Educated

 

Educated by Tara Westover
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the most unique memoirs I've read. Westover gives a candid account of growing up in unusual circumstances, and does so knowing its distinctiveness yet not downplaying or exaggerating its difference. So many crazy things happen, but she also leaves room for movement in her own memory, letting us know how others there remember it differently. Her accomplishments are amazing especially when she recounts the things she did not know--not only facts but how to study or how to interact with other students. It is only as she gets older that the memoir feels less authentic somehow. The actions of her parents are puzzling and Westover doesn't seem to give any theories about their motivations. Did they believe her brother because he is a male, or because they need him for the business, or because he never left? Does she not understand the reasons either or is there something she's not telling us?

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The past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time.  It expands later, & thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past--Virginia Woolf

Our lives were a cycle--the cycle of the seasons--circles of perpetual change that, when complete, meant nothing had changed at all.

But Shawn had more power over me than I could possibly have imagined.  He had defined me to myself, and there's no greater power than that. 

"The wind is just the wind.  You could withstand these gusts on the ground, so you can withstand them in the air.  There is no difference.  Except the difference you make in your mind."

"You are not fool's gold, shining only under a particular light.  Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were.  It was always you.  Not in Cambridge.  In you.  You are gold.  And returning to BYU, or even to that mountain you came from, will not change who you are.  It may change how others see you, it may even change how you see yourself--even gold appears dull in some lights--but that is an illusion.  And it always was."

I know only this: that when my mother told me she had not been the mother to me that she wished she had been, she became that mother for the first time.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway

 

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes the marketing gets in the way of the novel. All the blurbs I read compared this to du Maurier's Rebecca, which I optimistically presumed would include all of the beautiful atmospheric descriptions in du Maurier's work, with the suspense nearly jumping off the page in those descriptions of whirling leaves and dark, locked passages. So this is probably a better novel than I give it credit for, because it is not that. It is a mystery using the same building blocks as Rebecca , in new formations and a different ending. It is modernized and unique and has a few unexpected twists and turns. So if you go into it with the right mindset, it would be an entertaining read--I just couldn't help feeling a little hoodwinked.

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in that moment that you turn your head to look for the second magpie, in the hope of changing your fortune from sorrow to joy--that's when you take your attention away from the things you can change, the crossing light, the speeding car, the moment you should have turned back.

When they gave themselves over to superstition, they were giving up on shaping their own destiny.

Hollywood Park

Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was a fan of The Airborne Toxic Event before I started reading this, and this just made me love them more. Jollet tells the story of his life in an amazingly self-aware and candid manner. His story about growing up in and escaping from a cult could be sensational enough, but also dealing with the aftermath of what the separation from his parents did to both him, his brother, and his parents and how they deal with it is compelling. Jollet is a gifted song-writer and his prose doesn't disappoint. The fact that he was able to shape his story into a satisfying, revealing narrative makes this one of the best memoirs I've read.

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It's a strange word, F-A-M-I-L-Y.  It's big and comforting and each letter is different. Just look at it.  The F is for father right there at the front.  The M for mother is in the middle, connecting all the others.  It's a long word but usually people say it in one breath, like "famly" as if the I doesn't matter.  Without the F it's just an "ambly," a thing that ambles around from place to place.  Without the M it's just a "Fably"which is a story about something that does not exist. 

That's probably why we put people in containers when they die: coffins, urns, mausoleums--to give physical shape to the absence.

 

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was just what I needed after reading some rather heavy stuff lately. It is a smart, creative "re-telling" of Rumpelstiltskin. When I say, re-telling, what I mean is Novik simply uses the basic concepts as a jumping off point for a whole new fantasy. There is an underpinning theme about climate change and capitalism, but what I loved were the clever, strong, and determined women who refused to let circumstances dictate their choices, but to act and then act again, always searching for ways to solve problems or change their predicaments. Sometimes their actions did not result in ideal solutions, but they kept preserving, and by continuing to act they were led to a satisfactory ending. A great female-driven fantasy.

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Just Us

 

Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book points out several ways microagressions are perpetrated from whites to blacks, and their ensuing hurt, and it is eye-opening and humbling. However, this book is not a conversation. It is Rankine pointing out these offenses in essays that she then gives to the offender to respond to. These are mostly people she is friends with, and who are trying to be actively non-racist. And although she receives several different types of replies, her response is always to find more offenses, even in the friend who chose not to reply at all. Once again I am left wondering if there is anything I can do as a white person that won't cause offense somehow--or maybe that is the message--that I can't. What I would love to read is ways we can extend grace, forgiveness, and understanding across all cultural and racial boundaries.

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"James Baldwin Discusses the Problem of Being White in America" (1985);  "When Americans say change in the generality, they really mean progress.  And when they say progress, they really mean--and they don't know they mean this--they really mean how quickly and to what extent and how profoundly a black person becomes white.  They take themselves quite helplessly as the only possible model of what they call change."

Homi Bhabha from The Location of Culture, in conversation with Toni Morrison: "Remembering is never a quiet act of introspection or retrospection.  It is a painful re-membering, a putting together of the dismembered past to make sense of the trauma of the present."

