This lion is a bookworm 🦁 🎀 🐛

Happy summer! I am writing this post while stuck indoors with a cold; it has been raining on and off, with a few surprise sunrays 🤧

Housekeeping 🧹

☝️First, I have some news, as I left everyone in suspense since my last post: I passed my SFI level D Nationella prov1 🥳 My highest score was in the läsa2 component, and the lowest was in the speaking component. This made me want to focus on improving my speaking skills, which means building my confidence and being fearless about making mistakes. I have dutifully noted all the Språkcafé3 meetings in the city in hopes of creating the habit of practicing speaking, but I haven't made it to a single meeting yet. I feel overwhelmed with the need to be around like-minded queers. Does anyone else feel like this?

✌️Second, I have decided to dedicate my time to writing for this newsletter as I halt hosting the monthly in-person bokklubb meetings. It requires a lot of time to research, plan, secure a meeting spot, and ensure I have enough snacks for participants. I want to intentionally plan future meetings and ensure I have the luxury of time and funds to put it all together. Would anyone be interested in virtual bokklubb meetings? Is the newsletter enough? Should I only host meetings seasonally 🌞🍂☃️🌷 (every three months)? Let me know in the poll below.

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Back to basics 🍎✏️

Since I want to be in student mode again, I will share a picturebook from my library.

Mumins Stora Bildordbok | Svenska - English
Tove Jansson
Förlaget, 2023
ISBN 978-952-333-531-8

I got this book from the publisher's booth at Bokmässan4 last year. It is a solid 23.5 x 30 cm book containing 77 delightful pages. Learning starts from the very beginning on the title page. Compared to other alphabet books, what's nice about Mumins Stora Bildordbok is that there is a good balance between vocabulary and grammar, with full sentences here and there.

To view a quick snippet of the pages, watch this reel!

PROMPT

1. Pick a word or two that are new to you, for example, småkryp5 or måttband6

2. Create a character inspired by the word. For example, is the character a 🐜 ? or is the bug a character's enemy? Is the måttband a favorite tool of the character?

3. Draw the character paired with the new word you just learned.

🌻 You can take an online quiz for fun: Which Mumindalen character are you? I got Snusmumriken/ Snufkin 🪕

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Textbooks 🧑‍🏫

For serious studying, I have been referring to a tiny 20-page grammar textbook and a hefty book that feels challenging enough to pick up where I left off with SFI.

Lilla Grammatikhjälpredan
Annika Ursprung
Folkuniversitetets Förlag, 1994
ISBN 978-91-7434-708-1

Svenska för internationella akademiker
Vendela Blomström + Eva Nobel
Studentlitteratur, 2023
ISBN 978-91-44-12958-7

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رف الكتب 📖 recent favorites

Stolen
Anne-Helén Laestadius
Translated from Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles
Bloomsbury, 2023
ISBN 978-1-5266-5999-6

This is a beautiful and heart-wrenching book about a Sámi girl and her reindeer herding community. It is a story that connects the dots and makes it crystal clear that our struggle against colonialism is unified - our fight is the same fight. None of us is free until all of us are free.

I am looking forward to learning more about Sámi culture and literature, which is one of the themes at this year's bokmässan [Sept. 26 - 29 2024].

شرفُ المحاولة: معاركنا الصَّغيرة ضد الرِّقابة
بثينة العيسى
Takween Publishing, 2023
ISBN 978-9921-808-13-1

Writer and bookseller Bothayna Al-Essa shares her role as an activist in this 150-page book. It covers her journey of running a bookstore in Kuwait and stumbling into legal trouble from the watchful eyes of the Ministry of Information's censorship department. It was a battle requiring many players and years to achieve a win 🌟 To get a taste, read this English translation of the chapter7ولادة مكتبة from the book.

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Bokmärke 🔖 notable + on my radar

🏫 Meröppet på Göteborgs folkbibliotek
I found flyers about signing up for additional opening hours (when the library is not staffed) at the public library. You only have to fill out the form and hand it to a librarian. To use the library outside regular hours, tap your card or enter your personnummer and code. With the shorter summertime hours, I think this is a lovely way to keep libraries accessible.

🍉 Archives & Heritage for Palestine Seminar
Dr. Jamila Ghaddar + Tam Rayan, in conversation with susan abulhawa8
Wednesday, July 17, 2024 @ 6 PM CET | 7 PM GMT+3 | Livestream

This session will draw upon articles, books, and quotations from abulhawa’s extensive writing on Palestine to ground a discussion about the role of cultural and memory workers in preserving Palestinian history and identity, in resisting censorship and settler colonial erasure, and advocating against the destruction of cultural heritage materials as a form of genocide and memoricide. Around the world libraries are removing and banning books by Palestinian authors while literary festivals and prizes are rescinding awards and canceling speaking opportunities. Against this censorship, abulhawa’s fearless storytelling is a call for memory institutions to resist the structural silencing of Palestinian voices. This conversation will discuss writing as a means of historical preservation, preserving memory by writing victory into Palestinian future, present and past.