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#book burning
endusviolence · 1 month
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Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?
I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?
In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".
Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.
This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.
Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.
The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.
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[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]
There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.
This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.
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[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]
As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.
But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?
Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.
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bloompawz · 11 days
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Tumblr is still actively endorsing transphobia on this website. Reblog the fuck out of this.
Tumblr got back to me about a report for once... Just to tell me that the blatant transphobia I reported "does not violate community guidelines."
These are the posts which Tumblr staff decided should be kept on the platform, with screenshots.
Also, I apologize in advance for censoring the usernames of the transphobes in the screenshots. Tumblr does absolutely nothing to protect its trans users, so I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up getting in trouble instead, just for including their usernames. I will mention, however, that every transphobe had transphobic dogwhistles in their usernames and/or bio. Transphobes are not difficult to spot. Staff are just apathetic at best, and actively transphobic at worst.
Exhibit A: A post in which someone repeatedly and explicitly misgenders trans women, fearmongers about "trans ideology," uses transphobic dogwhistles, and denies the existence of transmisogyny. This isn't even the full post; it was an incredibly long transphobic tangent. The comments were full of transphobes as well. None of them were banned. Tumblr staff think this is okay.
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Exhibit B: A post in which someone delights in the idea of a trans person hurting themselves by "ripping at their surgery scars," with additional ableist undertones. Not a hypothetical trans person either; a real individual trans person. She was not banned.
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Exhibit C: A post in which a self-proclaimed TERF refers to consensual gender affirming surgeries as "forced surgeries" and frames trans people as "Nazis and fascists" just for trying to become comfortable in our own bodies. She did this in direct response to trans people celebrating their own surgeries. She was not banned.
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Exhibit D: A post in which someone says "transgenderism is erasing women" and blames the existence of misgendering and degendering on trans people, as if we aren't also hurt by those things frequently. She also said that trans women are "not women" in comments on her own post. She was not banned.
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Exhibit E: A post in which someone engages in a blatant form of Holocaust denial, by saying trans transgender and queer people "were not targeted" (while simultaneously casting doubt on the validity of those identities themselves by putting them in scare quotes). Trans persecution and book burnings are a well documented aspect of the Holocaust. This post was also reblogged by other transphobes. None of them were banned.
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@staff care to explain why you think these posts are okay? Would you like to tell us how and why these "don't violate community guidelines"? Did you learn nothing from the lawsuit that happened because of transphobia among staff? After everything that has happened, why is there still nothing being done about the rampant transphobia on this website?
Just curious.
Also, in case I get banned or this post gets deleted, here's an archived version of my post. Keep it tucked away somewhere.
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burningvelvet · 8 months
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Lord Byron writing about book-burning, queer representation, and the value of poetry . . . in 1821:
“Let us hear no more of this trash about ‘licentiousness.’ Is not ‘Anacreon’ taught in our schools? translated, praised, and edited? Are not his Odes the amatory praises of a boy? Is not Sappho's Ode on a girl? Is not this sublime and (according to Longinus) fierce love for one of her own sex? And is not Phillips's translation of it in the mouths of all your women? And are the English schools or the English women the more corrupt for all this? When you have thrown the ancients into the fire it will be time to denounce the moderns. ‘Licentiousness!’ — there is more real mischief and sapping licentiousness in a single French prose novel, in a Moravian hymn, or a German comedy, than in all the actual poetry that ever was penned, or poured forth, since the rhapsodies of Orpheus. The sentimental anatomy of Rousseau and Madame de Staël are far more formidable than any quantity of verse. They are so, because they sap the principles, by reasoning upon the passions; whereas poetry is in itself passion, and does not systematise. It assails, but does not argue; it may be wrong, but it does not assume pretensions to Optimism.”
Context: this letter was written during the Bowles-Pope Controversy, a seven-year long public debate in the English literary scene primarily between the priest, poet, and critic William Lisle Bowles and the poet, peer, and politician Lord Byron. The debate began in 1807 when Bowles published an edition of the famous writer Alexander Pope’s work which included an essay he wrote criticizing the writer’s character, morals, and how he should be remembered. Today, we would say that Bowles tried to “cancel” Alexander Pope, who had affairs without marrying, and whose works had sexual themes. Lord Byron defended Pope, who was one of his all-time favorite writers. Pope had been dead since 1744, so he was not personally involved. This debate shows that while moral standards have changed throughout the centuries, the ways people have debated about morality have remained similar.
