SchwaKi (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte) in glass?

1984 used to be banned on the other side of the Iron Curtain for obvious reason: readers immediately recognized striking similarity of fiction with their own lives.

People would smuggle the book from the West and distribute makeshift typewriter copies of it among like-minded friends nevertheless.

1984. I grew up in a communist dictatorship and even tho the regime fell when I was a teen, events and characters in the book were all too plausible. The eerie feeling of "it will happen again, any day" was very real. I used to have nightmares featuring the scenes from the book for many years.

Wir haben die Eier 🥚

Shamelessness is their superpower

There is a popular German book called "Latein für Angeber" (translation: "Latin for Pretenders") that contains a lot of phrases just like this one, that come in handy when you want to show off 🤓 But I doubt Elmo is reading books.

🧀 fondue ftw

'The Undertow' was the last book I ordered in 2023 from Book Depository before it closed down for good 😞 Unexpectedly, not only the martyrs of Trumpocene, but also ... spoiler alert ... Harry Belafonte is in it. Daaay-O 😆

Oh yeah, the infamous Citizen Councils🤢 Which is why I disliked reading Go Set a Watchman, the sequel of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee because in the book, it turned out that Atticus Finch was a member of one.

It was even made into a feature film: www.imdb.com/title/tt1442... (2009, I feel old out of a sudden 😬)

I loved L'Élégance du hérisson 🦔 by Muriel Barbery (novel, not a memoir). Features a grumpy concierge, a shy but super-smart teen of approximately that age and Ozu-san, a Japanese neighbour.

I sense some strong George Smiley vibes 🕵️

"Dying of Whiteness" by @jonathanmetzl.bsky.social focuses on 3 areas: healthcare, gun laws, and education and shows on many examples how white folks rather be sick and uneducated themselves to make sure that (non-white) folks they view as undeserving don't benefit from policies that help everyone.