New here, looking for my home on the fediverse. Interests include traditional musics from around the world, opera, Asian drama series and growing my own veg.
Decades of life with chronic illness. Brain often malfunctions. Whatever words I’ve gotten out have likely been a struggle. Please be kind.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • This just happened. It’s far too early to do more than speculate.

    Like we can also connect dots from known things like FBI agents being killed because Trump leaked documents, his connections with Russia directly and thus Iran, to the possibility that information also leaked which compromised agents acting on Israel’s behalf within Gaza. To be clear, this is also speculation.

    But yeah, we can create all sorts of scenarios based on bits of information and our biases and ways of looking at the world. We’ll never know everything which factored in.



  • emma@beehaw.orgtoBooks@lemmy.mlRecommendations for an outsider
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    1 year ago

    Another rec for libraries - brilliant places for exploring. And also one for LIBRARIANS. When you go in to sign up for a library card, ask the librarians for suggestions. You will probably make someone’s day to let them help you get into reading. Librarians are really cool like that :)

    Also look around for a wee display of curated selections. Those will change every month or so and feature recommended books.

    E-books are another possibility and there are many sources of free ones - another low cost way of exploring and experimenting. I read free fluff from the book store app built into my tablet when I’m not up to anything serious, go to Project Gutenberg and Standard E-books for out-of-copyright classics when I am, and sometimes find something on the e-book system I have access to with my library card sign-in. (I rarely buy e-books as I prefer to put my book budget to subscriptions from small presses because they need our support and an unexpected book arriving in the post is a delight.)

    Some of the high school curriculum will always be dry, but some of it is just forced on us when we’re still too young to really understand what’s going on and it’s much more interesting when we have enough experience and maturity to get it. So if you come across something you have bad memories of but it sounds interesting, try it again.

    For a specific rec, I’m going to suggest Death and the Penguin by Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov. 1996, but shouldn’t be hard to find in translation given the recent western interest in Ukraine. This was my review: “Quietly absurdist, yet feels well grounded in the realities of time and place. Pacing, flow and details are excellent; exceptionally well written and translated. Don’t find out more about it, wondering what is going on is part of its appeal, just read it :)”