#Reza Aslan

[ktempestbradford]

Prophets don't create religions. Prophets reform their own religions.

Jesus did not create Christianity, he was a Jew reforming Judaism. The Buddha was not a Buddhist, the Buddha was a Hindu reforming Hinduism. The prophet Mohammed (PBUH) did not create Islam. Over and over again in the Quran he's constantly saying: this is not a new message, this is not a new religion, this is the exact same message that was given to every prophet that came before. Their god and your god are the same. It's the prophet's followers, regardless of what religion you're talking about, who are then tasked with creating some kind of institutionalized Thing out of the prophet's words and deeds. All religions were created by followers of the prophet, not by the prophet themself.

—Reza Aslan

I was listening to this interview with Aslan and very struck by this idea. From what I know, I agree with the statement about Jesus, but don't know enough to know if he's right about the Buddha and Mohammed (PBUH).

Very interested on thoughts about this from people in the know.

[jonathan-parra-acero]

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A ✝ C H I N G

A Documentary about White Christian Nationalism. And about how it's revived itself and been newly empowered through Trump's rhetoric and other politicians perverting Christianity.

Wrongly professing that this is a Christian nation founded on Christian principals. So they can remove other people's right to freedom of religion, to take away everyone's rights across the board.

FIRST AMENDMENT ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE:

"Congress cannot make laws that establish a religion or prohibit the free exercise of religion."

__________________________________________

The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Trump idolatry. He's a golden calf at Sinai. A cult image.

[stuffilikeontheinternet]

the daily show - reza aslan

"why hasn't god just settled this?"

[rivage-seulm]

Imperialism, Israel, Hamas, and “Life of Brian”

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, our family watched together one of our favorite films, “Life of Brian.” It’s the comic story of Brian Cohen, a Jewish man born on the same night as Jesus of Nazareth in an adjoining stable. Like the historical Jesus (described for instance in books like Reza Aslan’s Zealot), Brian becomes part of a political resistance movement intent on expelling Roman occupiers…

[rosie-dear-rosie]

Yellowjackets has infected my mind so hard, I’m reading a book right now on the image of god and the origins of religion and all I can think about is how it applies the the origins of the cult in yj.

I am unhealthily obsessed.

[postalpundit]

The lesson to be learned from the epic life and tragic death of Howard Baskerville is that the markers of identity we rely on to separate ourselves into different tribes serve only to mask the humanity we all hold in common.

[nakibistan]

List of notable Muslim allies of queer, trans or LGBTQI+ folks

Imam al-Nawawi – ally of Mukhannathun or trans femmes, female transsexuals and effeminate queers

Saint Khawaja Gharib Nawaz – ally and patron of Hijra and Khawaja Sara communities

Saint Baba Bulleh Shah – ally and patron of Muslim Khawaja Sira communities

Saint Lal Shabaz Qalander – patron of Khawaja Sira & trans Muslim communities

Abu Muhammad Ali Ibn Hazm – ally of queer Muslims

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - ally of transgender & intersex folks

Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi - ally of trans & intersex folks

Amina Wadud - ally of LGBTQI+ Muslims, founder of Queer Islamic Studies and Theology (QIST)

