November is here! The world is once again/still an overwhelming place, but I continue to find solace and hope in books. I've recently read actionable nonfiction, insightful time travel fiction and a downright filthy (used lovingly) shifter romance. Books do all the things.
If you're seeing this between November 7th and 11th, please take a look at the Books for Palestine auction, which is fundraising for humanitarian aid for displaced and imperiled Gazans. The last time they did this was in 2021 and if that doesn't say something about the state of the "Israel-Hamas War"... The situation is complicated, but the parallels immediately drawn to the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks were telling. Israel, like the U.S. has used this attack as justification for launching a disproportionate response with no clear path to "success." Worse is the fact that the population of Gaza has already been walled off, effectively under siege, for sixteen years.
I urge you to read about the background here, both prior to 1948, the Nabka and up through the present. I also recommend reading about Christian Zionism. There are more Christian Zionists than there are Jews in the world. This is largely because many evangelicals believe that the end times and the rapture will happen in Jerusalem/Israel and only if it's a Jewish-controlled area. So all the Christians are raptured, the big end times battle happens and after the dust settles (and the remaining humans aka Jews there are dead), the good Christians get to come back and live in paradise once again. Understandably, Jewish politicians accept this dubious support in a most pragmatic way.
There's a ton of misinformation going around and, especially in times of crisis, it can be difficult to tell what's real. I urge you to resist sharing pieces of content until you've looked into the source a little. I myself shared something during the big protests in Iran last year that was incorrect. I let my emotions get the best of me and should have evaluated the source first. (I'm supposedly an information professional. Ha.)
Anyway, there are loads of book lists easily available and a lot of public libraries have curated collections for you to browse, so go do some reading. Contact your reps, ask for a ceasefire. As Alyssa Cole mentioned, look up the ongoing situations in Sudan and Congo, too. Also of note is the genocide of Uyghurs in Northwestern China. Genocide and ethnic cleansing are carried out again and again, often enabled by our purchasing and political power. It's all connected.
With all that in mind, here are some books that aren't about genocide for you to peruse this month. Normally I'd highlight a couple of titles, but I don't have it in me this time. I wish you well and will.
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