#autobiography

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finished reading Permanent record by Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden, Esther Cruz Santaella: Permanent record (2019, Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company) 5 stars

Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass …

You know that moment when a book hits differently because reality catches up with its message? That's Permanent Record for you. Back in 2019, I devoured Snowden's autobiography.

Fast forward to today's mass exodus from privacy-nightmare platforms, and suddenly this book feels less like a memoir and more like a prophet's handbook. Snowden doesn't just spill government tea – he breaks down how our digital breadcrumbs become someone else's breakfast buffet.

It is a good, interesting and easy read, but even if it wasn't: Snowden sacrificed his normal life to tell us all this stuff, the least we can do is read about it while we still have enough privacy left to do so without someone logging our page turns.

#books #EdwardSnowden #autobiography #privacy

Australian author Richard Flanagan rejects $97,000 in prize money due to fossil fuel investment
By Hannah Story

Richard Flanagan has won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, but he's declined to accept the prize money until its sponsors make a plan to divest from fossil fuels.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-20/richard-flanagan-baillie-gifford-prize-for-non-fiction/104623462

“The Bell Rock stands monument for my grandfather; the Skerry Vohr for my Uncle Alan; and when the lights come out at sundown along the shores of Scotland, I am proud to think they burn more brightly for the genius of my father.”

—From Robert Louis Stevenson’s unfinished autobiography MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF (Philadelphia 1912), online via the Hathi Trust

2/3

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t7mp5z00p&view=1up&seq=9

Gay in the bad ol' days

3 stars

Growing up #gay in an all-boys Catholic school in 70s Australia, then straight into the horrific tragedy of the #AIDS epidemic. Lots of explicit sex. Jesuit priests surprisingly supportive. Lost my attention part way through - got a bit then-this-happened. Thankful we provided a supportive medical system for AIDS victims.

Reading time 9 days, 32 pages/day

#AutoBiography #Biography

reviewed Account Rendered by Melita Maschmann

Melita Maschmann: Account Rendered (Paperback, 2016, Plunkett Lake Press) 4 stars

A cog in the Nazi machine

4 stars

Autobiography of a woman who was a committed & diligent National Socialist (#Nazi), of her experience in youth work & propaganda, and her journey coming to terms with the truth of what she participated in. Description of the clinical dispossession of the Poles is disturbing (and new to me), as is the readiness with which everyday mediocre people were led into misguided beliefs, alternative facts & constrained thinking, to do prosaic work with horrifyingly evil outcomes.

Reading time 11 days, 26 pages/day

#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #BookWyrm #Autobiography #Biography #Nazism #WorldWar2 #WW2