My Absolute Darling

My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow. This was so complex, so painstakingly viewed from every angle. This is about an abusive relationship, so it isn't an easy read, and I did almost quit reading it at one point early on. I kept wondering if Tallent didn't need to recount so much detail. But I think this is the most real, most complex telling of what it is like in an abusive relationship, that I don't think he could have told it in any other way. Turtle is definitely one of a kind. Perhaps the most unbelievable things about her--her survival and shooting skills--makes her one of the most interesting subjects. How can she know so much about defending herself, surviving by herself, and still allow herself to be subjugated? Tallent also knows how to pace through the book, turning her adventures with her new-found friends into welcome respites. Also, I loved watching Turtle slowly gain confidence and self-worth. Nothing rarely works out like you think it should, but it ended with me reading far into the night (and I don't normally do that).

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so I trespass again to see if he will again do something so bad; it is a way to see if I am right to hate him.

The Golden House

 

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While the plot is not as propulsive as it sets itself up to be (countless," but we could not foresee the damage it would cause", etc.) and there are a thousand references to books and movies that I think only a movie nut would know, the writing is so good that you read it just to keep consuming the sentences. There is something ineffable in Rushdie's writing--I can't tell you why it is so good. It is neither particularly poetic or uniquely creative; it just flows along in long sentences that glide like honey. There is a lot of mediation about what identity actually means in this day and age--can we choose it, it is chosen for us, can we change it, is it all about perception? Having an aspiring film maker tell it is genius too, because don't we all view our lives and those around us as being the subject of our own special film--we edit and revise to let the situation suit us. I've never read Rushdie before, but I will seek him out now.

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"If you use that it opens de third eye in your pineal gland in de center of your forehead and you become clairvoyant and few secrets can be kept from you".   "Then why have you never used it," I asked.  "Because a world vissout mystery its like a picture with no showdown," he said.  "By seeing too much it shows you nossing."

A name is nothing, it's a handle, as they say here, just a way of opening a door.

Construction work was the art of making the city become aware of itself as a fragile organism at the mercy of forces against which there was no appeal.

When Breath Becomes Air

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this a few years ago, but somehow did not add it to my list. Re-reading it again now, I am struck again with Kalanithi's insights into life and death. Throughout his life, Kalanithi seeks for understanding about life, and wants to make a difference. He uses language, reading and writing, and he uses medicine, as a surgeon. When he finds out about his cancer he struggles to know how to spend his remaining time. His love for his wife and daughter remind us that the relationships we make here are really the best way for us to understand life and create a future.

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formaldehyde is a powerful appetite stimulant

Cadavers reverse the polarity.  The mannequins you pretend are real, the cadavers you pretend are fake.

Prosopagnosia is a neurological disorder wherein one loses the ability to see faces.  Pretty soon I would have it hacksaw in hand.

we were all silently apologizing to our cadavers, not because we sensed the transgression but because we did not.

All of medicine, not just cadaver dissection, trespasses into sacred spheres.  Doctors invade the body in every way imaginable.

What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?

I began to suspect that being so close to the fiery light of such moments only blinded me to their nature, like trying to learn astronomy by staring directly at the sun.

When there's no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon's only tool.

The root of disaster means a star coming apart

A tureen of tragedy was best allotted by the spoonful

What kind of life exists without language?

the defining characteristic of the organism is striving.

The Island of Sea Women

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A great historical fiction read. I loved reading about this female focused community on the island of Jeju off Korea. From the details of diving, to the spiritual ceremonies, to the atrocities that occurred after WWII, historical details are beautifully woven into the story. The main character, Young-sook, is well-developed and through her we experience her joy and escape in diving, the responsibility and pride she feels as a diver, and the complexities she experiences in her relationships. The diving, the rubbings her friend and her do to memoralize events in their life, and their belief in messages from the dead all cumulate to emphasize the importance of looking at things more deeply to find peace and forgiveness.

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Human Croquet

Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you liked Inception this may be the book for you. You are reading along, and then something sort of weird happens, and you think ok, we're going to go there. And then something even weirder happens and you think WHAT?! But just keep reading. Because it's good writing and even greater storytelling. And if it feels and is a precursor to the much better Life After Life it's still worth the read.

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Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

 

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you ever wanted to know why something tastes good, this is the book for you. Nosrat uncovers the science behind the food you eat to explain why salt can make things taste sweet, and how heat works to break down proteins to change the texture. Nice whimsical drawings as well. I would highly recommend getting a physical copy since it lends itself to flipping through to find recipes and refer to charts. The ebook just doesn't work well, especially in regards to the recipes with all of the variations.

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Goodnight Stranger

 

Goodnight Stranger by Miciah Bay Gault
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Points for the setting which sounds beautiful and is appropriately isolating. Also, there were a couple of really creepy (in a good way) scenes. But there were one too many (convenient) quirks: Lucas doesn't use the phone (why?), Lydia both wants to leave the island desperately and also she loves the island and gets panic attacks if she can't see it (?), and (view spoiler)[ she moves out AFTER Cole leaves when Lucas is at his lowest point(?) (hide spoiler)]. The ending also seemed a little anticlimactic. But thrillers are hard, and this one has plenty of propulsive action in the middle. Not a bad airplane/beach read.

