Simply put: this book is amazing. Bell has touched on a lot of topics that have never sat well with me around racism that I now have some voice to. His parables about racism‘s permanence in America and how issues need to be reconciled not resolved is, for lack of a better term, eye opening.

While his style is pretty corny he is able to state his points with pristine clarity. He wanted EVERYONE to read this not just intellectuals.

I really like Bernie. I feel like he is one of the few politicians who care. And this is a fine enough book, but I wouldn‘t call it “a progressive takedown of the uber-capitalist status quo.” I would call it his ‘presidential campaigns in book form‘.

Of course there is plenty to glean from him, and it certainly raises my sense of a call to action. But ultimately I was hoping more for Bernie the Philosopher instead of Bernie the Politician.

Ok. So this is kinda wild….

My grandmother was the person in my life who introduced me to poetry. And this was the book with which she did it. The pictures on the right are of my grandmother‘s copy; clearly, it has been through a lot. The picture on the left is of the same edition, found at a vendor‘s stall here in my own city for $5!

Does it matter whether or not this book is a Pick? Because in spite of my changes in taste, it always will be.

Step 2 in my newfound righteous journey: To refresh my general knowledge of American government. Conrad‘s book is nonpartisan as advertised. It goes not only through inner government workings but the topics that were big at the time it was published in 2008 (surprise! they haven‘t changed much). Still, a bit outdated.

The Great Courses are fantastic and in depth. Prof. Victor‘s course is nonpartisan and mentions Trump, so is very recent.

So, one of the first questions I asked myself after Nov 5 was “what can I do, now, at this moment?” Well, I can learn more about these issues that divide us, and I can learn how to competently state my opinions, and I can learn some of the ways the issues are interpreted from a different perspective.

So this was my starting point for this newfound frustration. A random find based on some googling. Robinson is funny, a bit pompous, but smart too.

People are gonna see a shift in my reading habits.
With the recent election in my country, I‘ve realized something very disheartening about society. And I‘m legitimately scared.

You will notice not only some social philosophy but also conservative and liberal leaning books in this stack, because it‘s important to “know thy enemy.” I‘m no good in a physical fight but I can fight back with knowledge. ⬇️

If you are at all concerned with the direction America is taking, this book is essential. I was born in America, lived my whole life here, done most the things expected of me as a “good citizen,” but they don‘t teach this stuff in schools. I am appalled at our destructive, ignorant, and blatantly ego-inflating treatment of the rest of the world. Our foreign policy is atrocious and I don‘t think I can be a “good citizen” anymore.

A lot can be said about Creation Lake, mostly good, some meh. But what I would like to point out that I‘m not sure I‘ve seen yet, is how prudently Kushner portrays a person spiraling out of control. Not once is there mention of Sadie feeling this way, but it‘s obvious in her drinking, sexual impulsivity, the ghost of her previous job, etc. Kushner plays with a lot of tropes here, successfully I might add, which might be one factor to her success.

Follows the same formula as I Claudius—same framing, same dry prose—but without a Caligula to stir things up, the results are less satisfying.

My knowledge of Roman nobility was pretty much nonexistent until recently. So, regardless of the slog that this book kinda was, I am glad to say that I am a more learned man for having read it. The audiobook includes some short historical biographies after Claudius‘s death, which was an unexpected bonus!

Another poet I have recently discovered and feel a tiny bit wiser for having done so. Derricotte‘s poems are more personal and sexual than other Black female poets I have come across. Still, she has plenty of things to say about society and being a POC. Sometimes, her poetry feels very raw, which is great but doesn‘t always strike.

I wasn‘t able to get through the whole collection, but I intend to eventually buy myself a copy anyway.

Came across Duck River Books in Columbia, TN. Found one book I had been looking for (Meditations) and one that was a total surprise: this CP Gilman collection.

*alternate photos from my Meditations post

Went on vacation to Nashville, spent a day exploring the parks and smaller cities outside the metro area, almost literally drove into Duck River Books in Columbia, TN. Their Poetry/Classic Lit section is the first thing I saw walking in the door; I about dropped to my knees.

Oh, I found a couple books too.

I think Rita Dove might be my new favorite poet!