Gulbanu Khaki/Gul Khaki - ally of LGBTQ+ muslims, mother of a gay imam

Khaled Hosseini - ally of transgender & proud muslim dad of a transgender child

Siddika Jessa - LGBTQI+ activist, mother of a gay muslim son

Ani Zonneveld

Pamela Taylor

Laura Silver

Omid Safi

Kecia Ali

Ghazala Anwar

Ensaf Haider

Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur

Farid Esack

Zaitun Mohamed Kasim/Toni Mohamed Kasim

Anne-Sophie Monsinay

Imam Kahina Bahloul

Imam Philip Tuley

Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle

Farouk Peru

Abdennur Prado

Ingrid Mattson

Hasan Minhaj

Reza Aslan

Alia Bano

Zaid Ibrahim

Azahn Munas

Ayman Fadel

Inayat Bunglawala

Shahla Khan Salter

Nakia Jackson

Jeewan Chanicka

Taj Hargey

Michael Muhammad Knight

Maajid Nawaz

Shehnilla Mohamed

Mustafa Akyol

Writer Sabina Khan

Activist Jerin Arifa

Urvah Khan - LGBTQI+ ally, co-founder of Muslim Pride Toronto

Imam Khaleel Mohammed

Imam Tareq Oubrou

Imam Dr Rashied Omar

Shaykha Fariha Fatima al-Jerrahi

Shaykha Amina Teslima al-Jerrahi

Scholar Hussein Abdullatif

Maysoun Douas

Fátima Taleb

Aydan Özoğuz

Omid Nouripour

Özcan Mutlu

Ekin Deligöz

Cem Özdemir

Artist Nadia Khan

Marina Mahathir

Siti Musdah Mulia

Karima Bennoune

Grand Mufti Sheikh Assadullah Mwale

Muneeb Qadir

Dr. Amir Hussein

Dr. Sana Yasir

Dr. Sali Berisha

Dr. Omer Adil

Hashim Thaçi

Albin Kurti

Supermodel Nadia Hussain

Irish-Bangladeshi singer Joy Elizabeth Akther Crookes

Salma Hayek

Fouad Yammine

Pakistani Director Asim Abbasi

Pakistani Actress Nadia Jamil

Indian Actor Saqib Saleem

Indian Actor Irrfan Khan

Indian Actor Aamir Khan

Indian Actress Zeenat Khan/Aman

Indian Actress Shabana Azmi

Indian Actress Saba Azad

Indian Actress Sara Ali Khan

Indian Actress Huma Qureshi

Indian Director Zoya Khan

Pakistani Actor Furqan Qureshi

Bangladeshi Actress Azmeri Haque Badhon

Actor Muneeb Butt

Indian Actress Zareen Khan

Indian Actor Imran khan

Pakistani Actress Mehar Bano

Filmmaker Faruk Kabir

Filmmaker Saim Sadiq

Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

Riz Ahmed

Zayn Malik

Sally El-Hosaini

Malala Yousefzai

Hafid Abbas

Hojatoleslam Kariminia

Singer Sherina Munaf

Writer Alifa Rifaat

Writer Ismat Chughtai

Activist Nida Mushtaq

Activist Aan Anshori

Abdul Muiz Ghazali

Kyai Hussein Muhammad

Marzuki Wahid

Gigi Hadid

President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) - ally of waria or transgender females

Sinta Nuriyah - ally of trans & waria folks

Politician Keith Ellison

Mayor Sadiq Khan

Politician Ilhan Omar

Politician Rashida Tlaib

Politician Rushanara Ali

Politician Nabilah Islam

Politician Shahana Hanif

Politician Rama Yade

Politician Humza Yousaf

Politician Zarah Sultana

UK Sectratary General Zara Mohammed

Turkish politician Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu

Bengali Influencer Sobia Ameen

Shaykh Michael Mumisa

Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan

Mufti Abdur Rahman Azad - Hijra ally

Sheikh Hasina - Ally of hijra-intersex communities

Lawyer Iftikhar Chaudhry

Amani Al-Khatahtbeh

Professor Amel Grami

Professor Muhammad Aslam Khaki

Mohammad Hashim Kamali

Mehrdad Alipour

Lawyer Imaan Mazari/Iman Mazari

Shireen Mazari

Syed Murad Ali Shah

[loneberry]

some notes on sufism

The other day I went to the Harvard Divinity School Muslims iftar (the meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan), which was followed by a concert of Turkish music that is traditionally performed in Sufi lodges in Istambul. Before the music began, the professor I’ve been auditing Islamic literature classes with read some verses from Rumi’s Masnavi and offered a meditation on fasting through an interpretation of the lines: “If you have closed this mouth, another mouth is opened, which becomes an eater of the morsels of mysteries.” That is the nature of mystical knowledge—gnosis (or maʿrifa) is not understood intellectually, but tasted (dhawq). The closing of the bodily mouth is an opening of the spiritual mouth. He asked us to listen to the music with the inner heart.

I went with my friend S, who has been nudging me toward conversion. I’ve been allergic to religion most of my life because I’m not really much of a joiner. I distinctly remember being in (Catholic) Sunday School as a child and thinking to myself: This sounds fake to me. As in, made-up, irrational. The people who treated the fanciful stories like fact seemed like crackpots to me, even to my child-mind. I don’t think I ever believed in Santa either—I guess my disposition was innately skeptical; perhaps that contributed to my identification with anarchism from when I was 13 or 14. Yet at the same time, my feeling for the invisible, for the world of the dead, was always quite strong, even when it was unstitched from a belief system. As a kid I would wander the house alone at night, thinking I could hear my dead parakeet chirping from a shoebox in the garage.  