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That was a lie, though,.  Lucas wanted to go back in time, I wanted a future.  But the problem was the same for both of us:  we were stuck here--the two of us together--perpetually in this present moment.

The Liar's Dictionary

 

The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm a sucker for trivia about words, new words--clowder is a grouping of cats-- and the history of words and this book has plenty of that sort of trivia. This is also a quirky book with surprising plot twists and some transcendent passages (also plenty of passages where nothing happens and it plods along). Its a book that illustrates both the power and powerlessness of words and how transitory language can be. Its a fun book.

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jungftak (n.), a Persian bird, the male of which had only one wing, on the right side, and the female only one wing, on the left side; instead of the missing wings, the male had a hook of bone, and the female an eyelet of bone, and it was by uniting hook and eye that they were enabled to fly—each, when alone, had to remain on the ground from Webster’s Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language (1943)

If you put your eyes far too close to an engraving all is little dots and dashes, like a fingerprint unspooled.

In many ways David Swansby looked like his handwriting: ludicrously tall, neat, squared off at the edges.

David meant apricity (n.), the warmness of the sun in winter.

Apricide (n.) means the ceremonial slaughter of pigs.

Weasel words are empty, hollow, meaningless claims.

curriebuction 1. A confused gathering attended with quarrelling or panic

When a cartoon character is represented swearing or cursing, there is a word for the series of hashtags and exclamation marks and toxicity symbols in their speech bubbles: grawlix. @# $%&!

The Unpassing

The Unpassing by Chia-Chia Lin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Devastatingly beautiful. "The unpassing" could refer to so many things here, but mainly about the inability of this immigrant family to let go of their youngest daughter, when she dies of an illness. Their grief is held inside each of them, separating themselves from each other. The Alaskan wilderness, with its dense forests and silty mud becomes a manifestation of their angst. It is so perfectly written and told. The main character is the 10-year-old brother who doesn't understand everything, and Lin is so good at holding back, trusting her readers to infer when needed and keeping some details forever murky. I don't think I have been affected by a book this much in a long time. Must read.

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you had to keep your gaze close, lest you catch a glimpse of something bigger than you could accept.

we woke to the anxious bleeps of the alarm clock, and with that small and sudden violence, school began. 

Exit West

 

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although there are magic doors, everything else about this novel seems to mirror the refugee experience in the present. Without focusing on how the refugees get to new places, Hamid can zero in on feelings and relationships: why do they leave (or not); who do they go with; the feeling of not knowing where they land or what this new place will mean for them; the reaction of the nativists that already live there; how tribalism in new lands can result; the strains that these forces have on established relationships; the list goes on. Saeed and Nadia stand in for so many refugees, and their journey both informs and evokes compassion.

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Everybody's Fool

Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Continuing with the lives of the characters of North Bath 15 years after the first book (Nobody's Fool). Sully is now comfortably well off due to good luck, while his nemesis Carl has had bad luck and is bankrupt, alone, and impotent. Both of these characters play only minor roles here though. This one focuses on Raymer, the cop, now chief of police and Roy Purdy who just got out of jail and can't stop making bad choices. I think I might have liked it better had it been a stand-alone novel. There was no real integral plot lines from the former book that played in this one. And the changes to the existing characters (Sully is more cautious, Rub now has a stutter?, no Peter or William to speak of ) was disappointing. Plus the retelling of plot lines while maybe necessary (the book was written 20 years or so apart from each other ) was annoying for those of us who just read the previous book (especially as I said they were just back stories). There is more growth in the characters this time around, and a general theme about secrets, mental and physical health, and loyalty. It is also slightly zanier with lightening strikes, escaped poisonous snakes, and split personalities.

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"Full" as if emptiness were the prevailing condition of their lives, from which eating provided a temporary respite.

They needed to believe that luck ruled the world and their was bad and would remain so forever and ever, amen, a credo that let them off the hook and excused them from truly engaging in the present, much less the future. 

Upstairs at the White House

Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies by J.B. West
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

More of a story about the White House, how it was decorated, repaired, used. Yes, there are some insights into the people who lived there, but I felt West was very careful to couch all his observations with positivity. I admit I skimmed more than I read, and I would have enjoyed a bit more candor, but still gleaned some interesting facts.

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Not a Sound

 

Not a Sound by Heather Gudenkauf
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fast read--a mystery with an interesting protagonist who is deaf which allows another level of terror and manipulation into the plot. There aren't many twists but the plot tracks and it is a satisfying read.

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Camp Followers, On the Strength of the Army

For them it is the reassurance of knowing things as they are

For us it the restoration, an absolution

Those flocks of petticoats trailing after cannon

Priestesses disguised as laundresses

And we do offer up our filthy garments

Heedlessly stripped off, rumpled, thrust aside

Dumped in barrels of river water

They unfurl, water seeking out its wounds

Blood snakes away in ghost smoke

Until the women begin their endless work

A fury of scrubbing with brimstone--

Piss and lye of ash--

Tendrils of hair whipped free

Mutter of prayer or incantation

Boiling baptism of water and fire

Bubbling like excitement

Trembling like terror

Jumble of pathos fighting with itself on the brink

Then an exorcism, a cathartic flogging

Forcing a weeping of anger, of fear, of shame

Swallowed back by pride

Now expelled with violent chastisement

Spent at last they lie them

Out like soulless shells on hushing grass

We open the packages tied with string

An immaculate shirt to incarnate as before

Smelling of sun and boyhood

A traveling to the time before.

