@janaaier.bsky.social
Same person in a new place. Always speaking in code and inside jokes for my friends
!!!!
28.05.2025 11:33 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Day 17: A book with a person's name in the title (real or fictional)
Maru by Bessie Head
I will use every opportunity to mention Bessie Head.
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
Day 16: A book that I've read more than once
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
I've read it every year since it was released sometime during the year.
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING by Milan Kundera (1984; translated by Michael Henry Heim from NESNESITELNÁ LEHKOST BYTÍ) A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanising; one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover-these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel, Kundera's first since THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our private actions, but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine. THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING is a story of irreconcilable love and infidelities in which Milan Kundera addresses himself to the nature of twentieth-century 'Being', offering a wide range of brilliant and amusing philosophical speculations. First published in 1984, Kundera's masterly novel encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy and was at once hailed by critics as a contemporary classic.
A vaguely (not so) random selection of books beloved, enjoyed, or absolutely bowled over by across the decades and in the various incarnations of the #LateImperialLibrary.
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In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado book cover
Day 15: a book that makes me cry sad tears
In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
Day 14: A fairytale retelling
Refilwe - An African retelling of Rapunzel by Zukiswa Wanner
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
With global attention fixed on war on Gaza, Israel is rapidly redrawing the map of the occupied West Bank through intensified assaults, paving the way for full annexation.
On Palestine Land Day, we map out what is happening.
🔗: aje.io/7nwbkc
Day 13: A book with a colour in the title
The Heart of Redness by Zakes Mda
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
A vaguely random selection of books beloved, enjoyed, or absolutely stunned by over many years and in the various incarnations of the #LateImperialLibrary.
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Day 12: A popular book I hate
I don't like Frank Herbert's Dune. The tautology in the prose, the heavy-handed treatment of the themes, and the mannerless way the characters interact made it a deeply unpleasant reading experience for me.
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
Day 11: Literary character I want to have dinner with
There's a couple having a very nice lunch in one of the short stories in Exhale that I'd be happy to join for a meal.
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
One fun thing about White Lotus is that while the Ratliffs are in a Greek tragedy, Jaclyn and friends are in a very specific subgenre of vacation-themed Normal Gossip episode
24.03.2025 03:23 — 👍 230 🔁 5 💬 6 📌 1
30 day book challenge format
The front cover of Something Else by Kathryn Cave, illustrated by Chris Riddell
Day 10: A book that makes me cry happy tears
Something Else by Kathryn Cave is one of my favourite childhood books, and I cry whenever I read it with happiness and gratitude for my parents.
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
30 Day Book Challenge template
The front cover of Bontle's New Wheels by Gomolemo Moagi
Day 9: Favourite book to give as a gift
I like giving people children's books a lot. Everyone knows a child who needs a book, and adults should also read juvenile fiction. I'm giving my niblings Bontle's New Wheels by Gomolemo Moagi when I go to visit.
#BookSky💙📚 #30daybookchallenge
Day 8: Series everyone should read
I like series that give me more avenues to explore in literature, so I'll say I think a good series (duology) to try is What Moves The Dead by T Kingfisher.
It's a decent elaboration on the Fall of the House of Usher
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
Day 7: Best audiobook to listen to on a road trip
For adults, I'm A Fan is four hours long, and it's a lot of fun to listen to and talk about: mess, obsessive behaviour and acting out. Lots to discuss with other passengers.
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
A sweet potato snack 🍠
20.03.2025 20:44 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The Tiny Journalist - Naomi Shihab Nye
Day 6: A book that broke my heart
The Tiny Journalist: Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye
The political events of the present moment are leading me to read more widely, and this collection of poetry struck a chord of emotion and solidarity with me that felt like heartbreak.
#BookSky💙📚 #30daybookchallenge
"it's very easy and very legal to be resentful" - important for the record
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_uR...
Screencap from The Boy Next Door (2015) where the boy next door gifts Jennifer Lopez a "first edition" of The Iliad
Day 5: Favourite classic novel
The Iliad
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
Day 4: A book I remember from childhood
A Trolley Full of Rights! I'm so glad we are passing this book onto the children, I remember its impact and influence on me frequently.
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
Day 3: Book I did not finish
Ben Hur has some ineffable quality that causes my brain to shut off. I've tried reading it several times, and I lose consciousness every few pages.
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
Pomegranate for a midday snack
17.03.2025 11:38 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Sunday reading: What Authoritarianism Means
I wrote about why even critical observers underestimated the speed and scope of the Trumpist assault, why they overestimated democratic resilience – about what America is now, and what comes next?
New piece:
Photograph of bookcases ateanged along two perpendicular walls, with nonfiction alphabetised from S.S. Abdool Karim & Q. Abdool Karim through Richard Dawkins on the left, to Margaret Daymond et al througg Sigmund Freud on the right.
The chaos of misshelving: bookcases along two perpendicular walls, nonfiction from Sigmund Freud through Aldous Huxley on the left, and from Pablo Iglesias througg Amin Maalouf against the far wall in the centre, and on the right stacks of books by authors later in the alphabet unorganised.
View (from the garret) through a rain spattered window of a swimming pool surrounded by the trees of the garden.
View of the neighbouring building's art deco lift shafts beneath grey sky, seen through a rain spattered window pane.
One got as far as Maalouf in alphabetising the #NonFictionRoom of the #LateImperialLibrary on this miserably wet and cold Sunday in #NorthJozi – all the weather but none of the eros of Amsterdam – when one discovered missing Ds and Gs and Hs.
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Book Challenge image with 30 days of prompts to share favourite book titles
Book cover of When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head
Day 2: Favourite book by my favourite author
When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head
I don't really have favourites, but I will try to abide by the challenge and state for the record that the acclaim given to Bessie Head's writing is understated.
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
Day 1: Favourite book in a series
I listen to the audiobook of The Tombs of Atuan to fall asleep regularly. I wanted to be a cloistered nun as a child, so the themes appeal to my long-held attraction to asceticism, being entombed, and religiosity.
#BookSky💙📚 #bookchallenge #30daybookchallenge