I hated Sunday School. While I was always good at school-school (at least when I was a child, before I became an incorrigible truant), I was terrible at Sunday School. Because it seemed like hocus-pocus to me, none of it stuck. My classmates had internalized all the stories I thought were outlandish. During mass I would think exclusively about donuts, the ones we would buy from the ladies who would sell them as a fundraiser. I’ve thought about returning to Catholicism, but sadly, after the post-1970s political realignment in the US, all the leftist Catholics (the Marxists who loathed the Vietnam War and exposed the FBI’s COINTELPRO) are gone. As much as I love reading Catholic mystics (St Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross, Angela of Foligno, Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Marguerite Porete, and others), Christian mysticism is more individualist than Islamic mysticism—asceticism and separation from the group is the way to commune with God, while Islamic mysticism is rooted in communal practices like sama (singing, dancing, reciting poetry, playing/listening to music) and dhikr (communal prayer for the remembrance of God). While Christian mysticism bears the imprint of the Neoplatonist trajectory of ascent, for Sufism, the trajectory is shaped like a paisley. After fana (annihilation of the ego/union with God/dying before you die), there is baqaa or subsistence, a return of sorts. 

I also much prefer the Islamic orientation to the created world than the Christian one, for in Islam, everything in creation can be understood as the breath or speech of God. The Hadith on which Sufi cosmology is based reads, “I was a hidden Treasure and Loved to be known, so I created the world that I might be known.” All of creation is a mirror to reflect God (this is why you must polish the rust from your heart, for the human heart can manifest all the names and qualities of God). In the Islamic mystical tradition there is an affirmation of the created world even though God and creation are not the same (as is the case in Pantheism). Everything has ontology. Nothing has ontology. The Sufi metaphysicians ask us to see with two eyes. The drop is not the ocean at the same time it cannot be separated from the ocean.

7 years ago I read Reza Aslan’s God: A Human History. After sampling the platter of world religions I joked to myself, Hmmm, if I had to pick the one I vibe with most, I guess it would be Sufism (Islamic mysticism). I didn’t know anything about Sufism other than the Rumi and Hafez poetry I read as a teenager, but the way Aslan described Ibn ‘Arabi’s concept of 'wahadat al-wujud' (or Unity of Being) reminded me of Spinozism. I guess what I’m trying to say is...I just think Sufi metaphysics is...right. Or, it speaks to how I tend to think about reality. It’s not something I can prove (that I don’t exist, while at the same time I am part of the ALL that is God), but it makes the most sense to me.

In the Sufi literature class, S jokes to me: “You’re the only non-Muslim in this class.” The same was probably true at the iftar + concert. S points to someone from the class: “The Maoist is a recent convert. This is their first time fasting for Ramadan.” “Is [our professor] fasting?” “Of course. I saw him at the iftar last night and talked to him about translation. I told him it’s ghastly to try to fit Persian verse into an English rhyme scheme. He agreed with me.” (We are clearly partisans of blank verse translations… yet so much of what’s out there has been poorly translated or not translated at all.) 

Much of the lyrics sung with the gorgeous music were verses written by the great Turkish-language Sufi poet and mystic Yunus Emre ("the Dante of Turkey," I whispered to S). S was ecstatic listening to the haunting ney (a kind of flute). We just so happened to be sitting in the same row as the professor. I tapped S and whispered that it looked like he was really enjoying the music. He was smiling with his eyes closed and swaying his head from side to side. He looked like he was having...a profound experience. This prof usually has what I guess you’d call ‘resting bitch face’ (which I always found funny because it runs counter to his sweet and gentle personality). But not at the concert. Pure bliss was painted on his face. It was then that it dawned on me that Sufism, for him, was probably something more than a scholarly interest. I thought about what it must have been like to discover something so beautiful and profound, and to know, in that moment, that your life will be changed forever—you might go off to Iran and devote your entire life to studying medieval texts. 

Of course this Ramadan I am thinking continuously about the genocide in Gaza, how an entire population is being starved to death by the sadistic leaders of Israel, how terrible it must be to be bombed and shot at during the holy month, or to break your fast with boiled grass and animal feed. I feel truly ashamed to come from a country that is complicit in this violence. I hope everyone continues to apply pressure to end this war—it feels hopeless now, but it is making a difference.

