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Author And Social Rights Advocate Su J. Sokol’s Top Fifteen Favorite Songs Of All Time

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When reviewing Su J. Sokol’s Cycling to Asylum, Stereo Embers’ Rebecca Eckland wrote:

Cycling To Asylum is a book which argues both for and against the existence of borders…the mechanism that keeps borders in place…those invisible lines that mark landscape, bodies and even, ideas. And it’s as much about freedom as it is about how that freedom is found. In the case of this book, it’s found on a bicycle and it’s found in the hard-fought moments of a physical and emotional journey. Written with honesty, aching precision and tons of heart, Cycling To Asylum serves as a reminder that borders can become dangerous, but only if we let them. It also stresses that we should be singing a song of hope for a world that still has bicycles in it, because—to borrow from the book’s epigraph by H.G. Wells: “When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.”

Born in Brooklyn, Sokol studied law and philosophy at university before embarking on a career as a community lawyer who specializes in housing. The avid cycler and social rights advocate now calls Montreal home.

Cycling To Asylum is her first novel.

Visit her here:

Sokol was happy to accept our challenge to name her top ten favorite songs of all time. But, she confessed, “I could not get it down to 10, so I did 15 instead.”

She added: “Making this list was a lot of fun. I tried to include songs from different eras. You may notice some similar themes; in fact, there is a way in which almost all of these songs connect to my writing. Well, I guess that makes sense…”

Ten (oops, Fifteen) Favorite Songs

“Scarborough Fair/Canticle” (Simon & Garfunkel, 1968, “Scarborough Fair” is from Middle Ages and Canticle based on Simon’s 1963 anti-war song “The Side of a Hill”)

“Big Yellow Taxi” (Joni Mitchell, 1970)

“Find the Cost of Freedom” (Crosby Stills Nash & Young, 1971)

 

 

“Wish You Were Here” (Pink Floyd, 1975)

“Planet Claire” (The B-52’s, 1979)

“Talkin ‘bout a Revolution” (Tracy Chapman 1988

“Bed are Burning” (Midnight Oil 1988)

“Wonderwall” (Oasis, 1995)

 

 

“Clandestino” (Manu Chao, 1998)

“I Can See the New View” (Lisa Otay, 2001)

“Alors on danse” (Stromae, 2009/2010)

 

 

“Utopia/Dystopia” (Yacht, 2011)

“Paradise” (Coldplay, 2011)

“From Finner”(Of Monsters and Men, 2012)

“Contre la loi speciale” (Ariane Moffat, 2012)

Of this last number, Sokol writes: This song is about the student strike that inspired my first piece of published fiction, a story I wrote in the spring/summer of 2012 entitled “Je me souviens.” It was published by a cyber-magazine called The Future Fire. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYKCwfoCqvw