#anyway fuck ilan pappe

[leonsrightarm]

books i read in june!

I Am a Cat by Soseki Natsume - literally has been sitting on my bookshelf for about 15 years and i have no excuse for not finishing it until now because i've read the first 50 pages at least five times and loved it every one of those times. anyway i love this book and i definitely recommend it. even though it was written in and about the meiji era, it's really timeless.

A Scanner Darkly by PKD - another one that's been sitting on my shelf for a few years. another really good one. i was gonna say that i think the feeling of being estranged not only from yourself but also from others and, more painfully, from others' perception of yourself is probably a unifying human experience but this may be one of those 'your experiences are not universal' moments. there was a passage that reminded me a lot of the wind up bird chronicle and the experience of the well but i didn't mark it like an idiot and now i can't find it. but i do think they unexpectedly have a lot in common on an existential level.

Qiang Jin Jiu Vol. 1 by Tang Jiuqing - my beloved...

Society and the Supernatural in Song China by Edward L Davis - really, really interesting although i might be too dumb to understand the last chapter. i basically get the concept of a pluralistic religious subculture being resistant to centralization and subsequently government control but the rest of it truly lost me....... oh well.... i'll figure it out once i've read enough probably... stay humble lmao...

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix - my favorite of his books that i've read so far. he's really a master of pacing i think. definitely one of those authors whose plots don't necessarily stand up under long contemplation but which grab you and hold you fast in the moment. also the radical puppet collective sounds cool as fuck. where do i sign up.

The Question of Palestine by Edward Said - foundational read on this subject

On Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe - both deeply disheartening and a source of unexpected hope. the exact same shit has been happening for decades, the exact same playbook and the same rhetoric used to sell it. but on the other hand the massive shift in public perception and the us's attempts to strong arm that perception back under control demonstrates that this can't and won't go on and that something must change.

anyway i don't want to speak too much about palestine here but i really recommend these two books. they're short and easy to understand, even if you don't have a very strong background regarding israel and palestine.