Source of the excerpt: — Moore’s Life of Byron in one volume, 1873, p. 708 - https://books.google.com/books?id=Q3zPkPC8ECEC&pg=PA708&lpg=PA708&dq=%22Are+not+his+Odes+the+amatory+praises
Sources on the Bowles-Pope Controversy: — Chandler, James. “The Pope Controversy: Romantic Poetics and the English Canon.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 10, no. 3, 1984, pp. 481–509. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343304. — https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pope-Bowles-controversy — Bowles, Byron and the Pope-controversy by Jacob Johan van Rennes, Ardent Media, 1927.
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queerism1969 · 10 days
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Not to say that the burning of the Library of Alexandria was in any way less tragic or devastating, but I'm kinda tired about the way it's all presented. Sure it was something horrible that Caesar did, but can we talk about a different thing that doesn't even get mentioned? Can we talk about Nalanda with its 9 million books that burnt for three entire months? Can we talk about the scope of this cruelty that the western world just seems to be ignorant of? It happened in the 1190s when invader Bakhtiar Khilji ordered the whole place be set on fire, enraged that Buddhist monks possessed more knowledge about medicine than his own doctors.
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Art: Collage by Joe Webb
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“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." "In 1984", Huxley added, "people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure." In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”
~Neil Postman
Book: Amusing Ourselves to Death :: by Neil Postman
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slimeystimboards · 1 month
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hi! Hope you're doing well :3 can I request a Gerard Keay (The Magnus Archives/Protocol) stimboard?
Gerard Keay (The Magnus Archives)
(this one was surprisingly difficult for me 😅 hope its alright!!)
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virtueisdead · 1 year
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friendly reminder that if the internet archive were successfully taken down, the bare minimum result would be a loss of media 528,673 times that of the library of the burning of the library of alexandria. (by the number of items held)
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coulsonlives · 10 months
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"That's got to be the most depressing shit I've ever seen. Like, just go read a geography textbook. I'd have more fun reading that than trying to find fanfiction to read that I didn't derive any pleasure from; that was in complete moral alignment with.. not even who I am as a person, but how I would treat everybody."
Well said!
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renthony · 3 months
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From the article:
The video is part of a disturbing uptrend in anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments sweeping across the United States. A comprehensive report by the Anti-Defamation League and GLAAD, covering the period from June 2022 to April 2023, documented a worrying surge in anti-LGBTQ+ hate and extremism. With at least 356 incidents identified, including harassment, vandalism, assault, and even a mass shooting, the findings underscore the reality of the threats facing the LGBTQ+ community today. This environment, marked by a significant number of incidents perpetrated by extremist groups and widespread across 46 states, reveals a broader, more hostile climate towards LGBTQ+ individuals. Notably, the report highlights the exploitation of the baseless “grooming” conspiracy theory, which was cited in at least 191 incidents.
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hanna-lulu · 1 year
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i’ve been comparing the usa now to germany circa the late 1930s and it is not a favorable comparison.
let’s see what we’ve got:
increasing antisemitism
increasing transphobia
increasing ableism
continued oppression of indigenous peoples
laws being introduced to ban gender-affirming care and remove children from their homes if they are allowed to live as they wish
books being banned for having honest and age-appropriate portrayals of race/racism and queerness/homophobia
pushing maid (medical assistance in dying) on people with disabilities and even people who are just poor (this is more in canada but i’m including it here anyway)
a right wing that is seen as ridiculous and absurd, yet is somehow still managing to hold onto power while liberals/leftists laugh it off as if they’ll run out of steam
it’s important to note that in the 1930s, when hitler came to power, the international community thought he was a joke. his overblown rhetoric was silly, his history was laughable, and nobody took him seriously. they thought it would all blow over. also, he wasn’t saying anything that a lot of people didn’t secretly agree with. antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and racism were widespread throughout europe and the usa, and a lot of people had less of a problem with what he was saying and more with how he was saying it. (think kanye west’s antisemitic comments, which joe rogan did attempt to stop him from making so blatantly, but didn’t actually disagree with.)
the first medical and educational facility for gender affirming care was in berlin. did you know that? the institut für sexualwissenschaft (known variably in english as institute of sex research, institute of/for sexology, or institute for the science of sexuality) was founded in 1919 and headed by magnus hirschfeld, who was both gay and jewish. he helped build a library in the institute that was dedicated to the topics of gender, eroticism, and same-sex love. the research undertaken there regarded sexual health of all people, gay, transgender, and intersex, as well as counseling and treatment for alcoholism, gynecological issues, venereal diseases, contraceptives, and more. sexual reassignment surgeries were performed successfully there. the goal was to help those who were suffering because they could not live as who they truly were and to educate the common people, because people fear what they see as different, what they cannot understand.
