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We've Always Been Queer

The podcast is Books That Burn because the original idea was "books that burn you", discussing fictional depictions of trauma. It's also an intentional reminder of the pile of burning books, you know the photo I mean, the one from WWII. It's a pile of books about queerness, gender, and sexuality. Just in case you don't know, the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) was headed by Magnus Hirschfeld.  It was a resource for gay, intersex, and transgender people, both of knowledge and medical help. It also helped the community with addiction treatment and contraception. It wasn't perfect and some of the ideas they had seem out of date now, the ones we know about anyway. But they were trying to make queer people's lives better, and they were a community resource at a time when people really needed it. Which is all the time, we always need these accesses. And the Nazis burned the whole library. It took days, they had to drag the books ou

Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day by Seanan McGuire

Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day is a love letter to life through talking about death. A ghost working towards her dying day by helping others, a few minutes at a time. Full of care for people and places; calm and haunting.

It's about death and suicide from the perspective of a ghost who's slowly earning her way to passing on after dying too soon. I like this version of ghosts and witches and I appreciate the way it cares about cities and small towns in different ways. It's a pretty short book so avoiding spoilers is tricky, but it builds a really complete world with just a few locations and a minimal cast of characters. It deals heavily with themes of suicide and death, so please take care of yourselves.

CW for suicide, death, imprisonment.

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Golden cornfields superimposed over a faint city skyline

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