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Aoife Martin: There’s something magical about swimming. I float there, looking up at the blue sky
Our columnist writes about her love of swimming, the issues that caused her to walk away from it, and her will to dive back in. By Aoife Martin Thursday 28 Jan 2021, 7:00 AM Jan 28th 2021, 7:00 AM 21,017 Views 0 Comments Aoife Martin
SOME TIME AGO someone on Twitter asked trans people what they would do if cis people didn’t exist for a week. The replies were remarkable for their mundanity and ordinariness.
I don’t mean that as an insult, I just mean that the commonplace everyday things that most people take for granted are often difficult for many trans people: going out in public, trying on a dress, using a public bathroom, buying makeup,
âKindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Artâ by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Rebecca Wragg Sykes argues that weâve spent too much time studying the way Neanderthals interacted with Homo Sapiens and too little studying the way Neanderthals interacted with each other. So she tells us how they lived, treating them not as one of evolutionâs failures but as our close behavioral cousins.
âThe fate of the Neanderthals has monopolised enormous amounts of attention,â she writes, âyet it may be the least interesting thing about them.â
âAn Outsiderâs Guide to Humans: What Science Taught Me About What We Do and Who We Areâ
Barbara Demick’s
Nothing to Envy, which she describes as “a gripping examination of the so-called hermit kingdom through the voices of six defectors.” In
Eat the Buddha, Demick uses that same ability to turn out a “fair and measured narrative” to Tibet. “This time, she’s pieced together stories told by Tibetans from Ngaba County in China to shed light on the struggles that have taken place since China occupied Tibet [in 1950],” Rajesh explains. “Tracing and tracking down hundreds of eyewitnesses to events between 1958 to present day, she has conducted exhaustive interviews that allow her to recreate everything from the smell of burning villages and the screams of tortured grandparents to softer moments of salty yak butter glistening in tea.” Rajesh, who also visited Tibet by train for her own book, appreciated Demick’s even-handed approach. “We see the raw untouched land pre-invasion and witness the destruction of the natural surroundings as time goes o