you won’t find the books in that library today. they were burned as part of the nazis’ campaign of terror and censorship. in 1933, 6 years before world war 2 officially broke out, the institut was broken into and looted by the deutsche studentenschaft (aka the german student union). young adults who had spent their formative years surrounded by hateful rhetoric were accompanied by a brass band as they destroyed this oasis of understanding and knowledge. hirschfeld himself had fled germany years before, as he had been targeted numerous times by nationalists/far right “activists”.
berlin once had a thriving queer community. germany was a home to many jews, my own great-grandparents included. my great-grandmother’s younger brother had a learning disability. their home turned on them out of fear and ignorance, the people told by their leaders that other human beings were not really human, but degenerate filth. my great-grandparents escaped with their lives. many– my great-grandma’s brother included– did not.
the concentration camps that imprisoned and killed so many jewish, queer, and/or disabled people (as well as romani and political prisoners, and japanese-americans IN THE USA) are not consigned to the past. our prison system disenfranchises those who are placed in it and uses them for unpaid labor. refugees are caged for daring to hope that our country– the so-called “land of the free”– would take them in when their homes turned on them. indigenous people are ridiculed and attacked for wanting to help our planet heal and for asking to conserve the land that was stolen from their ancestors. almost a hundred years since the holocaust, and we still haven’t learned.
don’t look away from this. it’s not going to blow over. those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and we are already experiencing a resurgence of fascist beliefs and rhetoric.
write to your representatives. VOTE. protest if and when you can. show them that we are HERE and we refuse to be written out of the history books, banned or burned away. we are human beings. we live and love and deserve to do so with dignity.
and if appealing to your humanity isn’t enough, remember this poetic version of a quote by german lutheran pastor martin niemöller, an early nazi collaborator and antisemite who later changed his views and opposed hitler’s oppressive regime:
“first they came for the socialists, and i did not speak out–
because i was not a socialist.
then they came for the trade unionists, and i did not speak out–
because i was not a trade unionist.
then they came for the jews, and i did not speak out–
because i was not a jew.
then they came for me– and there was no one left to speak for me.”
there is always another enemy in fascism. anyone who is different will eventually be a target. white supremacy is poison, and fitting the mold of a “perfect citizen” cannot keep you safe. queer infighting and pushing down people who you find “too weird” will not stop the people who hate all of us. to the far right, we are all wrong to our very cores. solidarity in the face of oppression is the only way to survive, live, and thrive.
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infamousbrad · 6 months
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I was a huge book hoarder as a kid and reading Fahrenheit 451 as a kid gave me the same nightmare three nights running, that the Fire-Men were breaking into my bedroom to burn my books.
And my dad was a WWII veteran steeped in anti-fascist rhetoric from when he was a kid. (The timeline does line up; dad was quite old when I was adopted.) I grew up being taught that "wants to censor books" or "attacks libraries" is all you need to know to understand that someone is some kind of monster, or at least a moral imbecile.
But in the years since then, I've lived to see it happen multiple times: each new generation of wannabe right-wing authoritarians learns that the fastest way to get the proverbial Nice White Parents™ to flip from centrist to right-wing authoritarian is to promise to burn books. Dad failed to warn me, probably because he couldn't understand it himself, that book burning is fucking POPULAR.
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danskjavlarna · 6 months
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"Burning the books of magic." 
Source details and larger version.
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cleolinda · 1 month
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Weekend Links, March 17, 2024
My posts
We have had another Trespasser Weirdness Incident at my house, so. Suffice it to say that the Hot & Vintage Movie Women tournament is my primary coping mechanism at this point, and bless @hotvintagepoll for all their work. All 257 polls are up, although many of them have already closed on a rolling basis these last two weeks. Hedy Lamarr vs Sonja Henie was the very last one, and it is a blowout like I have not seen since the time I asked if people throw away their movie theater trash. I think round 2 starts a week from Monday? I would like to apologize for reblogging every single poll, except that I’m not the least bit sorry. 
