"What about the department head? How come he gets to keep the books he banned?" The question tumbled out before he could stop it.
"People who make the rules are allowed to break them."
"It's not fair"
My daughter and I went out for some retail therapy and to commiserate. I got this because it sounded interesting and timely.
pickYou can ban books but you can‘t ban people‘s imagination. That‘s the takeaway for me from this super original novel. It‘s the story of a book censor in a dystopian future who can‘t resist the books he has to read - and ban. Distracted by rabbits with watches the book turns into a kind of Alice in Wonderland like story. The censor and I as a reader had no idea what was real or what wasn‘t. A good book from this Kuwait author.
pickI read the NBA longlists because I know I‘ll read some really great books. And if I‘m lucky, I‘ll come across one that‘s extraordinary. And that‘s this one. This book explores book banning and the fight against it in a way that has lightness and whimsy. I loved this book. One of my best of the year for sure.
NBA longlist, translated literature
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pickFavorites in order
1. The Land of Sad Oranges
2. Letter from Gaza
3. The Falcon
4. A Hand in the Grave
5. Umm Saad
6. If you were a Horse
7. Men in the Sun
pick#SummerSouls Day 15: Kanafani wrote in a matter-of-fact yet also highly intimate manner – like stories that are being whispered around a #Camp #campfire. Most are horror stories that one would not imagine could happen to another human being – yet these stories are snapshots of actual lived experiences of people, who are still pretty much going through what Kanafani had surfaced here. My review 4 yrs ago: https://wp.me/pDlzr-mKo
#SpringSkies Day 4: Perhaps when one is in the presence of absence, one is essentially #Lost. Paired with non-alcoholic strawberry mojito, just the way I like it. 💕💕💕
The ships at first sailed down the Nile carrying guns not bread, and the railways were originally set up to transport troops; the schools were started so as to teach us how to say "Yes" in their language. They imported to us the germ of the greatest European violence, as seen on the Somme and at Verdun, the like of which the world has never previously known, the germ of a deadly disease that struck them more than a thousand years ago.
#LuckyInLove Day 28: This is a #LongDistanceLove of sorts for a poet in exile away from his home country. Paired with fresh guacamole straight from the avocado and mixed in front of you. Absolutely special.
