Some reflecitons on my reading stats this month:

• I read waaaay more non-fiction than fiction, but I had a great reading month with a super high average rating, so that's fine with me.

• I do want to try to read more from around the world next month. This month was abysmal when it came to that type of diversity.
  

Favorite non-fiction book: "A Year with the Seals" by Alix Morris

Synopsis: In a world where wildlife populations are disappearing at an alarming rate, A Year with the Seals is a rare look at what happens when conservation efforts actually work, and how human tampering with ecosystems continues to have unexpected consequences for a wide variety of species, humans included. 

Review: This was such an enjoyable read. Every time I wasn’t reading it, I wanted to be reading it. I learned so much, especially about the cycle of human-animal relationships and how we impact the world around us (even when we’re trying to help).

Favorite fiction book: "On Sundays She Picked Flowers" by Yah-Yah Scholfield

Synopsis: When Judith Rice killed her mother, she thought she put an end to the woman's hold on her. Seventeen years later, secluded deep in the woods of northern Georgia, Jude knows that the past isn't all that easy to discard.


Alone with her strange house and even stranger woods, Jude must grapple with ghosts, haints, beasts, and an enigmatic woman who threatens to undo the tentative peace Jude's built for herself by fanning the violence that lives just underneath her skin.


Review: I couldn’t put this book down. The tension that started to build from page one was so marvelously done. My favorite part of this book was how it explored complex family relationships, generational trauma, and forgiveness. It was brutal, haunting, and hopeful.

At times the book felt like it was two separate books and stories put into one and I wish that the two stories ended up being a little more interconnected.

I can’t recommend this book enough though and thought it was a true stand-out in the horror genre. I can’t believe this is a debut.

Please check trigger warnings before reading this book. It had very dark and heavy themes.

What I’ve added to my TBR (to-be-read)

• "The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue" by Zoulfa Katouh: Look at this cover😍 A poignant novel about a Syrian American girl who uses a magical sketchbook to turn her grief into art, painting miraculous murals of her mother’s life in Syria.

• "Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence": The organizers, journalists, and scholars in these pages are charting a new path forward, employing creative tools to subvert the status quo, organize globally against high-tech border imperialism, and help us imagine a world without borders.

• "False Calm" by María Sonia Cristoff: Part reportage, part personal essay, part travelogue, False Calm is the breakout work by Argentinian author María Sonia Cristoff. Writing against romantic portrayals of Patagonia, Cristoff returns home to chronicle the ghost towns left behind by the oil boom.

• "Black Bear" by Trina Moyles: A dazzling memoir about one woman's coexistence with bears in the boreal forest and a singular meditation on sibling loss.

I'm here with some super exciting updates on my Reading the World resource.

In case you missed it when it was launched, I created a spreadsheet resource to help readers read more diversely from around the world. The spreadsheet features:

• 2,000+ book recommendations for every country in the world

• Every book is labeled by genre and includes a summary

But now I have a few updates for you:

• 200+ new books, including 2026 releases

• Every book is now linked directly to Bookshop.org so you can easily pick it up (this also helps to support me in the project as I recieve affiliate money for every order)
  

I'm really excited to keep this initiative going. As always, this document is a work in progress and if there's ever anything I should change or any books I should add, sound-off in the document's comments💖

Book summary

This book takes a look at the myth that the United States is founded by and for immigrants and shows a more honest look at the history of this country.

My review

If you want to learn an incredible amount of information, read this timely book.

It explores American imperialism and how immigration in the U.S. is a war story with refugees having to move to the country thay killed them.

My only feedback for this book is that it felt a bit disorganized at times, often jumping from one topic or point in history to another.

Everything I learned

• While history likes to portray Alexander Hamilton as an abolitionist, he married into a wealthy slave-trading family (Schuyler family) and even participated in the slave trade for his in-laws.

• No country has been bombed so heavily for so long (relative to the country's population) than Laos during the "Secret" war. Taking place at the same time as the Vietnam War, the Laotian Civil War was kept secret (not acknowledged by the CIA until 1994) because the involvement of the CIA and other foreign powers. (photo from Getty Images)
  
  Duing this bombardment, more bombs were dropped on the small country of Laos than all of the bombs dropped in WWII (2 million tons of cluster bombs).

• In the span of three days during the Korean War, the U.S. launched a mass killing spree in the village of Noguen-ri killing between 250-300 women and children. This massacre wasn't known to the American public until 1999 thanks to an Associated Press article. Documents proved that the U.S.commanders ordered their troops to shoot and "fire on" civilians.

Further learning

• "Researcher finds evidence Alexander Hamilton owned slaves"

• America's Secret War: The CIA's Hidden Campaign in Laos | History Documentary

• "Other incidents of refugees killed by GIs during Korea retreat"

Over the holidays, I took a road trip to the nordics and visited a beautifully-curated bookstore in Copenhagen, Politikens Boghal. Here's a little look at all of the books I was tempted to pick up and what I ended up bringing home.

Welcome to my Syllabus Series. I was a high school English teacher for over five years and nothing gives me more joy than to help others learn something new. As someone who also reads a large amount of non-fiction, I wanted to create a new series where I pick a singular topic that you might want to learn more about. This edition is all about resistance.

In my exploration of the self-help industry, I often talk about how the solution is actually community-help and systemic change. If you’ve wanted to learn more about this, this is where to start.

First, I’ll take you through books to read through various genres and the order you should read them in to scaffold and layer your learning. But learning isn’t all about reading, so I’ll also share video resources, shorter articles, and give you a list of people to follow on social media in order to stay up to date well beyond today. Finally, learning means nothing without action, so I will also provide you ways that you can do something with what you’re learning.

This isn’t meant to be overwhelming and is laid out in a way that it’s learning you have time for. Therefore, the list isn’t extensive and manageable. Of course, there’s always more learning to be done.