Atomic Habits

 

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had a hard time knowing what to rate this book, since through my own trial and error in life, I have come across these same truths, and so there was only a bit that actually enlightened me--namely, how to keep habits motiving and keep improving. But since these are the same truths I've realized in my life I can attest that they work, and wish I had read this book in my teens or early twenties, so maybe wouldn't have had to do so much trial and error on my own. Also, I think Clear does a good job of laying out the premise of his methods clearly, with interesting stories, and enough examples to help illustrate without being tediously repetitive.

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The Ninth Hour

 

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A beautifully observed story about saving and losing your soul. What sins are unpardonable? And believing there are things you can do are beyond forgiveness, why or for whom would you commit them? If love is laying down one's life for someone, what does it mean when they lose their soul for you? McDermott writes so subtly you never see the twist coming that ties all the pieces together into a whole. One of my favorite authors, for sure.

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There was still the smell of smoke but the smell of cleaning ammonia was now cut into it--the smell of the day going on.

"Down here, we do our best to transform what is ugly, soiled, stained, don't we?  We send it back into the world like a resurrected soul."

A woman's life is a blood sacrifice.

"If we could live without suffering," Sister Lucy said, "we'd find no peace in heaven."

Truth reveals itself.  It's really quite amazing.  God wants us to know the truth of all things, she said, big or small, because that's how we'll know Him.

Nobody's Fool

 

Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I heard of a study that showed that people dropped off in the woods will walk in circles while thinking they are walking straight. This applies particularly to Sully and many of the inhabitants of Bath, NY, a tiny town prone to lots of bad luck. Sully is an enjoyable character, one that doesn't take himself too seriously, or anything else. He has nothing to lose, and so doesn't think twice about following through on impulses that mean trouble for him (or others). And, like most of the other characters in this book, Sully moves forward, making the same mistakes in new situations, and doesn't end up much different from where we met him, but it was a fun ride. And with the addition of an estranged grandson moving into town, we get the feeling that Sully may just finally care about something besides himself enough to slightly change his course.

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If you were going to be reckless in this life, you needed total commitment to the principle.

The Country of Ice Cream Star

 

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a unique book! Written in Ice Cream's language (which resembles English enough to be understandable, but unique enough to seem like an authentic iteration of it), we learn of a world where a virus that attacks humans when they reach adulthood (18-20), and leaves a world of children trying to recreate a society. Newman portrays quite a few of these adulterated recreations: the scroungers, the militants, the townies, the religious, and the organized and political. The interaction of some of these societies is interesting enough, but gets complicated when vaccinated Russians (and thus adults) come into the picture. (Nevermind that the roos as they are called are white, while all the other remaining children are black). The story is harsh; these are children dealing with war and sex and a pervasive disease. Ice Cream is a literally a star--her many mercurial moods, her intense love that both saves and ruins those around her, her fight and unwillingness to give up. Were there some plot holes? yes. Did some characters seem extraneous and seem to disappear? yes, (I'm looking at you El Mayor). Did I wish for a second book to recount what Ice Cream told us in the last few pages? yes, yes, and yes please. But above all, all the major stars for the beautiful new language that Newman created for this place--I started thinking to myself in it and that is bone.

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Feel like an endless scream somehow ( a car ride).

restless with good life (the trees).

Wilson

Wilson by A. Scott Berg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I always really liked Wilson, with his 14 points and his dogged determination to forge peace as a quixotic ideal. (His top hat and pince nez didn't hurt). I didn't know if that was just my 17-year-old take of a page and a half written about him in my history book, or what a deeper look into the 28th president would reveal. Turns out my knee-jerk assessment was pretty spot on. Wilson was enormously idealistic and his integrity to his beliefs was truly remarkable. His black and white outlook on life may have been his downfall however. Not because he refused to compromise, necessarily, but because he trusted others around him implicitly and then they invariably let him down, and he was never able to forgive them. Thus he lost associations that could have helped him as well as the respect of others who saw him as petty and vindictive. He was not a perfect man, but I still admire him for truly trying the best he could do what he saw as right.

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"We live by poetry, not by prose, and we live only as we see visions."

"War isn't declared in the name of God; it is a human affair entirely."

"Do the thing that is audacious to the utmost point of risk and daring, because that is exactly the thing that the other side does not understand.  And you will by the audacity of method when you cannot win by circumspection and prudence."

Our Endless and Proper Work

Our Endless and Proper Work: Starting (and Sticking to) Your Writing Practice by Ron Hogan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was not as structured as I thought it might be. It was more like a conversation with someone who has some success in writing and publishing. Still, it did have some good motivation, if only to remind you why you are writing in the first place.

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I’m saying that you’re creating a space in your life where insight is attainable, but more importantly where you can become the person who is capable of recognizing those insights, then acting upon them.

