Natalie Thompson

Pull the thread…

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 9/20 #booksky #20bookchallenge 💙📚

If you don’t want Gina Rinehart to be the next Elon Musk, put the Liberal/National party LAST in the senate and in every seat. #auspol

Once there where wolves by Vharlotte McConaghy

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 8/20 #booksky #20bookchallenge 💙📚

I'm currently reading The God of Small Things.

I just read this beautiful sentence about Estha, who doesn't speak.

Gradually the reason for his silence was hidden away, entombed somewhere deep in the soothing folds of the fact of it.

And I feel those words sum up most of what we do in schools.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 7/20 #booksky #20bookchallenge 💙📚

Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 6/20 #booksky #20bookchallenge 💙📚

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 5/20 #booksky #20bookchallenge 💙📚

We are all Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 5/20 #booksky #20bookchallenge 💙📚

Honestly.

One part of me thinks .. who on Earth could vote for these archaic, racist, idiots..and for a moment, I am calmed.

But then I remember what happened with the voice to parliament.

Without hope, there's no resistance... got to maintain some hope

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 4/20 #booksky #20bookchallenge 💙📚

It was a few days ago, but the message is perfectly timed today.

Oh, this is a good but depressing point.

I'd like Peter Dutton to know I AM fed up. Fed up with men promoting #sexism & #misogyny & denigrating women, in order to win the votes of disengaged men. It's dumb, destructive & dangerous. I hope Labor's @alifrance.bsky.social wins #Dickson in a landslide. #auspol #DicksonVotes #AusVotes2025

Arg, thank you!!! I've been looking for an Australian list for a while.

From Doge to Smoge, Peter Dutton’s Coalition is an eerie echo of Trump (and Musk’s) America Dutton’s cabinet reshuffle added the shadow minister of government efficiency role to Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s position – but it sounds a bit familiar

Election year.

Time to organise.

...to volunteer, to write, to have conversations that matter, to read, to think.

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 3/20 #booksky #20bookchallenge 💙📚

‘They did not come to destroy’: Sussan Ley praises First Fleet and likens it to Elon Musk’s Mars mission It’s the latest example of the Coalition appearing to echo or praise US president Donald Trump’s new administration

It's election year people.

Seriously.

Now is the time to act.

If the slogan "get Australia back on track" doesn't ring any alarm bells, then let me spell it out...

This is far-right fascist politics. We can be so much better.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Captivating and ominous.

This week my wonderful son told a stranger (who asked him what he is going to with life after school) that he was going to study wildlife ecology and she said "it's such a shame that you have been taught a lie about the climate at school. What a waste of a young mind" 😵🤯

Agreed! Wish the ABC was braver..worried about fascist infiltration in Australia.

So great to see invasion day rallies up in numbers this year.

Always was, always will be.

It's election year. It's time to organise.

Henry Giroux might be one of the most important public intellectuals of our time.

Speaking of the conservative right, he says

"They fear an educational system capable of producing critically literate citizens – individuals who question power, expose injustice, and demand accountability."

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 2/20 #booksky #20bookchallenge 💙📚

It's a fascist agenda... there are so many things to comment on in the world, so much growing fascism... this is just the tiny bit that tipped me over the edge today.

Will we tolerate this? It's time to organise

In the words of Donna Haraway (via Virgina Wolf), think we must!

Act we must

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 1/20 #booksky #20bookchallenge 💙📚

It's time to make this switch, too...

#booksky

Reading is political.

Reading has always been political.

Your favorite characters wouldn’t just sit by and watch. They’d get up and burn some shit to the ground.

#booksky

Step 1 of working this year with more clarity and focus (amid stress and despair) is to bring some more mindfulness into my day.

I thought I might start with this list.

Write. Resist. Meditate.

Got it.

Channelling this David Lynch quote for 2025. I started the working year yesterday with a little less spark and a little more cynism than usual. I am just not sure formal education in Australia can, or should, be saved. But now, more than ever, I have to find this energy and clarity.

I can't wait for this conference. It's online, it's affordable, and it's full of interesting, progressive, and critical ideas about education. I honestly couldn't think of a better way to spend 3 days.