This, for me, is a near perfect undertaking. There is so much thought and effort put into the framing of the collection. Dove is not afraid to use classic structures, classic rhyming. Nor is she afraid to display her intellectual tendencies or childish whimsies. The way she latches onto the very thread of everyday cognition to describe it poetically is nothing short of mastery. I have goosebumps.

Alright- 9 whatever hours of statements like: ‘Scientists realized they could use computers to make massive calculations,‘ or ‘100 is more than 0 so… etc.‘ only to find out that Virk‘s hypothesis is that: The world is weird, maybe it‘s a video game.

Grrrreeeaaattt. Thanks, Virk.

I do think that ‘reality‘ is not quite what we think it is, but all this messy excuse for a book has done is give me some new ideas to look for from more capable minds.

I‘ve seen a lot of division over Erdrich‘s latest where a good portion of the disappointed seem to be established Erdrich fans. Which I find interesting.

Erdrich isn‘t stepping out of her comfort zone here; she‘s been doing this long enough. And really I don‘t feel she needs to. She does what she does, and she does it well.

Most complaints tend to be about not connecting with the characters. What if we look at it as The Mighty Red as narrator?

It‘s baffling what people do to inflict pain on other people. I don‘t understand it, yet I know how capable I am of doing it. Even in small ways like how I might talk to someone who upsets me.

Of course, the Rape of Nanking was a massacre not a mild social interaction. Iris Chang describes a lot of atrocities. At first they turned my stomach (literally) but she never stops describing them. Is it intentional?

I‘m still left with WHY.

One of the most random finds I‘ve come across at the library. A book of haiku written by people in fits of, or at least in remembrance of fits of, road rage. We could debate their merits as ‘true‘ haiku but sometimes you just gotta enjoy the goofiness of it all!

I don‘t know whether to be more surprised that this is on Litsy, or that it hasn‘t had a single post yet…

Pretty sure I owned an older version of this that I got from my grandmother. One of those cardboard(??) bound books from the ‘70s. I tried to find it for the pic but then I recalled that I might have thrown in out because it was in pieces (plus my Granny had filled a lot of it out anyway).

But now I‘m filling out my own. I sorta love words.

Whoa…. The Volcano Daughters is certainly one of, if not the best, contemporary novel I‘ve read this year.

Comparisons to 100 Years of Solitude will be made, and I think they‘re valid, if only on the surface level; it‘s what piqued my initial interest. But Balibrera has made The Volcano Daughters a work all her own, indebted not to G.G. Marquez but the ghosts of history.

Full of lyrical writing and imagery. Challenging yet accessible. Read!

I‘ve listened to a couple of McWhorter‘s Great Courses lectures on language and he‘s always informative and entertaining; like a a nerdy dad—smart but not exactly PC.

The book itself is a collection of theses about the origins of English. Tons of fascinating info but his arguments probably won‘t mean much to someone who isn‘t in or near his field. For me, I have found that I really enjoy things like etymology and other language-related topics.

Love this whole passage, especially the highlighted section; Balibrera captures longing perfectly.

Finding tons of great writing like this throughout.

I listened to this during a pretty hard week at work and feel like I missed a lot. But I feel that Nabokov‘s style, while great read aloud, really needs to be read physically to catch all the jokes and idiosyncrasies, anyway.

He mentions in one chapter the hope to write a second part and I wish he had gotten the chance, because ‘Speak, Memory‘ is missing something. Certainly it is the whirlwind his life became after Lolita.

What immediately struck me about Brave New World was the lack of a dedicated protagonist. What struck me by the end is Huxley‘s lack of support for either side of his argument; he wants to present both sides with sincerity (at least how he saw them) and I applaud him for that.

Reading the book is certainly an experience. I wish Huxley had gone bigger, more epic, but then again I don‘t; it‘s just sparse enough to get you to fill in the gaps.

I recently finished a Great Courses about Roman emperors and the lecturer mentioned I Claudius multiple times as a good ‘novelization‘ of his subject. He‘s not wrong, but…

The novel can be dry and any dialogue is an info dump. Of course, Graves had no easy task and I can‘t see a better way to do it without losing integrity. And I suppose you could chalk the book‘s success up to Rome itself: it‘s telling how easily it takes you under its spell.

