The Lover's Dictionary

As promised, I'm back and this time with a book recommendation/review. I stumbled across one of my old books while cleaning up and decided to reread it. So, let's talk about The Lover's Dictionary.

Source: www.goodreads.com

The Book

The Lover's dictionary is the first novel aimed at adults by David Levithan. It is a love story told entirely through dictionary entries. The entries are arranged alphabetically and therefore in no chronological order. They are, however, linked and tell a quite realistic modern age love story. Each of the entries contains a short comment or scene told from the narrator's point of view.

The Lover's Dictionary is written in the second person. The reader gets adressed with "you", which makes it a lot easier to get absorbed in the story. It also makes it easier for the author to keep the novel gender neutral. Neither the gender of the narrator nor of his/her beloved gets revealed. In the whole book, there is no clear indication for their names, genders, appearances or sexual preferences. It could tell the story of a straight couple as well as two men or women. Which leads me to my next point: Levithan's works usually deal with the topic of sexual identity and homosexuality. He himself admitted to being gay and he is a strong advocate of gay right.

As the books only consists of short, loosely connected entries there are many parts of the story left open. This still leaves a lot for the reader's own imagination. Not to mention that almost everybody can picture themselves as part of the book as there is so little given away about the characters backgrounds.

Source: randombookishramblings.blogspot.co.at

The Author

David Levithan is a popular American author of young-adult fiction. His most famous work must be Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which was also made into a film, although his other works are mostly well known as well. His books usually revolve around one or more gay characters or he simply does not give away their gender at all.

Most of his books deal with the topic of homosexuality as it concerns him directly. As already stated above, he himself is gay and strongly advocates gay rights. In his books, he usually wants to show the reader that love is just love without regard to anybody's gender. In Every Day for example, the main character is a bodiless being that borrows other peoples' bodies for a day. One day, he/she falls in love with the girlfriend of one of the borrowed bodies. So, he/she tries to find her again every day in that day's body: be it a girl or a boy or anything in between. The message of that book is obviously that true love has no boundaries and knowns no gender, age or appearance.

My Opinion on the Book

I only picked up The Lover's Dictionary because I saw it on a pile of books for sale while browsing a store a while ago. I had already heard of the book before but I hadn't really had the intention to read it. I bought it anyways and was surprised by how good it was. David Levithan actually manages to tell the story of a relationship with many ups and downs while only giving away minimal information about the couple. 

I was a bit skeptical in the beginning because telling a story while basically having the reader read between the lines throughout the whole books seems like a really hard task to archive. I can't even be content with what I'm writing and that's just normal prose. So naturally, I had my doubts. It turned out as a positive surprise though. Now, it's one of my favourite books. 

The only thing that fools you is the thickness of the book. The Lover's Dictionary is actually a pretty quick read. Sure, it does have over 200 pages, but there is hardly ever more than of the page filled. Sometimes, it's even just a few words.

Source: djamesauthor.blogspot.co.at

If you want to find out more about David Levithan or his work, I'll put some links below.
Click here to get to his website.
This link will lead you to his twitter.


So, I hope you enjoyed today's post. I'm off to bed. Bye!

Humans Of New York

New York City is one of the biggest cities in whole world. It is along with London the only city categorized as an A++ city. It is a city of migration, a symbol for the American Melting Pot. Barely any other city has such a huge number of inhabitants from different cultural and social backgrounds. So, have you ever wondered what the people living there are like? I can show you a way to figure that out without even having to leave your room. 

Humans of New York is a tumblr photography blog. Its owner tours through New York City every day and takes pictures of people he meets on the streets. He also has short conversations with them. He later posts the photos on the blog along with snippets of their conversations – something he found interesting in them.

The blog was launched in 2010 by Brandon Stanton. He had worked as a bond trader at Gambit Trading LLC in Chicago until he lost his job in July 2010. Subsequently he decided to move to New York, where he started taking pictures. Originally, he wanted to turn his hobby into his profession and become a photographer. After starting to take random pictures of people on the streets, he however realized that dream differently than planned. He began to put the pictures on a map of the city and started to blog about it. He started to have short conversations with them, however, and found out that many of them had something interesting to tell. So, he put quotes from their conversations below the pictures, which received a great response on their Facebook page. That's the way it has been until today.

Today, the HONY facebook page has over 11 million followers and the tumblr blog has over 400,000. In 2013, the first book based on the blog has been released and was highly successful. It reached number 1 position on The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Sellers of 2013 list. In 2014, it was followed by Little Humans, which focuses on the children of New York.

The pictures were not only taken in New York, however. Stanton also took various journeys around the world and blogged about the people he met along the way. In 2012, he spent two weeks in Iran. In April 2013, after the Boston Marathon bombings, he traveled in said city and interviewed people there. This year, in 2014, he did a 50 day "World Tour" into 12 different countries. These counties included Iraq, Jordan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Ukraine, India, Nepal, Vietnam and Mexico.

As usual, I put together some links. Check them out below!

http://www.humansofnewyork.com

https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork

http://instagram.com/humansofny

#BlackLivesMatter

Even though it's christmas time right now and I probably should write about cookies and christmas traditions and hideous sweaters, I'm about to make a post about the #BlackLivesMatter movement. I already talked about some of the many protests going on this year, so this is practically a follow up post. Also, this is super relevant right now as they held a huge protest in the Mall Of America over the weekend. But I'll come back to that later.

Source: blacklivesmatter.com

What is #BlackLivesMatter?