Pay attention to what happens around you, for sure, but also pay attention to what it stirs within you, because that’s where you will find yourself. And if you’re having trouble finding yourself, give some thought to how and where you’re looking, and don’t be afraid of changing one or the other . . . or both.

How are you wasting time and energy that could be better applied toward your writing—and what prevents you from abandoning those wasteful practices?

Listen: You’re a smart, creative person, and, deep down, you know what your imagination needs in order to flourish. You need to commit yourself to creating a life that enables you to surround yourself with that nourishment—but, also, don’t simply surround yourself with it, feed yourself. All the inspirational books, all the supportive relationships . . . none of that will do you any good if you keep all your potential bottled up.

You need to believe, deep down, that you can do it, then you need to give yourself permission to do it—and that involves clearing space and time in your life to devote to your writing practice, because it is a thing that matters.

“The higher the level of suffering, the more it seems we are willing to open up and offer the true versions of ourselves.”

House of Earth and Blood

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is a DNF. In fact, I was only 6% in when I stopped. Thanks to GR reviewers, I decided not to go on. Nothing happened in the first 3 chapters, except lots of swearing, stock (gorgeous) characters who did not strike me as likable--abusing their positions of power, taking drugs, and feeling sorry for themselves.

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Shuggie Bain

 

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Winner of the Man Booker Award for 2020, it is beautifully observed and written. The slow decay of a woman bent on slowly destroying herself with alcohol and so desperate not to be alone that she pushes everyone away from her. Her young boy trying to make sense of his mercurial mother and a world where he doesn't quite fit in. It's the violence too of the times and the place, the violence of poverty and of desperation and shame. It ends on a hopeful note but most of it is bleak--only the beauty of the writing keeps you reading.

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The Old Plantation

 The old plantation

dressed in a recent coat of whitewash,

shutters an identical shade of original green,

braced by golden beams of new wood 

as it slightly lists to the left

due to foundational errors.

The whole affair cordoned off.

A restoration of remembrance 

     or nostalgia;

     admiration

     or a recognition--

of weathered stairs polished with 

    plain worn shoes

    beating

    steady rhythm

    behind a staccato of kid leather boots;

of ledgers laid open to

   columns of profits

   as straight as

   harrowed furrows;

of windows peering out 

    at fields sprouting snow--

    a harvest of clouds--

    while wraiths creep amongst fog

    under the relentless glare of

    barren sockets 

 framed in green and white.

Caste

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wilkerson does a great job of having Americans confront the historical atrocities of slavery. Having the institution of slavery rub shoulders with the Holocaust and the Indian caste system and come out as the worst definitely makes me as an American feel shame and sadness for our past collective behavior. She also does a pretty good job of illustrating how the caste system still exists in America and I won't deny that . However, she also seems to equate anyone that voted for Trump as at least a closet racist and that anyone who was ever rude or mean to her did so because she is black. While I definitely won't discount her feelings (and some definitely were racist actions against her), nor will I even try to defend That Man (although Hillary Clinton was no real choice, either), I sometimes as a white person despair as to what I can do to make the situation better. I sometimes feel like the constant listing of slights, mini-aggressions, even blatant racism is counted against any white person, so that I feel so shameful of my skin, that a gulf between me and a black person has widened instead of shrunk. I am more terrified of inadvertently offending a person of color now that I think twice about engaging them in conversation. Even now I am certain someone is misunderstanding what I am trying to say. I will keep reading about race because with each book I understand better a different point of view and I can empathize just a little bit more.

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At first, religion, not race as we now know it, defined the status of people in the colonies.  Christianity, as a proxy for Europeans, generally exempted European workers from lifetime enslavement.  This initial distinction is what condemned, first, indigenous people, and, then, Africans, most of whom were not Christian upon arrival, to the lowest rung of an emerging hierarchy before the concept of race had congealed to justify their eventual debasement.

Their lives were to some degree a lie and in dehumanizing these people whom they regarded as beasts of the field, they dehumanized themselves.

The elevation of others amounts to a demotion of oneself, thus equality feels like a demotion.

seeing whatever is happening to them as, say, a black problem, rather than a human problem, unwittingly endangering everyone.

Pachinko

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed the first half of this novel about South Korean immigrants in Japan. The setting was new to me, and the set up was well-thought out, different and yet relatable. But then it evolved into more like vignettes of Korean-Japanese without a lot of preamble or follow-through. Even the characters that carried over from the first half seemed to change too drastically to be accounted for, making them almost different people. I would have preferred less breadth and more focus. Also, for a novel named Pachinko, and the game parlors playing a integral role in several of the characters lives, there was little description of the job or the game. I even had to google it to understand what it was. However, overall the experiences of this family opened my eyes to a different history and made me care.

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Saga

 

Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The characters are the best in this graphic novel, and the action keeps going. It opens with a bang, has unique and interesting plot points, and comedy sprinkled throughout. It deals with prejudice, war, environment, violence, and family. The drawings are amazing and I loved the take on the spider-woman. However, it is just a bit too crude for me to continue this saga.

