Saw this on NPR‘s books of the year, fell in love with the cuteness, (love garlic), had to have it. This book is so stinkin cute. A town of fruits and vegetables lives and works together and sends Garlic to investigate the new vampire neighbor in the castle nearby. This story is about being brave, being yourself, & that some new strangers aren‘t as scary as you might think. I think there‘s a message too, that being vegetarian is a good thing.

A phenomenal book. It not only has driven me to be better, but has validated my own experiences in Mediumship.
Evidential Mediumship is going further, creating a deeply personal meaning to the person you are trying to help, with the person(s) they wish to hear from. It means confirming without a doubt, that you are the bridge between them, giving the message; that those person(s) are still there with them. It‘s an amazing feeling. 🥀🦋🕯🌈

It started slow but picked up. A description inside says it‘s Blair Witch meets Midsommar—but I wouldn‘t go that far. What this book is about, is how mental illness can end in tragedy, when it is untreated and seen as a bad, shameful, even evil—thing—especially in womxn🥀If you are suffering, please know that is okay to not be okay, it is okay to get help and there is no shame in it. There is always someone who will listen without judgement.

We watched Katla and loved it. I‘ve read many very interesting articles about it, and now looking into the old Icelandic folklore. Does anyone know of any children‘s books (or other) about the old story of the farm maid Katla? This is an etiological (geomythical) story, giving an origin to the name of the volcano, Katla—and its eruptions.

More here: https://youngadventuress.com/2013/10/legend-katla-volcano-iceland.html

There is soooo much that I wasn‘t taught in history classes, textbooks. So much. There‘s been a massive cover up, and it‘s all exposed now. Shameful, that any of it ever happened. But what‘s more shameful, is now the powerful leaders don‘t want us to know or talk about it. Highly recommend this one! More on banned books: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/30/1041610286/during-banned-books-week-readers-explo...

Turned out, freedom in America was like quicksand. It looked solid until a Black person tried to stand on it. Then it became clear it was a sinkhole.

I had high hopes for this book. I think the story itself is good, but I just didn‘t like how it was written.

How fitting that Rose, who ignored her mother‘s feminism, ended up at such a terrible, misogynist place, where that same feminism was needed.

With all the stuff going on about banning, burning books, and mr (rotten)house…

Books are seen as a threat, because they encourage you to think. Critical thinking will take you far.

Usually, there‘s an obstacle in the way, first though, that says you‘re trespassing into dangerous territory.

Heard about this book today on NPR, and really enjoyed the conversation they were having as they walked among the trees in NY to listen.

Shown: a hollowed tree in Bonneau Ferry, SC

As an atheist and someone who really doesn‘t like religion, I thought this would be a cute, fun read—I was right. Another bookworm with the same feelings recommended this book to me. It‘s hard to fit in to a world where everything about you is seen as wrong. I felt for Michael, and I would‘ve done the same things he did, except probably worse🤣

I couldn‘t miss the Helen Library! (Helen, GA)

The Glass Arrow is very similar to this book! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15750874

If you don‘t want a future like The Grace Year/The Glass Arrow/The Handmaid‘s Tale/Vox/Red Clocks/Future Home of the Living God…FIGHT BACK. Think about what you need to do to stay free.
Shown: Womxn‘s March October 2, 2021, Charleston, SC

This book was like a mix of The Handmaid‘s Tale, The Hunger Games, and The Glass Arrow. A dark, dystopian future where womxn have no value…they are literally referred to as ‘Mare‘ and ‘it‘. The old belief that the best, quickest way to keep womxn under control is to marry them and get them pregnant is very much a theme. The Yellow Wallpaper comes to mind. If you want to control a womxn, break her. Sexual power is a theme here as well.

The book pyramid my husband got me for my birthday back in the summer is working very nicely in the car!

Book nerd stuff. 📖📚🔍

I just wanted to know your thoughts, if you‘ve read this. It has a low rating here. I‘m not sure it has my interest enough to check out from the library, and it‘s long. Maybe too long (too slow)—and I don‘t like having to bail on a book. Was it worth your while?

When I read this back in the summer and discovered Dr. Blue was laid to rest in SC, I knew I had to go and pay respects. So we made a little road trip today. Thank you, Dr. Blue for the work that you did. We might not be here, if you hadn‘t.
More on Dr. Blue: https://www.historynet.com/americas-heroic-microbe-hunter.htm

I used to pick up this magazine from BAM! back in those days when I used to go to the mall. I grabbed this on my way out of the library today; I couldn‘t resist the gorgeous macabre cover.

Picked these up from the library today. Jumping in tonight! Up first: The Grace Year. One of my bookworm besties recommended; said it‘s similar to Handmaid‘s Tale.

If you like plants, (especially poisonous), Greek mythology, the occult, witchcraft—this book is for you. I loved it and I couldn‘t put it down! As Briseis is called in the book by another character, you can think of her as the Black Poison Ivy—and she‘s amazing. This book reminded me of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, but this book was so much better. If only I had this power! I also loved all the queer characters! 🌱🌑🍄🐺 🇬🇷

This is a great book about the misogyny surrounding bodies with a uterus. Ridiculous, dangerous ideas were believed and taught throughout the centuries. In 2021, some of these ideas are still held on to. Look at the legislators trying to govern our bodies! You could look at this book as a history of mansplaining through the centuries. What we face today is nothing new. Keep fighting back! Shown: Womxn‘s March, Oct 2, 2021, Charleston, SC

This book ended quickly, but it was very scary. It is alarming when you read it and look at what is happening to womxn in the US (and everywhere). Imagine a world where you are silenced, in every way possible. Where misogyny is taught and embraced in schools. Where you are property. That‘s VOX. That‘s the wet dream of the alt right. So? Think about what you need to do to stay free.

Shown: Womxn‘s March Oct 2, 2021, Charleston, SC

I knew I wanted to read this as soon as I saw the cover. I‘m a medium, too—and though my experiences are not like Jake‘s, I can still relate. There‘s definitely some scary stuff in this book, and not just the paranormal kind. There‘s encouragement too, though. Be who you are, even if it scares other peoplx. Because not doing that is a tragedy in itself. Have to say too, that I loved the queer characters! It‘s gay, it‘s spooky…I‘m in!!!

Abby Johnson has serious internalized misogyny and it shows. This book is full of so many obvious lies, anyone would know it. 82 pages of pure propaganda. It was ‘gifted‘ to my local clinic by an anti-choicer. And this is coming from a woman who doesn‘t believe womxn should have the right to vote…fuck you Abby. Read the book on the bottom, it‘s so much better, and it‘s the truth. Trash book is going right next to one of my favorites: SYA!

I loved this bio. Michelle was never one to be in the spotlight—but here, we get to know her, her experiences, her thoughts, how she felt. She was a remarkable FLOTUS, and a woman I have so much respect for her. I‘ll never forget her words: “When they go low, we go high.” The Obamas continue to be an inspiration for so many.

Has anyone here read the book? I found out the show was based on it and I‘ve finished watching. Is the book better? Should I read it?

Keith Raniere was a gross misogynist who preyed on womxn financially, mentally, spiritually and sexually—and he used other womxn to help him do it. Disgusting. I can‘t understand how peoplx don‘t see all the red flags. NXIVM was just another cult. Remember this: cults are heavily centered around sexual abuse. Watch survivors tell their stories: https:/watch.amazon.com/detailasin=B07Q58882Z&territory=US&ref_=share_ios_season&r=web

David Koresh saw the author was vulnerable; he saw a way in and he took it. The author seems to adore David but doesn‘t really seem very concerned about the sexual abuse that went on, or David‘s episodes of mania. Sadly, I think that the ATF probably went in more for the weapons than the abuse that was going on. It needed to stop, but the way they went about it was wrong. The Davidians at Waco were just another cult.

This book is so shattering, and will tear your heart strings as far as they will go. What happens in the book, is happening in real time, right now. I found myself enthralled by the deeply broken character of Franny, who wants nothing more than to die along with the world around her. This devastation in this book just keeps coming. I couldn‘t put it down.

…maybe the world is still breathing. My broken heart swells with it, flies away with it, seeks shelter within the night, and then it is gone in a flash of light, a sounding of noise and I see myself instead, myself naked and loathsome and for a split second I want nothing but to destroy myself and so that‘s what I do——-

“I‘ve missed you.” And I am done with the universe between us. It is so perilous, this love, but he‘s right, I will have no cowardice in my life, not anymore, and I will be no small thing, and I will have no small life, and so I find his mouth with mine and we are awake at last, returned to a land long abandoned, the land of each other‘s bodies.

Goodwill finds today. The Girl in Red still had the original receipt inside… It has traveled all the way from a Barnes and Noble in Seattle!
Thoughts: I find Malala to be so beautiful. She is a light in dark places.

They are being violently and indiscriminately slaughtered by our indifference. It has been decided by our leaders that economic growth is more important. That the extinction crisis is an acceptable trade for their greed.

(Look at the latest report from the UN, just released 2 weeks ago, July 2021. It‘s not good).

I feel her deep sense of home. I can feel it in the earth, too. It‘s in the sky and the roaring ocean and the keening of the wind, it‘s in the way she strides over her land and into her lighthouse; she owns this place and it owns her, tangible and unarguable. What must it be like to be bound so deeply and willingly to a place?

A life‘s impact can be measured by what it gives and what it leaves behind, but it can also be measured by what it steals from the world.

When I was six years old my mother used to sit with me in our garden to watch the crows perch in the willow tree. In winter months the long hanging leaves turned white like the snow and the crows hiding among them were stark spots of coal. To me they were the presence of something profound. Something like loneliness, or its opposite. They were time, and the world; they were the distances they could fly and the places to which I could never follow.

I plunge into the fjord. Out flies my soul, sucked through my pores. The cold is familiar and savage. For a moment it grips me and forces me into a cell, the painted stone cell I know like a lover, for I spent four years inside it, and because the cold sends me back I spend too many precious seconds wanting to be dead, just for it all to be over, right now, I can‘t wait any longer, there is no part of me that isn‘t finished—-

There is pleasure in the pathless woods. There is rapture on the lonely shore. There is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar. (Lord Byron)

In this massive bio, Barack tells of his political career leading up to his historic win as the first Black American President, what his presidency was like. In early pages, he says he‘s been told he talks too much. (Is that why the book‘s so big)? I‘ve always loved him. My parents told me not to vote for him, at all costs—because he was the anti-christ. 🙄 Sad that Trump was his successor, but Barack will always remain in our hearts! #44🇺🇸🖤

I went to the library looking for two specific books and walked out with all of these. Oops!
I went back to my library today for more words. I especially love story telling about cult survival. Really looking forward to Obama‘s bio.

I‘ve wanted to read this for years, and now I finally have. It was very good, also heart breaking. I agree that everyone has the right to have their own religion. But when it becomes harmful to others, there is a problem. If the religion must be kept, reform it so no one is harmed. Mentally, physically, all of it. As an atheist, I criticize all religions and encourage critical thinking, questioning. Ayaan is brave. Womxn thank you, Ayaan!

I am told that Submission is too aggressive a film. Its criticism of Islam is apparently too painful for Muslims to bear. Tell me, how much more painful is it to be these women, trapped in that cage?

Shown: Theo Van Gogh, who helped Ayaan with the 10min film, ‘Submission, Part 1‘—part 2 was never shot because Theo was murdered. Watch the film here: https://youtu.be/6rS8FJyX3gs

In Saudi Arabia, every breath, every step we took, was infused with concepts of purity or sinning, and with fear. Wishful thinking about the peaceful tolerance of Islam cannot interpret away this reality: hands are still cut off, women still stoned and enslaved, just as the Prophet Muhammad decided centuries ago.

Shown: The religious police of Saudi Arabia: Hay‘a

It is always difficult to make the transition to a modern world. It was difficult for my grandmother, all my relatives. It was difficult for me, too. I moved from the world of faith to the world of reason—from the world of excision, forced marriage to the world of sexual emancipation. Having made that journey, I know one of those worlds is simply better than the other. Not because of its flashy gadgets, but fundamentally, because of its values.

The kind of thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia, and among the Muslim Brotherhood in Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves a feudal mindset based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hypocrisy, and double standards.

Societies that respect the rights of women and their freedom are wealthy and peaceful.

💯💯💯💯

Just looking at it, just wanting to read it—I that already meant I doubted, and I knew that. Before I read four pages I already knew my answer. I had left God behind years ago. I was an atheist. I looked in the mirror and said out loud “I don‘t believe in God.” And I felt relief. It felt right. There was no pain, but a real clarity. My moral compass was within myself, not in the pages of a book.

I know the feeling!!! It‘s like…wings 🖤🌈

I found myself thinking that the Quran is not a holy document. It is a historical record, written by humans. It is one version of events, as perceived by the men who wrote it 150 years after the Prophet Mohammed died. And it is a very tribal and Arab version of events. It spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war.

We Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose. We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mindset of the Arab desert in the seventh century. We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves.

(It‘s time for an update!!!!)

I spoke sharply. I said Divine Law wouldn‘t be fair to everyone who wasn‘t Muslim. Even within Islam, not everyone thought the same way. Who would make the law? I told my father, “The rule of clerics is totalitarian. It means people can‘t choose. Humanity is varied, and we should celebrate that instead of suppressing it.”

The next morning, I decided to stage an experiment. I would walk out of the door without a headscarf. I was in my long green skirt, long tunic, and I had my scarf in a bag with me in case of trouble, but I would not cover my hair. I planned to see what would happen. I was sweating. This was really haram. Absolutely nothing happened. The gardeners kept trimming the hedges. Nobody went into a fit. Not one man went into a frenzy.