the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt five)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

The sun had set by the time we got on our bikes. We took the scenic route back, the wind biting our cheeks. It started to rain softly and the lights of lampposts blurred in front of us. We passed many neighborhoods, a tour of our various years in the city: the year we moved, the year we had no friends and went to every museum, the year we met Ravi and ate out with him almost daily.

That night, when we’d changed for bed and Manu set on the floor rolling a joint, I could barely recall anything from the brunch.

Did you have a good day? I asked.

Great, he said. I loved our ride back.

It might go on my list—the scenic bike ride. But I didn’t know whether it was sturdy enough to stand its ground, the two of us biking around a foreign city.

the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt four)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

Tereza called to ask whether we would like to come with her to a concert; she had extra tickets from a charity she had been a member of for years. The program was Brahms and Dvořák and Paganini, she said, none of which sounded very interesting to us. We told her we’d be happy to go.

the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt three)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

The following morning when Sara woke up, Manu and I were already in the living room, drinking coffee. It pleased me that Sara felt comfortable enough to sleep in. Somehow this seemed like a sign that our lives were real.

the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt two)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

She had been married and divorced three times. I knew this because Ravi and I had fetched out every item of personal history we could from the internet, and photos of the Dame as a young woman, looking fierce and intelligent, even at the risk of eclipsing her beauty. Years ago, she’d made a documentary about a group of women—artists, cooks, socialites, pigeon-feeders—whom she filmed in their bedrooms and studios and on the street. I loved this film, its humor and stubbornness. The way it didn’t smooth out the women’s madness. There were scenes of the object cluttering their homes, slow shots of their thickened hands, their creased faces like lines of a poem. On-screen, the women were restored to a state of dignity that might have been refused them in their lives. I had always thought that the film was a kind of self-portrait, a collage of what the Dame valued in herself and how she wanted to be seen.

the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt one)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

I mumbled in agreement, because I didn’t want her to think I was strange. This was a fear of mine: that my family would think I was becoming a stranger.

Instead, I told my grandmother I had a photograph of her on my desk. The one of her reading under a tree.

I was sixteen years old, she said. I was the best writer in class. No one could write an essay like I did. And I was awarded a prize for my singing.

She sighed, meaning that she had wasted her life.

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt fourteen)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

The 6 November meeting of the Revolutionary Council is the flame that ignites the tinderbox the country seems set atop. Prime Minister Pinheiro de Azevedo demands action that allows him to govern under the current state of anarchy that prevails in Lisbon. One of the decisions taken that evening, then, is to silence the bombastic and provocative Rádio Renascença once and for all. At 04:30 on 7 November, under orders of the chief of staff of the Air Force, Morais da Silva, a squad of paratroopers and police sets off a bomb against the antennae of the occupied radio station, taking it off the air. The action sets off a wave of protests among the increasingly politicised and radicalised paratroopers who, since their involvement in 11 March, have veered progressively more to the left, and feel once again as though they are being tricked, used as fodder for reactionary aims. On 8 November, General Morais da Silva and Vasco Lourenço visit Tancos to try and justify the action and calm the paratrooper regiment, but the meeting is disastrous–a soldier takes the microphone and calls the general ‘bourgeois’, and there is a mass walkout to a parallel meeting. It’s an embarrassing display of insubordination that leads Vasco Lourenço to turn to his colleague and state, ‘I’m never coming anywhere with you again.’ That very day, in protest at the level of discipline in the lower ranks, 123 officers walk out of the Tancos Paratrooper School and leave it under the command of sergeants and privates. Soon after, the occupants of the school pass a motion repudiating the bombing of Renascença. On 11 November, two of those sergeants arrive at the COPCON headquarters and offer their units to Otelo, in exchange for COPCON’s support in the paratroopers’ struggle. Otelo agrees; soon after, there is a confrontation between the COPCON commander and the Air Force chief of staff, when Morais e Selva begins the process of dissolving the paratrooper units altogether.

the last book I ever read (The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell, excerpt thirteen)

from The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes:

Much as with both 25 April and 28 September, the power of radio proves decisive in shaping the day. As the details of the coup attempt become known, Rádio Renascença–a station whose workers had been on strike for twenty-two days–breaks its silence and opens up its frequencies to Rádio Clube Português–and there is an immediate appeal to the population to mobilise. Colonel João Varela Gomes, through his role at the head of the 5th Division, breaks protocol and also begins calling for mass mobilisations through the radio. It’s partly due to this that by the time the paratroopers surrender to RAL1, the area outside the artillery compound is surrounded by vocal members of the population, chanting ‘The people are not with you’ and convincing the soldiers that they’re on the wrong side. And just like the last coup attempt, barricades go up on the outskirts of Lisbon, set up by civilians hoping to stop any units that might be on their way to the capital. In Tancos, Spínola realises, as late afternoon rolls around, that his knowledge of what forces he had on the ground was mistaken–his coup has failed. The general, defeated, bundles his family and numerous officers into helicopters and makes a swift escape to Spain. Other conspirators make their way to the Spanish border by car, or are otherwise detained by COPCON forces, or hand themselves in. In the latter case, Major Mensurado, commander of the paratrooper units that laid siege to RAL1, leaves his men licking their wounds after their surrender and travels to COPCON. It’s abundantly clear that the paratrooper regiments were tricked–they had been sent to RAL1 on the false information that the unit was involved in a vast conspiracy of left-wing slaughter, and did so believing the orders were being sent through the proper channels, through the chiefs of staff and even General Costa Gomes himself.