F Facebook
I have been slowly weaning myself off of Facebook. It's been going on a while, hence the slowly. I don't do other types of social media for the social part, but I do use Instagram a lot to advertise The Scented Djinn. Facebook has always been a problem for me. It's addictive, depressing, anger-inciting, and has never, ever been a good platform to sell a business. Instagram isn't a whole lot better, but I feel like I can hit it with an ad and slink back into the night without getting caught in the scroll. When I was on vacation last July, I spent the bulk of my time outdoors hiking (huffing, puffing, and complaining about my inappropriate-for-hiking shoes mostly) and reading. I maybe spent an hour total during those two weeks scrolling FB. It felt so good, mentally and physically, not wasting time there, and when I returned home, I didn't really pick up the FB banner again. Just now I went in to answer a messenger question from my computer and BAM! The first 'story' in my timeline immediately put me in a bad mood, so I just shut it off. I'm done. I'm not removing my account, but I refuse to participate anymore.
So, has anyone read any good books lately? I'm open to suggestions.
Yeah its the worst. I deleted mine in the spring of '19 and people were mad at me lol but was one of the best mental health decisions of my ~adult life. I'm so much happier now.
ReplyDeleteRegarding books-- My all-time fav is Margaret Atwood's "Year of the Flood,"+ the whole trilogy (its the second--- the first one sets the scene but its a bit of slog and u can just skip it and get the whole story just fine--- the third is profoundly good as well). Sortof about the nearish future in an advanced state of consumer-capitalist decay and corporate overreach, playing around w/ the possible eventualities of "gene-geneering," human corruptitude, etc. It is solidly one of the funniest, most bludgeon-humory things I've ever read. Very feminism, great characters, excellent. .
Also "The Dovekeepers" by Alice Hoffman is another one I'm never gona get over. Its sortof a magical-realism embellished retelling of the story of Masada during the Roman conquest of Judea... from the perspective of four women, Jewish and otherwise, who got swept up in the whole ordeal. Very feminism, and complex imaginings of ~witchcraft/ womenhood magick in the very patriarchal ancient world. Kind of seriously grim, obviously, as of the particular subject matter, but also just gorgeous and oddly bittersweet-joyful. Very well written. Fascinating.
The recent Philip Pullman books "La Belle Sauvage" and "The Secret Commonwealth" are also so, soo good. A prequel and sequel/ expansion of the original "His Dark Materials" Trilogy from backintheday, which was also profoundly excellent, and super foundational for me, personally. Very exciting political intrigue and stories about good kind people operating quietly around the self-righteous abuses of institutional power + ~the quantum multiverse sortof. Really excellent.
For nonfiction I'm reading "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene, and it is dry and political and history and warfare shenanigans &all, but actually quite anecdotal-context-entertaining and very useful in aims toward tryna parse all the weird posturing been goin down in the contemporary... Because maintaining personal power in the midst of generalized weird posturing... Is Good. :)
^^all a bit heavy I guess, but very uplifting, actually. I love them all very much.
lol and I love the "all-seeing side-eye" . . . The soap sounds fab and the drawing has a really funny,, interesting gravity about it. :)
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Dav