, internal tensions, and affiliations, to find that their property is threatened with destruction and they need to fight back.

“There are things that my body doesn‘t allow me to do, like walking long distances. This means I can‘t really attend physical protests. So, I protest for change by the written word and across my platforms. I also fight by being all that I am without asking for permission.”

Yep. This is me. #SheSaid

#Bookspin

1. Doppelgänger
2. Nothing to Envy
3. Run Towards the Danger
4. Thank You Mr Nixon
5. When We Were Sisters
6. An Immense World
7. Ghosts of the Tsunami
8. Hunger
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

One day, when I am old and gray, with whitish blue rings around my failing eyes…I won‘t only have to reach up for my peace, but I‘ll be able to reach out, to a faith community that values my mental, physical, and emotional safety over just my survival. Love absolutely, will lift us but there are generations of Nanas, mamas, and baby girls looking for something else to help out. The church has so much more than shame to give us. #SheSaid

Not quite what I was expecting, but very intriguing: the French author, relying heavily on French sources, explores the tropes and history of persecution of “witches” that have come down through the centuries, and looks at how they continue to play out today. Some of the themes are aging, being single, being “unattractive,” being independent and powerful. Having a cat comes up too!
#Nonfiction2024 #HarryPotter

The shift that needs to happen is the one that aligns with the Gospel the most: embracing mystery leaves room for our own mysterious emotional responses, and allows love to fill us up in ways that our certain faith never could…This is why the binaries of certainty: “do this and go to heaven, don‘t do this, and go to hell,” are so problematic.
Tracey Michae‘l Lewis-Giggetts
#SheSaid

Captivating: entwining family relationships, youth seeking a better life, traditional beliefs, and crime thriller in British-colonized 1930's Malay. The story alternates between a houseboy whose master has died leaving him with the responsibility of locating his severed finger, and a girl making her way when cut off from schooling who is pulled into a vortex of serial mysterious deaths. Again, insights into a country and time I know little about.

Corinne Maier, 1977: “We live in a society of ants: in which working and nesting shape the alternate prospects of the human condition. If work is the opium of the masses, does that make children our consolation? A society in which life is limited to living and reproducing is one that has no future, for it has no dreams.” For her, procreation represents the deadlock of the heart of the current system that leads directly to ecological catastrophe.

In “Une vie à soi” Erika Flahault distinguishes between “women en manque,” who feel something is missing, but put up with their situation, despite some suffering; “women en marche,” women who are learning to appreciate their situation; and the “apostate du conjugale,” women who have left marriage behind and are deliberately organizing their lives, loves, and friendships outside the framework of the couple.

“ I was 13 when my grandfather‘s leg was amputated.”
#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

In 1233, a bull issued by Pope Gregory IX declared cats to be “the devil‘s servants.” Then, in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII ordered that all cats seen in the company of women be considered their “familiars.” These witches were to be burned along with their animals. The cats‘ extermination contributed to the growth of the rat population, so aggravating subsequent outbreaks of disease, which were blamed on witches.

Another excellent Inspecteur Gamache mystery: set in Three Pines and exploring a painful family tragedy, with background narratives of both a flooding of the St. Lawrence river and internal conflict within the police force.

It took two minutes on Google for me to understand that I‘d been having“panic attacks.” I couldn‘t understand why the doctors looked at my tucked-in shirts, heard my fake accent, and still refused to do anything other than treat me like a n*. That‘s crazy. My problem, I guess, is that I don‘t think being crazy should stop us from being compassionate and actively regretful about structural or interpersonal harm we‘ve caused. #SheSaid

In co-creation, lived experience always trumps academic experience…you can‘t make your research accessible to people if you don‘t prioritize lived experience, relevance, and accessibility.
#SheSaid