[arcanespillo]

God: A Human History. Reza Aslan.

[divinum-pacis]

2024 Book List

Here's a list of some new books I've found interesting and enjoyable in the last year or so. If you have any recommendations, send them in! (See previous book lists here)

Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by Dalai Lama (2020)

Love and Quasars: An Astrophysicist Reconciles Faith and Science by Paul Wallace (2019)

Stars Beneath Us: Finding God in the Evolving Cosmos by Paul Wallace (2015)

Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe by Stephen C. Meyer (2021)

The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism by Bernard McGinn (2006)

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber (2014)

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr (2021)

That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, & Universal Salvation by David Bentley Hart (2019)

The Gospel of Inclusion: Reaching Beyond Religious Fundamentalism to the True Love of God and Self by Carlton Pearson (2009)

Is God Real? Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life by Lee Strobel (2023)

Why? Making Sense of God's Will by Adam Hamilton (2018)

Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America by Russell Moore (2023)

The Psychology of Christian Nationalism: Why People Are Drawn In and How to Talk Across the Divide by Pamela Cooper-White (2022)

How Jesus Became God: the Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee by Bart D. Ehrman (2015)

The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible by Michael S. Heiser (2015)

No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan (2011)

[jonathan-parra-acero]

Creo que casi cualquier cosa que nos ofrece la existencia puede ser una herramienta provechosa o un lastre desagradable, dependiendo del uso que le demos. Un buen ejemplo de ello yace aquí, en las redes sociales. En este medio pululan actitudes desagradables y desgastantes, las cuales a menudo consisten en arrojarnos odio los unos a los otros, muchas veces por razones nimias, muchas veces por motivos políticos (y unos gritan “¡Uribestias!” mientras otros responden encolerizados “¡Petristres!”, y no puedo menos que dudar en demasía de algún día ver una Colombia en paz cuando la mayor parte del tiempo estamos empujando a la otredad a coscorrones —je, je, me acordé de Germán Vargas Lleras— en lugar de tender puentes que nos unan como sociedad). Y al mismo tiempo, en las redes también están quienes prefieren compartir lo que, quizás, pudiera considerarse “bálsamos para el alma”: cuentas dedicadas exclusivamente a poemas, personas mostrándonos pinturas hermosas, o el usuario que entre meme y meme te habla brevemente de un libro, y luego resulta que es un texto que te deja maravillado.

Hace un par de años, alguien compartía en Twitter el enlace para leer en PDF el primero de los siete libros de “En busca del tiempo perdido”, y le quedo de por vida agradecido a esa persona anónima por engancharme a semejante obra. Una mujer de sonrisa hermosa me habló en Facebook de “El hombre mediocre”, y a pesar de ser un libro con poco más de un siglo, es una aguda y deliciosa radiografía de las sociedades latinoamericanas actuales. El año pasado, una morena de bucles preciosos y amante de los animalitos, y de nuevo en Twitter, compartía la imagen de la novela “Un caballero en Moscú”, que también resultó ser sencillamente todo un manjar. Y en algún hilo de esos de la red del pajarito azul, aparecía la pregunta por el origen de las religiones, y un muchacho, a todas luces bastante culto e interesante, intentaba responder a la pregunta a la vez que mencionaba tres libros: “Dios. Una historia humana”, “Las lagartijas no se hacen preguntas” y “Dios”. Pude hacerme al primero de esos tres títulos, y tal parece que, de nuevo, gracias a otra persona anónima en redes que te hace el regalo enorme de guiarte a una lectura interesante, tengo otra joyita entre manos. En redes sociales seguiremos tirándonos lodo mutuamente y compartiendo cosas bonitas. Y qué suerte lo segundo😊.