#BlackLivesMatter is an American black civil rights movements. It was created in 2012 after the black teenager Trayvon Martin was shot by the neighbourhood watch coordinator of the gated community the high school student was temporary living in. George Zimmerman, Martin's murderer, was charged for second degree murder and manslaughter but walked free in the end. (more information about the case). The aquittal sparked off lots of rage and a huge controversy. Subsequently, #BlackLivesMatter was formed.

#BlackLivesMatter in 2014

This year the movement was especially active as there have been three highly controversial murders of black men in 2014. All of them led to mass protests all around the world. To clear things up a bit, I'll try to shortly introduce the cases to you. I'm sure you've heard all of their names before: Mike Brown, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner.

Mike Brown's case has to be the most famous and discussed this year. The 18-year-old was shot back in August by a police officer in Ferguson, MO. His indiction sparked off huge protests and riots not only in his hometown but also in the rest of the world (e.g. New York, Peking).

"Hands up! Don't shoot!"

Source: blacklivesmatter.com

Tamir Rice was the second reported victim of a white police officer this year. The 12-year-old got shot for playing with a BB gun in Cleveland, OH about a month ago in November. This case was especially disputed not only because of the victims young age but also because of a later publiziated emergency call. In said call it was stated that the gun was "probably fake".

Source: www.cleveland.com

Lastly, Eric Garner: The 43 year old father of six was strangeld by a policeman in New York back in July. The policemen wanted to arrest him for allegedly selling single cigarettes. One of the policemen used a chokehold on him, which is a violation of the New York City Police Department policy. He died after stating that he couldn't breath for eleven times. 

"I can't breath!"

Source: www.nydailynews.com

None of the above perpetrators were indicted, which enraged the public even more. This does not mean that they were acquitted (set free), but that they were not even charged of a crime. 

Christmas Demonstration in the Mall Of America 

A few days ago, on December 20th, 2014 #BlackLivesMatter protestors filled the Mall Of America. About 10 minutes in the Mall Of America announced that the demonstration was not authorized and requested the protestors to leave. Most of them did so after about half an hour peacefully while others took to the shopping area, occupying several levels and staging a small die-in. The demonstrators shut down parts of the mall. While still being inside the mall, the protestors were chanting various slogans such as  "While you're on shopping spree, black people cannot breath!" and "No justice, no peace".

Check out a video of it below:

If you want to find out more about the movement, there's a link to their website below: http://blacklivesmatter.com

And to finish this off and maybe make you smile, here's Trevor Noah talking about the current situation in America:

And the fire obviously caught...

Here's just a little update to my last post. It's a link I just found and I thinks it's perfect for showing how many protests there have been in the States after the announcement of the grand jury's decision. I put it below. Check it out if you want to!

"13 Photos Show Tonight's Protests across America"

"Fire is Catching!

...If we burn, you burn with us!"
-Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

If you opened up one of your social media accounts recently, chances are you saw something about one of the many protest and riots happening. There are so many lately, that you could easily loose track of them. So I decided to try and make a short summary of what gets people on the streets currently.

#Ferguson

Protest flared again at the beginning of this week after it went public that Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot 18 years old, black and unarmed Michael Brown back in August, will not be indicted.

The fact that the decision was made by a St Louis County grand jury, consisting of 9 Caucasian members and 3 African-American members, fueled the protestors' outrage even more. There have been various protests and clashes with the police for the last few days in Ferguson right after the announcement by St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch. The protest, however, did not restrict to Ferguson. In many other American cities – including New York and Los Angeles – people took to the street as well.

Source: www.nytimes.com/

#Mexico

After the disappearance of 43 male students on September 26th, 2014 there have already been many protest throughout Mexico. The students are believed to have been kidnapped by corrupt police members and handed over to one of Mexico's many criminal gangs. The drug gang probably killed and burned them in a pyre of wood and tires.

The angry citizens want President Enrique Peña Nieto to resign, since the whole case shows the corruption of the country. Especially since the mayor of Iguala, where the students went missing, is alleged to have had ties to said drug gang since he assumed office.

Last Thursday more protests fell on the same date as celebration day for the 1910-17 Revolution and papers have already called the protests the new Mexican revolution.

Source:america.aljazeera.com

#London

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November...

On November 5th 2014, Guy Fawkes Day, thousands of activists and protestors gathered in London to join the annual Million Mask March in London. The protestors including Russell Brand marched through the city, many of them wearing Guy Fawkes masks. They started at the Parliament Square and made their way towards other locations such as Buckingham Palace and BBC's central studios.

The police presence was enormous. At least five people were arrested during a standoff with the police, but all in all the march went quite peacefully.

Source: www.ibtimes.co.uk

#Hong Kong

Yesterday, on November 26th, 2014, parts of the streets in Hong Kong were cleared by authorities. The streets have been blocked by thousands of protestors for the last two months, when the "Umbrella Movement" started.

It all started back in September when Beijing refused to allow universal suffrage* in 2017 in Hong Kong. The decision was followed by groups of activists camping outside the Hong Kong Government headquarters and masses of demonstrators blocking the main roads. Their demand: reform the democracy.

The protests have been on-going for the past two months. They have, however, been loosing steam. Yesterdays clearance and the arrests of about 100 people including student leader Joshua Wong is believed to reinvigorate.

*universal suffrage: every adult is allowed to vote

Source: www.bloomberg.com

#France

Last month there have been protests against the building of a controversial dam near Toulouse. The dam should be built on the cost of 40ha of forest and will mainly benefit some industrial farmers.

During a protest on the 25th of October one of the activists, Remi Fraisse, was killed. The 21-year-old was hit by a so-callled 'offensive grenade' by the police and died immediately. His death fueled the civil unrest even more. In the following days numerous protests and marches took place and the civil unrest continues on.

I hope this could give you a better overview of what's going on in the world right now. See you soon!