I posted propaganda several times--sometimes just because a contestant didn’t have much and I wanted to chip in (still in play: Juanita Moore and Martha Sleeper). But I also showed up specifically for Norma Shearer, Claire Bloom, Tallulah Bankhead, Deborah Kerr, a little bit for Joan Fontaine (poll here), Julie Christie (on my mom’s behalf), Gene Tierney, Paulette Goddard, and Ava Gardner. My loyalties will shift as we see who progresses, but I'm wearing the Ava jersey at this point.
Reblogs of interest
A couple of serious links:
The Jewish filmmakers who won an Oscar for The Zone of Interest, a Holocaust film, used their speech time to condemn what’s happening in Gaza. (It helps to read the quote as “as men who refute {their Jewishness and the Holocaust} being used as justification.” “Refute their Jewishness” jumps out weirdly at first glance and confused people.)
I can’t tell if the JKR defender/Holocaust denier in this ask knows they’re lying or just really didn’t know that transgender health books and surgery did, in fact, exist, and that the Nazis targeted them. If you need photographic evidence for future discussions, here you are. Side note: Don't believe everything your favorite childhood author tells you.
Posts that are not serious links or hot lady polls:
Of course, this week we celebrated the Ides of March. (Happy birthday to... Chocolate Guy Amaury Guichon??) Featuring:
Southern Mark Antony
If Mark Antony was Gen Z
“Oh not you as well, Brutus!”
Also, happy birthday this fine St. Patrick’s Day to Hozier, who was on the Wiggles once, and has a new EP coming out this Friday. Please join me in not being the least bit normal about it. 
The bredlik that the Fairy vs. Walrus debate needed
“Started tone matching my Iraqi corner store guy,” bless everyone involved
A fanfic summary that will hit you like a brick to the face
“Intrigue, Ink, and Drama Grip the Fountain Pen Community”
The Arthur Conan Doyle approach to fic comments
The Kate Middleton Mysteries (”The extent to which this is not Philip Marlowe’s problem is unbelievable”)
Noted power couple/chaos elementals Merchant Ivory
Help improving color in your art
Doggust 2023: the art of Jonathan Wesslund  
Video
Honestly the best part of “I’m Just Ken” at the Oscars for me is Margot Robbie fighting for her life not to laugh
This domino project is honestly really upsetting to me, lmao (THE TIME IT MUST HAVE TAKEN!!)
Death: the bees told her
Puma chirps
A seal’s relaxing ice bath
The sacred texts
The reason we celebrate the Ides of March on Tumblr
Happy birthday to the Old as Balls gifset
A cat’s dating profile
Personal tag of the week
pixel art, because there are some incredible artists on here.
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audley-and-cherry · 4 months
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I feel like we've lost the plot wrt the destruction of books.
Books are destroyed all the time. Thrown out, recycled, covers torn off. They go out of print. There's nothing wrong with any of that.
When books are destroyed as a campaign to terrorize a population or in an attempt to erase knowledge, THAT'S the problem. Books themselves aren't holy, but people are.
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museum-spaces · 7 months
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I am having thoughts about autism and rebellion. I often describe myself as 'a lazy emo' or 'a lazy punk' in that I have the attitude but none of the energy needed to 'look' the part.
And I do think that's accurate, but it also occurred to me that I didn't necessarily 'rebel' in the most obvious ways.
I found a burned book today and it triggered something of a core memory for me. I don't know how old I was but I was in elementary school. I was walking along the beach in my home town when I found the remains of a burned book.
Being raised in Catholic school I knew that burned books were 'morally bad' in the eyes of some of my elders. So, logically, as a little autistic rebel I decided I should read this book. So I took home a scrap of page that had a partial author name and a partial book name on the other side.
My brother helped me google-foo to figure out what it was - this is how I know I was in elementary school. I started actually using computers in high school and had no clue how to figure out what book this was.
Anyway, brother helped me find it, I then got it out of the library. and... well It wasn't /my/ cup of tea. But I kept doing it. I only remember 3 of the books I read this way, but there was lots.
Prey by Michael Crichton [the first one]
Blood Music by Greg Bear [very interesting and very outside of my normal reading habits]
Rick Mercer's The Book [fun political rants from the Rick Mercer report in written form]
The book I found today was a religious novel by Rhonda McKnight called 'secrets and lies' and... well I can tell from the description that I would not like it, and from the scraps I read today that it would aggravate me to read 60+ chapters of it. But... memory unlocked.
I wonder if this is an autism thing. My rebellions were... quiet.
I read during mass, I read burnt books, I went for long walks at 3am - but didn't drink or meet up with friends... I just walked. My rebellions were not internal but neither were they flashy.
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