[4leafclovr]

some of my fave fave books i think everyone should read (i know approximately 3 people will see rhis but i just wanted to make it for fun)

☆ braiding sweetgrass - robin wall kimmerer

☆ all about love - bell hooks

☆ the new life - orhan pamuk

☆ watership down - i forfot the author 💀

☆ earthlings - sayaka murata

☆ dark ecology - timothy morton

☆ the beauty of everyday things - soetsu yanagi

☆ after lockdown - bruno latour

☆ the mushroom at the end of the world - anna tsing

☆ speculative everything - anthony dunn and fiona raby

☆ how to do nothing - jenny odell

☆ im like a pdf but a girl girlblogging as a nomadic pedagogy - ester frieder

☆ the Tao te Ching

☆ Entangled Life - Merlin Sheldrake

☆ Dog Songs - Mary Oliver

☆ Radical Love - Omar Sadif

☆ No God but God - Reza Aslan

☆ Breasts and Eggs - Mieko Kawakami

☆ Masks - Fumiko Enchi

☆ Crying in Hmart - Michelle Zauner (japanese breakfast)

☆ The Sorrow of War - Bao Ninh

☆ The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon

[quoththemaven]

2023 Favoritest Book Reads

Vineland - Pynchon, Thomas

Prophet - Blaché, Sin & Helen Macdonald

And the Ass Saw the Angel - Cave, Nick

Lou Reed: The King of New York - Hermes, Will 

The Color of Magic (Discworld, #1; Rincewind, #1) - Pratchett, Terry

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative - Kleon, Austin 

Sonic Life: A Memoir - Moore, Thurston

The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) - Jemisin, N.K. 

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law - Roach, Mary

Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too - Sun, Jonny

The Night Masquerade (Binti, #3) - Okorafor, Nnedi 

Home (Binti, #2) - Okorafor, Nnedi 

Binti: Sacred Fire (Binti, #1.5) - Okorafor, Nnedi 

Binti (Binti, #1) - Okorafor, Nnedi 

Black Paradox - Ito, Junji

David Bowie's Low (33 1/3) - Wilcken, Hugo

Faith, Hope and Carnage - Cave, Nick

The Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut Jr., Kurt

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth - Aslan, Reza

Smashed - Ito, Junji

Time Shelter - Gospodinov, Georgi

Brian Eno's Another Green World (33 1/3) - Dayal, Geeta

Armageddon in Retrospect - Vonnegut Jr., Kurt

Neverwhere (London Below, #1) - Gaiman, Neil 

The Committed (The Sympathizer #2) - Nguyen, Viet Thanh 

Into the Great Wide Open - Canty, Kevin 

Mongrels - Jones, Stephen Graham 

DisneyWar - Stewart, James B.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex - Roach, Mary

The Left Hand of Darkness - Le Guin, Ursula K.

My Bloody Valentine's Loveless (33 1/3) - McGonigal, Mike 

Suttree - McCarthy, Cormac

Life's Work: A Memoir - Milch, David

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - Schwab, V.E.

Against the Day - Pynchon, Thomas

Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood - Ryan, Maureen 

Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA (33 1/3) - Himes, Geoffrey

La Moustache - Carrère, Emmanuel

Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid (33 1/3) - Favreau, Alyssa 

Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea - Pinsker, Sarah 

The Man Without a Shadow - Oates, Joyce Carol

The City & the City - Miéville, China 

Mem - Morrow, Bethany C. 

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Harari, Yuval Noah

Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs (33 1/3) - Eidelstein, Eric

Gutshot - Gray, Amelia 

The Price of Time (Watch What You Wish For #1) - Tigner, Tim 

The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever - Sepinwall, Alan 

Just Kids - Smith, Patti 

Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir - Hindman, Jessica Chiccehitto 

Flicker - Roszak, Theodore

Tinderbox: HBO's Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers - Miller, James Andrew 

Flashback - Simmons, Dan

Flaming Lips' Zaireeka (33 1/3) - Richardson, Mark 

The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer #1) - Nguyen, Viet Thanh 

Pavement's Wowee Zowee (33 1/3) - Charles, Bryan

Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) - Gibson, William

Invisible Cities - Calvino, Italo

Don't Fear the Reaper (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #2) - Jones, Stephen Graham 

The Wes Anderson Collection - Seitz, Matt Zoller

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said - Dick, Philip K.

Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly (33 1/3) - Maner, Sequoia

The Nineties - Klosterman, Chuck

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - Zevin, Gabrielle 

Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age - Mitenbuler, Reid

A Heart That Works - Delaney, Rob 

Imago (Xenogenesis, #3) - Butler, Octavia E.

Cryptonomicon (Crypto, #1) - Stephenson, Neal 

Blacktop Wasteland - Cosby, S.A. 