Books to read

A collection of books read to read. For the best learning experience, try to read the books in this order.
(*note: this section contains affiliate links)

• Fiction
  “Pet” and “Bitter” by Akwaeke Emezi
  In order to best understand resistance and revolution and the role you could play through your talents, I highly recommend these two books by my favorite author. They’re short and easily accessible and while they explore themes in a magical realism setting, the ideas are easily applicable to our own lives.

• Non-fiction
  ”Mutual Aid” by Dean Spade
  This is the book to help begin to understand the importance of mutual aid and the role and change it plays in our world. It’s great to not only understanding how mutual aid works, but how to effectively create mutual aid networks and participate in them.

• Essays
  “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” by Angela Y. Davis
  A collection of essays, interviews, and speeches that explores struggles against state violence around the world and how they’re connected. It’s also a call to action for a collective movement towards liberation. This is a nice book to get a brief overview of various topics.

• Non-fiction

  “We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance” by Kellie Carter Jackson

  If you enjoy “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” and want to dive deeper into the history of Black resistance, pick this up. It’s important that we reframe the narratives surrounding the history and present of Black resistance and this book does just that.

• Non-fiction
  “Let This Radicalize You” by Kelly Hayes
  After you understand the history and basics surrounding resistance, this book all about sustaining organizing and activism as the systems you are resistance are built to break you down. This is to help you keep going.

Other media to consume

• Video
  “What is Mutual Aid (Classroom Version) by Dean Spade
  A super clear explanation of what Mutual Aid is, if you don’t have time to read Spade’s book from above.

• Case study

  “Farm-to-Community: Critical Elements of a Successful Farm Mutual-Aid Program” by Chris Newman
  A breakdown of what a successful mutual aid effort where a farmer started a mutual aid fund to help bring his food to individuals facing food insecurity.

• Article
  “The co-option of mutual aid” by Regan de Loggans

  If you don’t have time to read any of the books above, this article is a great primer on mutual aid and how it differs from charity. It also explores the dangers of white people co-opting the term “mutual aid” when talking about charity.

• Keynote speech
  “Designing Rest as Practice” by Tricia Hersey
  Hersey wrote a book called “Rest is Resistance” which focuses on the importance and revolutionary act of rest in our capitalistic society. Here’s a speech where she talks about this idea.

• Podcast
  “Movement Memos”

  A podcast that connects experts, activists, and journalists around the world who are on the front lines of movements and mutual aid networks.

Who to follow

When learning about a subject where community is key it’s important to find people to help you along the way. Here are a few people and organisations I encourage you to follow:

• Sam @expertbooksmuggler: In my opinion, Sam is one of the best examples of how to use social media as a tool for mutual aid. She has consistently been sharing resources and opportunities for you to participate in mutual aid by donating money directly to families currently experiencing genocide around the world.

• JM Heatherly ‘s Substack: A substack dedicated to focusing on community organizing and mutual aid topics.

• Dean Spade: The author of “Mutual Aid” listed above, I would honestly go to Spade’s linktree and read all his articles/interviews.

Take action

Donate
A large part of mutual aid is supporting members of your community (including your global community). One way to do this (if you’re able) is to financially help. There’s a million ways to do this.

I would recommend finding a cause or community you care about (Palestine, Sudan, natural disaster relief, etc) and search for mutual aid and that community on social media. I find Instagram to be the best place to search for these opportunities.

Start a mutual aid project
This might seem like a daunting task, but there are resources to help you. Big Door Brigade has a toolbox for starting a mutual aid project depending on what type of mutual aid you’re interested in.

A good place to start might be through creating a neighborhood pod or create a pod within your local community. Some resources on how to do that can be found here.

Protest
If you are able, protesting helps make our voices louder. It’s a tool meant to disrupt and force those in charge to take action. Make sure that you continue to make your voice heard on the issues you care about.

As I mentioned earlier, learning is an ongoing practice. If you would like more resources, don’t hesitate to reach out. And if you have any resources to add to this list, please add them to the comments below.

Book summary

A collection of essays on resistance, resilience, and collective power in the age of climate disaster from Chamorro human rights lawyer and organizer Julian Aguon.

My review

This book touched me deeply. Aguon's writing feels like a warm hug and creates moments of hope admist the nightmares in today's world. I learned so much from reading this book and this book is a rallying cry to do something about it.

Everything I learned

• In the 1900s, the US navy established a leper colony in Guam where Chammorros thought to be afflicted were quarantined on a beach. In 1912, they were forcibly deported to the Culion Leper Colony in the Philippines.

Photo from https://www.guampedia.com/us-naval-era-leprosy-local-reaction/

• From 1946-1958 the U.S. conducted a nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands where it detonated 67 automatic and thermonucelar weapons. The worst of these tests was "Bravo" which deposited life-threatening quanitities of radioactive fallout (3x the estimated external dose people in Chernobyl were exposed to) onto the Marshallese.
  
  These tests resulted in forced exile, increase in congeneital diseases, birth defeects, miscarraiges, and cancers.

  • "The truth is this. Nucelar weapons do not have to be used to be deadly."-Julian Aguon

  
  

• The U.S. Department of Defense is relocating 5,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, destroying historical and cultural sites in order to build a firing range complex, which is dangerously close to Guam's primary source of drinking water: the Northern Guam Lens Aquifer. It's also being built 100 feet away from the last remaining håyon lågu tree.
  
  
  Further reading

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261967252_Re-membering_the_Past_Photography_leprosy_and_the_Chamorros_of_Guam_1898-_1924

• https://www.boell.de/en/2023/10/09/ongoing-consequences-us-nuclear-testing-program-marshall-islands

• https://www.guampedia.com/we-are-guahan/