Dear Hanna, like everything else I‘ve read by Stage is… just all right. I always forget how much Stage relies on exposition and it always takes me a while to get over it. Once I do though, I enjoy her stories (with concessions).

The middle section of Dear Hanna is great, though. Stage hits a stride in the narrative where I was totally invested, rooting for Hanna while (figuratively) closing my eyes. Then it‘s over and I‘m like, ‘Damnit, Stage!‘

I hate to be THAT guy; the one who just doesn‘t ‘get it‘. But I don‘t think that‘s the case here.

I think something like Sealey‘s Ferguson Report is more effective in examining race. There are some enlightening moments in Citizen, especially concerning micro/macro aggressions, but overall it comes off as needlessly involuted. Rankine‘s attempt to turn poetry into essay, or perhaps the inverse, is too vague in its presentation to feel important.

One of the things I love most about SGJ is his ability to play with genre. And while his experiments aren‘t always successful they are usually worth a read. IWATS often feels like a discarded draft of Chainsaw. But here, SGJ is exploring the genre from the killer‘s POV, and it makes for some pretty hilarious and WTF moments.

It is overlong though. It could‘ve lost about 100 pages and been stronger.

(1/2) This is a truly important contribution to modern culture. To think how much painstaking time must have gone into this—kudos to Nicole Sealey; what a treasure!

What strikes me is how easily I could have missed this. Had it not been for my interest in one of her poems (‘a violence‘ which I shared recently) this would have gone completely under my radar.

(2/2)It‘s not even the quality of the poems (all fantastic btw), but because looking at the redacted report behind the poems, one detailing racial bias, misogyny, violence, and letting those words fade to reveal what Sealey has done is truly an experience.

So next time you‘re at a library or bookstore see if this is in stock. Hold it, look at the words, flip the pages and tell me there‘s not some sort of discernible power in a work like this.

Oh man, looks like people have been sleeping on this one… wake up, ya‘ll, it‘s good!

Seriously though… The Sky Over Rebecca tells the story of Kara Lukas who helps a Jewish refugee and her brother escape the Nazis. The twist is that Kara lives in modern day Stockholm and the island on Lake Malaren near where she lives, where the refugees are hiding, is like (to use a Sai King term) a Thinny. Not perfect but definitely worth some love.

First time reading Ketchum and regardless of how you feel about a book like this, it has to be said that Ketchum knows how to tell the story. His sense of tension and pacing is impeccable as well as his ability to invoke time and place. Before I learned this was based on a true story I wondered if it was taking the torture too far. But now I think it was necessary: these were real people who acted on the same depraved depths that are in all of us.

It took me about an hour to stop expecting the narrator to ask me to choose my own way through the book. And once I got over the second person POV I had an overall wonderful time with Seven Moons. What prevents it from being a straight 5 star read is the author‘s inability to contain themselves when talking about Maali‘s sexuality; I get it, dude likes to f**k.

Endlessly creative with a fine eye for the depths of human imagination.

As I‘ve stated, I loved The Bell Jar. But I‘m not in love with Plath‘s poetry. Indeed she was a talented poet; there are many amazing pieces in Ariel, and throughout Plath‘s oeuvre. But the details of her personal life are probably more known than that of any other poet, which puts the reader at odds with themselves and Sylvia.

Idk. A lot of thoughts, so little room.

Ariel deserves its accolades, but because of them, I expected something more.

I wouldn‘t say I ever got tired of this book; Gagne is a fine enough writer to keep the reader interested but toward the end I began to wonder if it was going anywhere. It feels like she either glosses over some major details of her life, or maybe she can‘t actually speak of them for their heinousness. Either way she is a sociopath so it‘s certainly anybody‘s guess if her word can be taken.

Dr. Gagne reads the audiobook and she does a great job.

Divided into 6 sections: The Sleep of Reason, Grief, Love & Rage, Despair, Guilt Shame Blame, and Manic Laughter. Poems are arranged in each section chronologically by author‘s birth. Most sections begin in the mid 1500s and end up to the printing of this book in 2019.

I didn‘t always understand Pinsky‘s motives behind what qualifies for what section, but his choices are diverse and there really isn‘t a bad poem in the whole thing.

