Volume XXXII: Reading, Activism, and the Holiday Season
A gift guide, of sorts
Introduction
Messaging around the holidays is far too often rooted in capitalism—even messaging around spending time with loved ones often relies on gifting. But what if we shifted the energy we exert throughout the season from a place of capitalism to one of activism?
[Dear readers: This issue contains discussion of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.]
For the past few years, we’ve shared a gift guide every November. But this year, amidst the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, we want to focus on the intersection of activism and gifting.
Unfortunately, holiday messaging tends to push aside structural and systemic issues at hand, as if they don’t exist during the season. We see this currently with relation to Palestine—companies that may have said anything in the first place have quickly shifted gears to promote sales. (It’s also no surprise that the “temporary ceasefire” coincided with a weekend so focused on shopping in the attempt to distract individuals from the news at hand.) And even across social media, people have begun to express sentiments around how they wish their feeds would go back to “normal.”
But reading has never been, nor will ever be, apolitical. Capitalism is political. The personal is political. And the ability or desire to separate these is a form of privilege, not a belief or mindset. Our gifting doesn’t have to be separate from our activism, and our holiday season can include protest.
So while we will be featuring recommended reads in this guide, we’ll also be focusing on organizations to support, donations to make, and actions we as individuals can take to help push for a more equitable world—Palestinian freedom and beyond.
A Deeper Look
When we act as conscious shoppers—thinking not only about what would be most meaningful for the recipient, but also taking into consideration environmental impact, social impact, political impact, and more—we’re more likely to spend our money in powerful ways.
What are some examples of gifts that can have a bigger impact?
#FreePalestine
Support Palestinian-owned businesses in your community. Whether purchasing gift cards or treating a loved one to lunch, showing support for a community that is facing increasing Islamophobia and/or anti-Palestinian sentiment is important.
Practice BDS this season. Make sure the companies you are buying gifts from aren’t supporting settler colonialism.
Donate to organizations providing critical care in Gaza and the West Bank in someone’s name.
Purchase books, literary magazines, and more by Palestinian authors. By gifting these to others, you’re making information more accessible.
Of course, continuing to call on our political reps for a ceasefire is urgent, and we encourage any of these actions to be taken in tandem.
Many individuals also look to volunteer around the holiday season. Spend a day phone-banking to encourage individuals to call on their political reps for a ceasefire, look into local Palestinian-led organizations, and more. And if your company offers volunteer days, this is a great way to use them before the year’s end.
Other places working toward change that we can donate to and/or volunteer for:
A politician’s campaign. Do you and a friend share a belief in a certain candidate facing election in 2024? Donate to their campaign in that friend’s name to bolster their chances.
A beloved indie press. Whether a nonprofit or a press running a fundraising campaign, your contribution means they can continue to share the stories your loved one enjoys.
A writer’s newsletter: If there’s a journalist and/or writer they love to follow, gift a subscription on Substack, so that they can support the writer and stay up-to-date on their work.
For ideas on organizations to support and/or donate to in someone’s name, check out our go-to guide.
Books to give
Fiction reads:
Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare: This “debut story collection follows a cast of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese women through a contemporary landscape thick with inherited wisdom and the ghosts of colonization.”
You Exist Too Much: “Follow[s] the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life.”
Another Brooklyn: “Illuminates the formative time when childhood gives way to adulthood—the promise and peril of growing up—and exquisitely renders a powerful, indelible, and fleeting friendship that united four young lives.”
Bellies: “Through a spiral of unforeseen crises—some personal, some professional, some life-altering—Tom and Ming are forced to confront the vastly different shapes their lives have taken since graduating, and each must answer the essential question: Is it worth losing a part of yourself to become who you are?”
Still Life: “With beautiful prose, extraordinary tenderness, and bursts of humor and light, Still Life is a sweeping portrait of unforgettable individuals who come together to make a family, and a deeply drawn celebration of beauty and love in all its forms.”
Writers & Lovers: “Writers & Lovers follows Casey—a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist—in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis.”
The Berry Pickers: “A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain unsolved for nearly fifty years.”
A Safe Girl to Love: “Eleven unique short stories featuring young trans women stumbling through loss, sex, harassment, and love in settings ranging from a rural Mennonite town to a hipster gay bar in Brooklyn.”
Nonfiction recommendations:
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement: “Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.”
Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration: “Oliva focuses on the physical spaces that make up different phases of immigration, looking at how language and opportunity move through each of them: from the river as the waterway that separates the U.S. and Mexico, to the table as the place over which Oliva prepares asylum seekers for their Credible Fear Interviews, and finally, to the wall as the behemoth imposition that runs along America's southernmost border.”
Horse Barbie: A Memoir: “A dazzling testimony from an icon who sits at the center of transgender history and activism, Horse Barbie is a celebratory and universal story of survival, love, and pure joy.”
ACE: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex: “An engaging exploration of what it means to be asexual in a world that's obsessed with sexual attraction, and what the ace perspective can teach all of us about desire and identity.”
Here are more books by Palestinian authors and/or about Palestine to read and gift this season.
*You’ll notice that many of these books are not frontlist titles or from 2023. We strongly believe in the importance of supporting books well beyond their marketing life—this not only better helps bookstores, but also writers!
**We receive a small commission on any purchases made through our Bookshop.org affiliate links. We will be donating these directly towards the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.
As always, we encourage you to purchase these books from your local independent bookstore, instead of Amazon. If your local indie doesn’t offer gift cards or you can’t purchase directly through them, Bookshop.org is an alternative (but definitely try to go directly through your indie first—they make a larger profit that way, and more immediately). And if your gift recipient loves audiobooks, Libro.fm is an alternative to Amazon’s Audible—and profits are shared with independent bookstores.
Final Musings
Despite calls online and beyond for “normalcy,” activism in the bookish space is creating and has led to change. Authors, readers, and more have established a unifying call within publishing and beyond time and time again. And we’ve seen it pay off—even if not immediate. We can’t underestimate the power we as a collective unit have, nor the power we as individuals have. And the longer we sustain that activism, the more powerful it grows. We’ve seen this in real time with the media’s messaging around Palestinian freedom, and as more polls demonstrate support for said freedom.
(A friendly reminder that between our activism, busyness, and the emotions the holiday season can bring, taking care of ourselves is important. Rest is a privilege, as well as being essential for sustaining activism. Reading can play a powerful role in benefiting our mental health—in fact a UK study found that 28% of non-readers were more likely to experience feelings of depression than readers.)
We’ll be back in a few weeks with a deep dive into a recent read. In the meantime, make sure to check out our free downloads (wallpapers, templates, and more), and our exclusive downloads for newsletter subscribers (with password newsletterdownloads). If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, don’t hesitate to get in touch via email, the comments below, or Instagram DM.
Xx,
ad astra
Thank you so much for this ❤️