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running to stand still

 

Running on a treadmill

standing stock-still

I tell myself I am safe

from judgement, as though my slow progress

would offend, my stretched Lycra

would distress

I tell myself I am safe 

from runner's knee, and muscle pulls

concrete is too hard to fall

one trip to make me crawl

I tell myself it is easy 

drinks at hand, music wired

as though carrying what I need and desire

is too heavy

I tell myself it is easy

course predestined, speed anticipated

No sudden turns, dogs, streets gated

Even the seasons don't change

I don't change

I get nowhere.

Family Furnishings

Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014 by Alice Munro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Alice Munro has perfected the realistic short story and though this collection contains 24 they are each perfection. I give her the Willa Cather award. Her stories often carry the tension between the expectation of a woman's role and her longing for something more fulfilling. In "The Children Stay" raw protagonist contemplates bringing her play's script on a beach outing with her children, but "then laid it down. She was afraid that she would get too absorbed in it and take her eyes off the children for a moment too long." This desire to be a good mother, a good wife, a good daughter, and the desire to realize one's own dreams and desires often chafes up against one another. Family Furnishings is also the perfect title because so many of these stories deal with family and a sense of place. The later stories become more and more autobiographical, but they all deal with the inheritance of expectations and responsibilities as well as personality and proclivities that are passed along family lines. I could, and probably should, expand what I mean by everything I just wrote, but I won't and encourage you to read a Munro story whenever possible.

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Mosquitoland

 

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18718848-mosquitoland" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">Mosquitoland by David Arnold
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this YA novel about Mim who is trying to reunite with her mother after a divorce. Mim's father worries about Mim's quirkiness, that it is a harbinger of mental illness prevalent in his family. So with Mim as an unreliable narrator we embark with her on a crazy road trip full of adventures and a crew of pals she picks up along the way. All in all, it is just purely enjoyable. Do I like that one of the pals has Down-syndrome which they treat well, (yay), but also (and is even stated) as sort of a pet, no. Still, it emphasizes that we are all a bit crazy, we all have problems, we are all doing the best we can (even the evil step-mother). It is a refreshingly original, sensitive, funny, thoroughly satisfying book.
FYI: Does have some language. Although not jarringly so.

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Don Quixote

 

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Full disclosure: I wrote an Honors English paper on Don Quixote as an undergraduate. I never actually read it. What's more, I got an A, which means my professor had probably never read it either. So now, about 30 years later I can finally say I've read it. When you consider that this was written in 1605-1615, it really holds up remarkably well. There is something undeniably inspiring in a person who follows their dreams especially in the face of naysayers. What I loved is how in part 2, Quixote actually becomes a knight for all intents and purposes, as people start treating him that way. In fact, everything he sets out to do, he does. Plenty of humor, entertaining anecdotes, and wise words. If it goes just a bit too long, most good novels do.

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“It is your fear, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that keeps you from seeing or hearing properly, because one of the effects of fear is to cloud the senses and make things appear other than they are;

His only obligation is to help them because they are in need, turning his eyes to their suffering and not their wickedness.

Second Part of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha

the madness of the master, without the simplicity of the servant, would not be worth anything.”

Not all those called knights are knights through and through; some are gold, others alchemical, and all appear to be knights, but not all can pass a test by touch-stone. 3

there is no poet who is not arrogant and does not think himself the greatest poet in the world.”

deceivers are as mad as the deceived,

when I’m busy digging I never think about my better half, I mean my Teresa Panza, and I love her more than my eyelashes.”

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This much talked-about book is hard to rate. It is mostly a memoir, with factoids about therapy, and the stories of the people whom this therapist sees. While I didn't particularly relate to Gottlieb and at times found her humble-brags a bit annoying, I respected her need to seek out therapy for a crisis in her life. Her observations about therapy are also helpful and well demonstrated by her patients' stories which are in turns entertaining, heart-breaking, and inspiring. However, I couldn't get past that regardless of changed names, disguised story-lines, permissions granted, these are real peoples's stories and if I ever went to a therapist and then read about my life in a book, I would feel violated and vulnerable. Especially since it's more than the story--it's her reaction and interaction with the patients. In fact, I think I am less inclined to go to a therapist now than before I read this, wondering if my therapist is tolerating me, confused by me, or even annoyed by me. What I took away from this is that we could all use some introspection, that we are often the ones stopping ourselves from progressing, and that the future matters more than the past.

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People want to be understood and to understand, but for most of us, our biggest problem is that we don't know what our problem is.  We keep stepping in the same puddle.  why do I do the very thing that will guarantee my own unhappiness over and over again?

irrational fear of joy: cherophobia (hero is the Greek word for "rejoice").

Christ and the New Covenant

Christ and the New Covenant: The Messianic Message of the Book of Mormon by Jeffrey R. Holland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What I found most helpful in this exposition of teachings from the Book of Mormon, besides having teachings laid out clearly and concisely (and pretty well written), was the example of taking an event in the scriptures and actually breaking it down into its teaching parts to gain the most from it. You can generalize and say, oh Abinadi taught about the atonement, but what exactly did he teach? Also, just love Holland's take on life.

