Welcome to Litsy!

A vital, difficult, confronting look at Western Liberalism, Muslim identity, the genocide in Gaza, and refugee identity, freedom, and gratitude. It is hard to find the words to properly review this, but it is well worth your time. El Akkad does a wonderful job with the narration, and I found listening in small chunks was the best way to digest and engage with this work.

#Bookspin December

1. Beyond Survival
2. Cobalt Red
3. The Underground Girls of Kabul
4. Flesh and Blood so Cheap
5. Waiting to be Arrested
6. Cesar Chavez
7. Trailblazer
8. The Deviants' War
9. Some People Need Killing
10. Four Shots
11. Small Acts of Courage
12. Necessary Trouble
13. Buses are a'Coming
14. Generation Revolution
15. Dorothy Day
16. Call Him Jack
17. Give Us The Ballot
18. Kids These Days
19. Salt Thief
20. American Midnight

I don‘t really know how to talk about this book. It‘s part memoir and part journalism. El Akkad takes the Western world to task for ignoring what is going on in Gaza, using lovely prose and horrific examples. It‘s a short book, but it took me a pretty long time to read because the topic is so difficult. It deserves its National Book Award win.

Today‘s “relaxing” reading.

So quick to read and so difficult to stomach. Another timely look at war on Gaza, this time a graphic novel.

"Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself, all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power. Otherwise, they, like all else, are expendable."

Relevant epigraph. Chilling.
#resist

Home with a UTI - a relief after my work day yesterday. Body/mind connection?!
Starting this morning. #10BeforetheEnd

It was late, my father was done work for the night. Because he was technically part of the tourism industry, and the Egyptian economy has for a very long time depended on tourism to ward off complete collapse, he was afforded special dispensation to be out during curfew hours. The soldiers on the corner did not know this./1

I've explained, politely, to deeply well-meaning people that I don't have a problem shaking hands with women— maybe other Muslims do, I couldn't tell you; we don't all know each other.
I've sat through a wildly uncomfortable book interview once after I joked that I write all my novels in Arabic and then run them through Google Translate and the interviewer believed me.
I've smiled and nodded. I was nice about it.
Which is to say, I was a coward.