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How to Read Now
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
12 posts | 5 read | 16 to read
An exploration and polemic that redefines the power and potential for reading by a novelist whose prose is as good as it gets (NPR) and who has a real voice: vernacular and fluid, with a take-no-prisoners edge (Kirkus) How many times have we heard that reading builds empathy? That we can travel through books? How often have we were heard about the importance of diversifying our bookshelves? Or claimed that books saved our lives? These familiar wordsbeautiful, aspirationalare sometimes even true. But award-winning novelist Elaine Castillo has more ambitious hopes for our reading culture, and in this collection of linked essays, she moves to wrest reading away from the cotton-candy aspirations of uniting people in empathetic harmony and reposition it as thornier, ultimately more rewarding work. (Vulture) How to Read Now explores the politics and ethics of reading, and insists that we are capable of something better: a more engaged relationship not just with our fiction and our art, but with our buried and entangled histories. Smart, funny, galvanizing, and sometimes profane, Castillo attacks the stale questions and less-than-critical proclamations that masquerade as vital discussion: reimagining the cartography of the classics, building a moral case against the settler colonialism of lauded writers like Joan Didion, taking aim at Nobel Prize winners and toppling indie filmmakers, and celebrating glorious moments in everything from popular TV like The Watchmen to the films of Wong Kar-wai and the work of contemporary poets like Tommy Pico. At once a deeply personal and searching history of one womans reading life, and a wide-ranging and urgent intervention into our globalized conversations about why reading matters today, How to Read Now empowers us to embrace a more complicated, embodied form of reading, inviting us to acknowledge complicated truths, ignite surprising connections, imagine a more daring solidarity, and create space for a riskier intimacywithin ourselves, and with each other.
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GatheringBooks
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
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Pickpick

#SchoolSpirit Day 18: An incendiary book of #Essays I would unreservedly recommend. Been doing a series of quotes and posts about this book over at GatheringBooks the past month. Here‘s one: https://wp.me/pDlzr-qMj

Eggs Well played! 2mo
27 likes1 comment
blurb
charl08
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
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I treated myself for my birthday. As well as some great books (of course) the shop was selling the beautiful "Books are my Bag" tote: straight in my online basket!

https://www.foxlanebooks.co.uk/product-page/pre-order-bookshop-day-22-limited-ed...

Leftcoastzen Happy Birthday! Great to treat yourself! 2y
squirrelbrain Happy Birthday! 😘 2y
AmyG Happy Birthday 🎁🎂🎈 2y
See All 11 Comments
IuliaC 🎉 Happy birthday! 2y
Deblovestoread Happy birthday! 🎂🎈 2y
batsy Happy birthday! Those are lovely treats ❤️📚 2y
dabbe Happiest of birthdays! 🤗 2y
Cupcake12 Hope you had a lovely birthday ❤️🎉 2y
BarbaraBB Happy birthday 🎈 ❤️ 2y
JessClark78 Happy Birthday! 🎊🎂🎉 2y
mrp27 Happy Birthday!! 🎉📚🎂 2y
56 likes1 stack add11 comments
review
Jolynne
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
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Pickpick

I can‘t say I disagree with anything the author writes. Definitely a rewarding book for me.

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Chelsea.Poole
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
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Mehso-so

I had much higher hopes for this. Typically essay collections are my jam —I love learning bits and pieces in this format, especially current issues/cultural critiques. For whatever reason, I found it difficult to connect to these essays about Joan Didion, TV shows I‘ve never seen, and Castillo‘s experience at a liberal university in the UK. I love to be exposed to different lives and ways of seeing the world, but this fell flat for me.

Megabooks I liked this but barely remember it. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 2y
66 likes1 comment
quote
thatotherlisa
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo

“When artists bemoan the rise of political correctness in our cultural discourse, what they're really bemoaning is the rise of this unexpected reader. They're bemoaning the arrival of someone who does not read them the way they expect--often demand--to be read; often someone who has been framed in their work and in their lives as an object, not as a subject."

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blurb
GatheringBooks
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
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#IndelibleMoments Day 7: Definitely one of the most #PowerfulBooks(s) I have read this year. Searing and unapologetic and pulls no punches.

Eggs Great photos! Love your winning smile 😊 2y
GatheringBooks @Eggs you‘re always very generous and kind! 💕 This was taken in Central Park in New York a day before going back to Abu Dhabi. 💐 2y
57 likes1 stack add2 comments
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GatheringBooks
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
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#ArtfulAugust Day 30: This would perhaps qualify as my #FavBOTM - if it means favourite book of the month. Absolutely brilliant. Elaine Castillo is on fire. I would read anything she writes.

Eggs Great photo 🍱 2y
Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks 🖤📚❤️ 2y
46 likes2 stack adds2 comments
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GatheringBooks
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
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#ArtfulAugust Day 21: An #Eclectic array of topics have been covered by Elaine Castillo in this powerfully written set of essays on decolonial reading - from Wes Anderson‘s novels to Wong Kar Wai films to eviscerating Joan Didion at one go. This is a must-read.

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Perfect ❤️🖤 2y
57 likes1 stack add1 comment
review
Megabooks
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
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Pickpick

Castillo looks at book and pop culture literacy from the standpoint of a minority, and more specifically Filipina, author and consumer. She writes about being an “unexpected reader” when the often the “expected reader” is white. As a Californian, she lays particularly hard into Didion, especially her novel Democracy, which I have not read, and its problematic depiction of Asians. I enjoyed her essay about The Watchmen as well. Lots to think about.

Megabooks @vivastory I‘m unsure whether you‘d enjoy this, but it gave me a lot unpack about how I consume pop culture and books. (edited) 2y
Cinfhen Sounds interesting 2y
vivastory I have been on the fence about this one. I think I'll read an essay or two the next time I'm at B&N. Thanks for the tag! 2y
Megabooks @vivastory yeah, it might be a good one if your library has it or def a BN preview read. 👍🏻 2y
Megabooks @Cinfhen it was! 2y
76 likes2 stack adds5 comments
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GatheringBooks
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
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#ArtfulAugust Day 15: Looking forward to knowing the #Key on how to read now. Loving the fire in these essays by Fil-Am novelist, Elaine Castillo.

Catsandbooks Love your groot planter! 💚 2y
Eggs 💛🪴💚 2y
batsy I've got my eye on this! Sounds great. 2y
59 likes1 stack add3 comments
blurb
Sophronisba
How to Read Now: Essays | Elaine Castillo
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It's Chanukah in July! The Millions has published its preview for the second half of the year:

https://themillions.com/2022/07/most-anticipated-the-great-second-half-2022-book...

So much here to be excited about.