Pearl Jam's Vs. (33 1/3) - Brownlee, Clint

Tracy Flick Can't Win - Perrotta, Tom

Devil House - Darnielle, John 

Adulthood Rites (Xenogenesis, #2) - Butler, Octavia E.

Heat 2 - Mann, Michael & Meg Gardiner

Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures (33 1/3) - Ott, Chris

Dawn (Xenogenesis, #1) - Butler, Octavia E.

The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer - Stephenson, Neal 

The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3) - Lynch, Scott 

The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam, #2) - Atwood, Margaret 

[libraryofjoy]

Books read in September of 2023

Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk. Fiction: historical. A fictional island in the Ottoman Empire inhabited by a Muslim and Greek Orthodox population is left to fend for itself after a plague becomes uncontrollable. This book was long and intricate. Despite the historical setting, the dysfunctional government and religious conflict exacerbating the damage of a plague felt a little too close ot home.

The Confessions of St Augustine. Nonfiction: autobiographical, religious. Augustine's life story and theology. A lot more about time than I would've expected. Sometimes I think he's overdramatic or unhelpful, but then sometimes I'm amazed at his devotion and love for God. Augustine is early enough and influential enough that he's probably going to be vaguely relevant to my studies at some point, so it made sense to read the Confessions.

When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar. Fiction: contemporary, maybe a bit of poetry? This book tells the story of three orphaned sisters who have to make a life for themselves, under the neglect and abuse of their guardian uncle, negotiating issues like the immigration status of their family members, gender and sexuality, and living as Muslims when their access to Muslim community is restricted.

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. Fiction: speculative, dystopian. On an island where things keep disappearing, people who don't forget the disappearing items face persecution from their government. As life gets bleaker and more mundane, the characters of this book resist in small, subtle bursts of color and joy.

Where Reason Ends by Yiyun Li. Fiction: autobiographical, contemporary. A mother has a conversation with her dead teenage son after he commits suicide.

The Age of Wood by Roland Ennos. Nonfiction: history, nature. This book traces how wood has been used throughout history. This book paired well with Teaching the Trees by Joan Maloof, which I read earlier this year.

The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Fiction: romance. When a 29-year-old woman is told that she only has a year to live, she decides to defy her relatives' expectations and live on her own terms. I found Valancy so deeply relatable that it was a delight to see her crafting the life she wanted. The plot twists in this book are ah... big and melodramatic. I don't think this is LMM's tightest work from a craft perspective, but it was a really enjoyable book and I'd recommend it to my fellow lonely spinsters (with the caveat that it is a romance :/ )

Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga. Fiction: historical, contemporary, postcolonial. This book follows a Rwandan village through several generations of religious developments in response to Christian missionaries. This book is critical of missionary colonization in ways that are similar to Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe or The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I thought the various ways in which characters made sense of Christianity in light of their largely banned yet profoundly present preexisting belief stories was really remarkable.

Oranges by John McPhee. Nonfiction: agriculture, travel. There was a lot of fascinating information about how oranges get to consumers, albeit probably a few decades out of date.

No god but God by Reza Aslan. Nonfiction: history, religion. This book traces the origins and history of Islam. It was published in 2009 and does make some conscious effort to be an apologetic for Islam to a hostile post-911 society. This is one of the books I'm reading to make up for the Islam in America class I had to drop from this semester.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. Fiction: contemporary. When their newborn son's prospective name is lost in the mail, a Desi couple living in New England resort to naming him after Russian author Nikolai Gogol, a decision that shapes the trajectory of their son's life.

When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson. Nonfiction: religion, sociology, economics. This is a collection of essays. I really appreciate the way Marilynne Robinson writes about the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. I highly recommend this book for Christians who would like to avoid inadvertent antisemitism.

Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. Fiction: contemporary, speculative? This book follows a loving but dysfunctional family of four, each of whom wrestles with religious identity and purpose. There are spelling bees, kaleidoscopes, Jewish mysticism, and the inescapable strain of parent-child relationships caused by individual exploration of faith.

I'm happy to give content warnings for any of these! I really tried to push myself this month, and I feel like it paid off. I managed to get a few books off the really dusty and abandoned depths of my TBR list.

Fiction: 8

Nonfiction: 5

Total books this month: 13

Total fiction this year: 30

Total nonfiction this year: 36