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Geek Sublime

Geek Sublime: Writing Fiction, Coding Software by Vikram Chandra
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Right now I am obsessed with the power of language. In it we can pass down eons of thought, insight, instruction. And saying things, putting it out in the universe, somehow allows for something to happen. That is why you write down goals, speak affirmations, shy away from talking about death. This book was described as explaining how coding and fiction are similar, and not knowing much about coding, I thought this might be interesting. I feel like there are some really good nuggets in here: how computers break all language down into 1's and 0's (and why), and how Sanskrit has been preserved for centuries as an uncorrupted language; how fiction and poetry use words to get to the emotion beneath the words and the limitations of any language. Still, I felt like I had to wade in deep, deep mud for any of these nuggets. Each chapter did not flow to the next, but dealt specifically about a subject: coding, Sanskrit, the gender politics of coding and writing, etc. And in each of these, there was so much technical detail, or foreign terms, or just minutiae that I often wondered what the point was. He attempts to make it cohesive in the final chapter, but even then I'm not sure I understood the point. Its a vomit of information--like the rough draft of a research paper. I feel like a few more passes over this, pruning away the extraneous and adding some rather pointed bits on how this is all related (probably obvious to Chandra who is so close to this, but lost on the rest of us regular non-coders and non-published writers) would make this a much more accessible and helpful read.

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the cult of modernity, in order to demonstrate the newness of modernity, needs to always insist on the chasms that separate modernity from the past.

the Vedas are chanted today exactly as they were almost four millennia ago, complete with archaic tones and usages present nowhere in the Sanskrit that followed.

So rasa—the word literally means “taste” or “juice”—is not emotion (bhava); it is the aestheticized satisfaction or “sentiment” of tasting artificially induced emotions.

The naive spectator who ascribes some sort of reality to what is happening on the stage and identifies personally with the emotions of the characters is incapable of rasa, which is an impersonal, disinterested pleasure.

The rasa is in the tasting of grief, in the relishing of grief, in the reflective cognizing of grief.

The pleasure of rasa comes from the meta-experience of experiencing oneself experience the stable emotions.

7. The Code of Beauty: Abhinavagupta

During the experience of rasa, according to Abhinavagupta, “what is enjoyed is consciousness itself.”

here, one’s own latent and personal memories of grief are liberated into “a universal, impersonal flavour.”

even language that does not cohere or produce mundane meaning may produce rasa.

the variety of suggestiveness is placed outside the human mind; it is the cause, not the result of poetic imagination.

Such a view is in harmony with the origin of the Sanskrit word for poet, kavi. A kavi is a seer, a revealer.

Sometimes the sheer vastness of what I want to put into fiction terrifies me.

The Octunnumi

 

The Octunnumi Fosbit Files Prologue by Trevor Alan Foris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Foris gets lost in his own imagination so much that the reader is so overwhelmed by all the characters and Insominids (worlds) that they start not caring too much about it. There is some quick banter, tried and trite stock characters, and an almost developed plot line--(I really did care where the missing children and Nate were--until I didn't). The described worlds really are very imaginative and if the characters stayed in any of them long enough to really experience them, it could be a very stimulating and refreshing read. As it is, the reader is just too inundated to look around and take in the scenery. My niece bought the book because of the amazing marketing--the publicity, book design and packaging is really well-thought out and creates excitement--it even comes with a book mark. Hopefully, the rest of the series settles down a bit and concentrates more on less.

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More Than a Body

 

More Than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament by Lexie Kite
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This isn't 4 star in terms of writing--it can be clunky with overextended metaphors BUT it identifies an issue I think every woman I know, including myself, struggles with. And more than struggles with--it constitutes up the majority of what we think about, talk about, and spend money on. We all know we are more than what we look like, but knowing and KNOWING is two very different things when we are constantly bombarded with messages from media and friends and family that how we look is paramount (especially for women). But more than identifying an issue everyone knows is there, the Kite sisters give practical and important alternatives to the constant stream of self-judgement and judgement of others we are constantly making. By changing how we think about comparisons, judgements, criticisms, we change behavior. I have found myself being happier and kinder as a result. I would recommend every woman read this to help make adjustments in how we perceive ourselves and others.

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The Wretched of the Earth

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is not an easy read for several reasons, but it was one of the most enlightening reads about racial issues I've read. Fanon talks (this book was apparently dictated from his hospital bed) about the psychological impact of colonization, especially on the colonized. From South America to Africa he has identified certain cycles and predicted behaviors and outcomes stemming from colonialism. Although the age of colonialism is mostly behind us, the roles of the colonized (marginalized minorities) and colonizer (majority in position of power) still exist, and it helps explain some of the phenomenon we can still see in society today (why is there Black on Black violence, why are there gangs, why is there such animosity toward those in power when "they are only trying to help lift them", how does racism even occur). The psychology may not be what you think--but Fanon spells it out with examples. This is not to say I didn't have to re-read almost every sentence twice--it's very dense. Also, toward the end, his case studies on those who torture and those who get tortured show that in war everyone loses. Those were easier to understand, but harder to read because of the emotional impact it had. So, not a beach read, but important to start understanding power/post-conlonialism/ racial theories.

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For me words have a charge. I find myself incapable of escaping the bite of a word, the vertigo of a question-mark."

