Welcome to Litsy!

At the time Gbowee wrote this autobiography, she apparently didn‘t know she was being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and won it in 2011. I didn‘t know it until I finished the book and googled her to see what she has done since. Talk about a woman who pulled herself up by the bootstraps—she is it. She grew up in a fairly stable #Liberia until she turned 17, when the first of its civil wars began. She married young to a fierce abuser ⬇️

Speaking about refugees from war-torn Sierra Leone:

“Even if you‘re poor and struggling, you don‘t kick out someone who comes to your house in need.”

#Liberia #readingafrica2022 @Librarybelle @BarbaraBB

#wondrouswednesday

1) Nowhere Bookstore—it‘s become my go-to store for the most part since it‘s in my neighborhood
2) “Monsen Mega Book and Craft Store”
3) Tagged

I started this last night getting ready to roll back into non-#scarathlon challenges. It‘s for #Liberia #readingsfrica2022 @Librarybelle @BarbaraBB But I‘m also counting it for appropriate challenges for #teamslaughter @Clwojick @StayCurious and #20in4 @Andrew65

Finished this one today on audio while I was making some orange olive oil cakes. It is an amazing, heart-wrenching yet ultimately hopeful story, but at times the writing was very distancing and unemotional. In fairness that could have been more to do with the narrator, but it made the story less impactful in the end.

Today is #HumanRightsDay so here are some of the bools I've read on people fighting for human rights. Most of them include ways that anyond can help in the fight.

#TBT Throwback Thursday! What was I reading last year at this time? Mighty Be Our Powers! A great Memoir by Leymah Gbowee about women's organizing and protesting movements to end the war in Liberia, as well as her personal story and what led her to the movement, and what the war and movement cost her in her life. Moving story.

Of the 896 total Nobel awards, only 48 have been awarded to women. This year there was not one. Now, I'm not going to go on a tirade about all the problems this represents, I don't have the room. Instead, I will rejoice in that 48 makes it possible to read a book by or about each of these women by the next time the Nobels awarded. Well, some don't even have a book, but those who do.

Anybody else wanna do a Nobel women challenge for next year?

Human interest vs the "real news"

My library keeps annoying me with their classifications. Mighty Be Our Powers is the story of an African woman but it has an African-American sticker just because the author is black. Everfair is written by an African-American woman but no sticker because it is SF so isn't shelved with the real fiction.

My belated #WWW #Recommendsday pick!I first saw Leymah Gbowee interviewed on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart & eventually read her book. It is the story about her personal struggle and her efforts in organizing a woman's action group protesting for peace during Liberia's long civil war. Definitely eye opening and worth the read. I still hear about their 'sex strike' mentioned by pundits & commentators and smile to myself having read the book.😉