Looks like this one isn‘t in the database yet…

SO HAPPY TO SEE CHERRY BLOSSOMS Haiku from the Year of the Great Earthquake and Tsunami

Author Madoka Mayuzumi traveled to some of the villages most devastated by the 2011 disaster and, by bringing the communities together through haiku, helped many people revive their strength and purpose.

A wonderful collection from everyday Japanese citizens as young as 8 to as old as 91.

Some favorites from SO HAPPY TO SEE CHERRY BLOSSOMS

I came across “a violence” in an anthology and knew I had to find more of Sealey‘s work. Surprisingly my closest library had both Ordinary Beast and The Ferguson Report available.

This is a solid collection. A lot more humor than I expected, quite a bit of experimentation. Sealey has a powerful voice and I‘m glad she‘s on my radar now.

I wanted to share a few more favorites. I tried to pick a diverse selection. These are from prostitutes, soldiers, political activists. (I think all the ones in this picture were written around WWII). A lot of the haiku in this collection hadn‘t been translated into English previously.

This April I started writing haiku. Partially as a mindfulness exercise and partially as a way to write SOMETHING. As I wrote more, I became aware of how most of what I know about haiku was taught in grade school, or I had picked up through hearsay.

I began to wish for a resource that could help me write haiku respectfully. Then one day at the library like a shining beacon I came across this. It is literally everything I had wished for.

I am totally in love with this book. About halfway through it and I just wanted to share a few of my favorites so far…

Especially the last one by Hasegawa Sosei, who after being a war correspondent and being present at the “Rape of Nanjing” wrote when he got news he was being sent back home to Japan.

One might think I‘m a Buddhist by how often I read/listen to Buddhist texts and related topics. I‘m not. But I find a lot about Buddhism lines up with my personal philosophies. Or, at least, how I imagine my personal philosophies.

Meditation in Action is very accessible. I was able to follow along while working, and while not everything is new to me here, Trungpa is able to frame it in a way that makes it seem new. Def recommend for beginners.

Short and solid. I wonder if detractors miss how funny this is. I mean, she takes a Cosmopolitan type quiz for demon possession! Maybe I‘m misreading it.

While I was expecting a certain aspect of the ending, I was invested the whole way to see how Gran pulled it off: not flawlessly, but not unsatisfying either.

Went to Savers yesterday for some back to school shopping. For those who don‘t know it‘s basically like a Goodwill, but a bit more discriminate.

Anyway, I haven‘t been into one for years and I had no idea how well-maintained their book section is. Plus, they are all buy four get a fifth one free!
😅😅
So, yeah, came away with some stuff on mine and the wife‘s TBR, plus a couple classics. Less than $10. Most excited to start the tagged book.

With The Weary Blues, Hughes reminds us that human thought is poetry; it just takes a certain skill or instinct to harness it.

Coming away from this I was amazed by how much joy and love for life there is. Despite all the hurdles for a Black artist, for Black people, in the first half of the 19th century, he seemed totally enthralled with life.

Also that cover! Is that not one of the most iconic pictures? I‘d love to have a reprint on my wall.

Ondaatje‘s collection of poetry looks backward, not only on the author‘s life to this point, but on writing as a whole. His fearlessness to be experimental, purple and personal is what I love about poetry. Of course it‘s also about balance. And Ondaatje, while teetering on occasion, is a high wire artist of exceptional caliber.

I actually want to pan this; its saving grace is the concept itself. This is the type of book where you can picture all the possible, more interesting ways it could take, and where you begin to feel ripped off. Like, “C‘mon, you authors are supposedly at the top of your game and you can‘t even see this…” Atwood actually has very little involvement. The frame narrative is written by Douglas Preston, which means more than half the writing is his ⬇️

Typically, I don‘t follow a lot of investigative journalism, nor am I all that interested in mainstream news coverage, so when the Epstein story broke, I didn‘t follow it; just knew the basic hearsay and rumors.

But Lolita directed me to Lolita in the Afterlife, which in more than one essay alluded to Epstein, and so I found myself compelled to learn more about this sorta kinda real life Humbert Humbert. And Julie K. Brown more than delivered.