Preface

Roughly, this meant: You are making monsters out of us; your humanism wants us to be universal and your racist practices are differentiating us.

Europe, therefore, has hardened the divisions and conflicts, forged classes, and in some cases, racism, and endeavored by every means to generate and deepen the stratification of colonized societies.

Read Fanon: you will see that in a time of helplessness, murderous rampage is the collective unconscious of the colonized.

This repressed rage, never managing to explode, goes round in circles and wreaks havoc on the oppressed themselves. In order to rid themselves of it they end up massacring each other, tribes battle one against the other since they cannot confront the real enemy—and you can count on colonial policy to fuel rivalries;

I. On Violence

The colonized know all that and roar with laughter every time they hear themselves called an animal by the other. For they know they are not animals. And at the very moment when they discover their humanity, they begin to sharpen their weapons to secure its victory.

The colonies have become a market. The colonial population is a consumer market.

colonialist bourgeoisie is aided and abetted in the pacification of the colonized by the inescapable powers of religion.

The very same people who had it constantly drummed into them that the only language they understood was that of force, now decide to express themselves with force.

II. Grandeur and Weakness of Spontaneity

The unions, the parties and the government, in a kind of immoral Machiavellianism, use the peasant masses as a blind, inert force of intervention. As a kind of brute force.

III. The Trials and Tribulations of National Consciousness

In the underdeveloped countries a bourgeois phase is out of the question. A police dictatorship or a caste of profiteers may very well be the case but a bourgeois society is doomed to failure.

For the people the party is not the authority but the organization whereby they, the people, exert their authority and will.

People must know where they are going and why.

And in the more or less long term a people gets the government it deserves.

The citizen must appropriate the bridge. Then, and only then, is everything possible.

The army is never a school for war, but a school for civics, a school for politics.

IV. On National Culture

When the colonized intellectual writing for his people uses the past he must do so with the intention of opening up the future, of spurring them into action and fostering hope.

By imparting new meaning and dynamism to artisanship, dance, music, literature, and the oral epic, the colonized subject restructures his own perception.

We believe the conscious, organized struggle undertaken by a colonized people in order to restore national sovereignty constitutes the greatest cultural manifestation that exists.

War and Peace

 

\ War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I did it! And I must say it is one of the best classics I have had the joy of spending over a month reading. Once you figure out who is who (everyone is referred to by at least three names) the world of the upper class during the Napoleonic war in Russia during 1805-1820 comes alive. Along the way, Tolstoy expounds his thoughts on how history is interpreted and the misconception of heroes. His battle scenes are exciting and insightful, the romances are complicated and satisfactory. There is death and disappointment, courage and compassion, faith and disillusionment. Throughout it all the characters seek to understand the purpose of life--some think they find it only to be mistaken, others discover it only after great trials, and some never do. I never felt as though I were slogging through a classic, and even though it was long, there is very little I would cut out.

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The regiment fluttered like a bird preening its plumage and became motionless.

At that meeting he was struck for the first time by the endless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever presenting itself identically to two persons.

The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription.

all the facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the truth of the statement that the greater or lesser success of one army against another is the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or decrease in the strength of the nation--even though it is unintelligible why the defeat of an army--a hundredth part of a nation--should oblige that while nation to submit.

the unknown quantity is the spirit of the army...Men who want to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous conditions for fighting.

For us the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no human actions are incommensurable.  And there is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent.

But pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.  

We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts allis lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins.  

While there is life there is happiness.

There were then as now conversations and discussions about women's rights, the relations of husband and wife and their freedom and rights, though these themes were not yet termed questions as they are now; but these topics were not merely uninteresting to Natasha, she positively did not understand them.

    These questions, then as now, existed only for those who see nothing in marriage but the pleasure married people get from one another, that is, only the beginnings of marriage and not its whole significance, which lies in the family.

    Discussions and questions of that kind, which are like the question of how to get the greatest gratification from one's dinner, did not then and do not now exist for those for whom the purpose of a dimmer is the nourishment it affords, and the purpose of marriage is the family.  

As gold is gold only if it serviceable and not merely for exchange but also for use, so universal historians will be valuable only when they can reply to history's essential question: what is power?

What causes historical events? Power. What is power?  Power is the collective will of the people transferred to one person.  Under what condition is the will of the people delegated to one person?  on conditions that that person expresses the will of the whole people .  That is, power is power; in other words, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.

Grey Goose

Reflecting

Father pops out in brilliant hues

    camping trip green

    roller-coaster red

    icy-pop blue

    punched through with angry black.

But Mother is a mess--

a finger-painting of routine,

bleeds colors from sole to grey,

the particular indiscernible from far away.

Grey--

tint of storm clouds

pregnant with sobbing,

chasing the sun with condolences,

mutilating the heavens with her bawl.

Grey--

chimes like silver,

sword on sword in a

defensive battlecry,

clashes of protection.

Grey--

skeleton scaffold of ladders

to drape a skin of want

without hazard of buckling.

Grey--

world at dusk;

a black and white movie

with birdsong as soundtrack;

blurred edges, softened scrutiny;

a rabbit's meuse;

white noise.

Grey--

becomes the background

so the colors can

pop.