According to commentator and lawyer Elie Mystal, Republicans are wrong when they tell you the First Amendment allows religious fundamentalists to discriminate against gay people who like cake. They’re wrong when they tell you the Second Amendment protects the right to own a private arsenal. They’re wrong when they say the death penalty isn’t cruel or unusual punishment, and they’re wrong when…
Graphic Novel Review: They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker
A graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon — and America itself.Long before George Takei braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father’s — and their entire family forced…
Book Review: AI 2041 - Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan
Book Review: AI 2041 – Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan
In a groundbreaking blend of science and imagination, the former president of Google China and a leading writer of speculative fiction join forces to answer an urgent question: How will artificial intelligence change our world over the next twenty years?AI will be the defining issue of the twenty-first century, but many people know little about it apart from visions of dystopian robots or flying…
Audiobook Review: Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor
Audiobook Review: Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor
Inglorious Empire tells the real story of the British in India — from the arrival of the East India Company to the end of the Raj — and reveals how Britain’s rise was built upon its plunder of India.In the eighteenth century, India’s share of the world economy was as large as Europe’s. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the…
Audiobook Review: The Patient Assassin by Anita Anand
Audiobook Review: The Patient Assassin by Anita Anand
When Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, ordered Brigadier General Reginald Dyer to Amritsar, he wanted Dyer to bring the troublesome city to heel. Sir Michael had become increasingly alarmed at the effect Gandhi was having on his province, as well as recent demonstrations, strikes, and shows of Hindu-Muslim unity. All these things, to Sir Michael, were a precursor to a second…
Review: I want to die, but I want to eat tteokbokki by Baek Se-Hee.
Baek Se-Hee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her - what to call it? - depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgemental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends; adept at performing the calmness, even ease, her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can’t be normal.
But if she’s so hopeless, why can she always summon a yen for her favourite street food, the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?
Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a 12-week period, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions and harmful behaviours that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness.
I just finished, ’ I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki’ and what a book.
There are moments in this book where I am just like ‘you can get out of my head’ because it really does hit close to home in moments and taught me alot about myself, but also about others and how they work, I know that a book can’t make you read people, but it did teach me alot about empathy and how to be real, but also how to be more in your own moment something that can be tough to keep a hold of and I feel this author really explores that idea in this book.
And I do get why RM would read this too, it’s very much about loving yourself (a big part of BTS’ message) and treating yourself with kindness. It reminds me of the lyrics, 'you give me the best of me, so you give you the best of you’ from Magic Shop by BTS, as this book explores how to make yourself a better you but also reminding you that how to get better is with you all along, with all the right guidance and the right person helping you along the way. I do feel the psychiatrist allows the book balance and brings in an edge of humour with the sheer sometimes common sense of it all.
the honesty it takes to write a book like this and be open about their thoughts, emotions and feelings is really incredible and I think that this is a book that will help others comes to terms with their own as well. How she talks about the relationships she has with people around them and how their brain reacts to those people is fascinating, but also incredibly illuminating and human and that humanity shines so much in this book.
Written in such a way that is accessible for anyone to take in. I really like how this book is structured and how it explores different topics. In the appendix there also the perspective of the psychiatrist she talks to which is really enlightening, and gives a rounded experience to the book. There are moments of heartbreak (the short essay on her dogs in the appendix broke my heart), there are moments of light, but mostly moments of learning and I think that’s what makes this now of my new favourite books.
thank you to Bloomsbury Books for the ARC via Netgalley! I can’t wait for more people to read this.
I can’t believe we’re here once again talking about my favourite books of the month, but yet here we are!
I have three five star books I read this month that I want to talk about with you all, and I hope in them is something you might enjoy - let me know what you’re reading and if you have any other recommendations! (particularly portal fantasy, I love that stuff!)
Amari And The Night Brothers by BB Alston - What frustrates me the most about this book is that I hhad just written a post for this blog about favourite middle grades, then I read this, this would and should be on that list. An incredible plot that moves like a jet and characters that just root for from the beginning, I loved Amari and I can’t wait to read more of her story. Kids these days get all the literary luck. (Middle grade, fantasy, contemporary).
In An Absent Dream by Seanan Mcguire - I adore The Wayward Children series so much and this book continues in this fantastic series footsteps as being perfect. Every character, every idea, every page is just another treat to read in my opinion. The characters jump from the page and portal yourself straight into a new incredible and unique world. I love this series and will definitely be trying to get to the next book as soon as I can, I just love this series. (Adult, fantasy, historical fiction).
I Want To Die, But I Want To Eat Teokbokki by Baek Se-Hee - I am not going to go on and talk about this book much as I have a review coming up soon about it, but genuinely one of my new favourite books of all time. Insightful, compassionate and brilliany, this book is a rare insight into the world of anxiety and how to deal with it and how a psychiatrist reacts to that. I really loved this book and I totally get why RM would be a fan.
What have you been reading this month? Let me know!
Thank you for following this blog, I really appreciate your thoughts and interest!
I’ll try to be brief, since this is not a politics blog. I’ve seen a lot of sentiments expressed lately about not wanting to think, not wanting to be a person, letting it all go. I saw them not on Tumblr, but Twitter and well outside of kink.
I get it. I do. It’s the same impulse, the same desire for oblivion that drives a lot of my work in an erotic way. Hypno and objetification and bimbofication are at their core Thanatos impulses in an Eros gown. Nothing wrong with that. We all have both drives and they mix and mingle. Orgasm is the Little Death for a reason.
But to see it becoming a prevalent sentiment is worrying. So I’ll say this: by all means, take breaks. Edge. Have fun. Play around. You being burnt out serves no one other than those who benefit from the world remaining as is. It’s healthy to unplug.
Then, keep fighting. Yes it can be exhausting. Yes it might seem pointless at times. Yes it’s tempting to stop caring. But when we lose hope, we lose everything.
Take this place as a little bubble for fantasy fun. But don’t let the allure of doom consume you. We need you. We need your voice. We need you in a million ways you don’t even notice.
We deserve a better world. You deserve a better world. And no one will make it better just because. No one can save us but us. And we can save us, as long as we still have hope, vain or otherwise. I, for one, would much rather fight for a vain hope than lie down and rot.
“However you identify, be it lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, asexual, curious, or carrot, we all have something in common—we are a minority, and we have made brave steps to identify as such; we have refused to hide and made a declaration of who we are.”
So I’m currently half way through Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth and I can’t put it down. It’s possibly one of the saddest books I’ve ever read but it’s so eye opening. I originally brought it from a charity shop for diss reading but have ended up reading it as if it’s for recreational purposes, would highly recommend if you can take some sadness!
When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming a grown up, journalist and former Sunday Times dating columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, Everything I Know About Love, she vividly recounts falling in love, wrestling with self-sabotage, finding a job, throwing a socially disastrous Rod-Stewart themed house party, getting drunk, getting dumped, realising that Ivan from the corner shop is the only man you’ve ever been able to rely on, and finding that that your mates are always there at the end of every messy night out. It’s a book about bad dates, good friends and – above all else – about recognising that you, and you alone, are enough. ★★★
Wondering what to read over the Jewish High Holidays starting next week? Check out this year’s 10 Awesome Books for the 10 Days of Awe recommended by the Jewish Book Council!
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