Welcome to Litsy!

I really enjoyed listening to this memoir. Chin talks about his experience growing up as a gay Chinese American in 1980s Detroit, where his parents ran a long lasting Chinese restaurant. He discusses the turbulence of the city during that time, tensions with race, expectations of family, & coming to terms with his sexuality. Chin narrates the audiobook & does a great job inflecting it with character & humor
#Nonfiction2024 @Riveted_Reader_Melissa

I'm gonna try to start catching up on reviews for books I've read the past few months. I finished this back in August 🫣
I took my time listening to this one and really enjoyed the introspection Kimmerer applies to nature. I appreciated the way she uses science as a tool to understand the beauty of the natural world, and the insights into indigenous culture.
#Nonfiction2024 @Riveted_Reader_Melissa

McGhee takes the concept of a “zero-sum game“--someone always *has* to lose, --and skillfully uses it to analyze a form of white racism that manifests as resistance toward racialized people benefiting, even when white people are also set back: racism has a cost for all of us. Examples include barring access to public pools, union repression, lack of equal access to education and home ownership, and more.
#Nonfiction2024 #ToKillAMockingbird

This is a bail for me, simply because of her voice; I pretty much only do audiobooks, and O'Connor's reading voice is just too much of a grating drone. I'm disappointed, because she's someone I've admired for a long time, and the book deals with key issues re Christianity (I was in university when she tore up the Pope's picture on SNL) and family abuse, mental health/trauma, abuse, and religious conversion.
#Nonfiction2024 #MexicanDaughter

Before I go to a restaurant I obsessively check the restaurant‘s website, Google Images, and Yelp to see what kind of seating it has. Are the seats ultra modern and flimsy? Do they have arms and if so, what kind? Are there booths and if so does the table move or is it one of those tables welded between two benches? How long do I think I can sit in those chairs without screaming?
#Nonfiction2024 #Blubber

Hello, November! The end of the year is coming up fast. The only challenges I really want to complete are the #gottacatchemall, #nonfiction2024, alphabet challenge, and the diversity across genres challenge (hosted on Insta). I'm so close to finishing them. This month will be dedicated to filling most of the remaining prompts so I can have a low key December full of bonus reads.

@thearomaofbooks #bookspin

An excellent exploration by political analyst Naomi Klein into how being mistaken for Naomi Wolf, a writer who's moved to the political right, has prompted an analysis of how the left/right binary isn't as simple as it was. She looks at a “mirror world“ where the axis can sometimes be a diagonal one, revolving around issues like Covid and anti-vaxxing, big pharma, conspiracy theory, global and online media, and wellness.
#Nonfiction2024 #1984

Pretty great month! I read two 5⭐️ books (All the Colors + Here One Moment), one #Nonfiction2024, two back-to-school titles, one quirky British police procedural, one reread, and completed my #bookspin and #doublespin #readingrecap #monthlyrecap #Septemberrecap

This is a great reference on queer history. Some of it I already knew but I also learned a bunch. The style is humorous while still being informative. Great listen!
#Nonfiction2024 the Color Purple @Riveted_Reader_Melissa

This was such a hard read - you see what‘s happening to the daughter & you just want to stop it & protect her, and you see the mothers side & she‘s just so oblivious to it (until she realises & then she helps the best way she knows how - with some regrets in hindsight). The boys should have been held accountable, things could have been handled differently & this book shines a light to that. Why is it the women/girls always have to take the blame?