My government means to kill me

Read My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson

A fierce and riveting queer coming-of-age story, following the personal and political awakening of a young gay Black man in 1980s NYC, from the television drama writer and producer of The Chi, Narcos, and Bel-Air.

What an interesting little book. I’m not sure how I feel about it, really – probably because I enjoy reading memoirs, and reading a « fake memoir » makes me feel a bit icky. But for those who have always struggled to bridge the gap between fiction and nonfiction, this might be your perfect introduction. The protagonist…

Practical Doomsday

Read Practical Doomsday: A Sensible Field Guide to Surviving Disasters by Michal Zalewski

You’ll learn:
• How to identify and meaningfully assess risks in your life, then develop strategies for managing them
• Ways to build up and diversify a robust financial safety net—a key component of nearly all effective preparedness strategies
• How to adapt your prep plans to a variety of situations, from shelter-in-place scenarios to evacuations by car or on foot
• Sensible approaches to stockpiling food, water, and other essentials, along with recommendations on what supplies are actually worth having
Disasters happen, but they don’t have to dominate your life. Practical Doomsday will help you plan ahead, so you can stop worrying about what tomorrow may bring and start enjoying your life today.

The first two thirds were really really good. The third section is about self-defense and wasn’t too interesting to me, so I skipped most of it. Good book overall with some very solid foundations. Si ça vous intéresse, vous pouvez aussi découvrir mes notes de lecture.

Jazz

Liked Jazz by Chris Coyier (chriscoyier.net)

Oh man, good for me. Look at me! I am listening to jazz. Here I am, just taking in the moment. Fully present. Just me and the music. Yup yup yup yup yup. Completely immersed. Thinking about nothing else. The rhythm. The musicality. The syncopation. Is that the right word? “Syncopation”? That’s a jazz thing? […]

had a good laugh. i can relate.

Mother Ocean Father Nation

Read Mother Ocean Father Nation by Nishant Batsha

Jaipal feels like the unnoticed, unremarkable sibling, always left to fend for himself. He is stuck working in the family store, avoiding their father’s wrath, with nothing but his hidden desires to distract him. Desperate for money and connection, he seizes a sudden opportunity to take his life into his own hands for the first time. But his decision leaves him at the mercy of an increasingly volatile country. On a small Pacific island, a brother and sister tune in to a breaking news radio bulletin. It is 1985, and an Indian grocer has just been attacked by nativists aligned with the recent military coup. Now, fear and shock are rippling through the island’s deeply-rooted Indian community as racial tensions rise to the brink. Spanning from the lush terrain of the South Pacific to the golden hills of San Francisco, Mother Ocean Father Nation is an entrancing debut about how one family, at the mercy of a nation broken by legacies of power and oppression, forges a path to find a home once again. Bhumi hears this news from her locked-down dorm room in the capital city. She is the ambitious, intellectual standout of the family—the one destined for success. But when her friendship with the daughter of a prominent government official becomes a liability, she must flee her unstable home for California. A riveting, tender debut novel, following a brother and sister whose paths diverge—one forced to leave, one left behind—in the wake of a nationalist coup in the South Pacific

Jaipal and Bhumi are estranged siblings. The first is a young gay man working as a bartender, the second a brilliant biology student, both of them living on a small West Pacific island. When the dictator starts discriminating against « Indians » more and more, they’re worried – when discrimination turns into plain government harassment,…