Recommendations
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My Reading Month: April
April definitely felt like the longest month I have experienced in a while. I’m a little overwhelmed as I go into May, but looking back, I can also say I took full advantage of the last month in terms of reading. In terms of trends, I can see my attention span was lower – I read more graphic novels and short books, and it took me FOREVER to finish the longer, more dense books I was reading. However, that makes a lot of sense to me. This has been a weird time, and sometimes we need quick bites of respite when we are dealing with big things like a global…
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A Jane Austen Re-read: Emma
Hello everyone, The fact that Emma is so popular means that it took me an extra week just to make it through the sheer volume of Emma’s many adaptations, and I didn’t even get to them all – however, I am here now, and I have to tell you that you are in for a treat! I approached this book with some dread because when I first read Emma, I did not like it all that much. I thought Emma was annoying, and the central relationship between Harriet and Emma was grating, and many of the characters felt a little more one-sided than in some of her other books. I…
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My Reading Month: February
Hello! I “slowed down” this month in terms of reading, mostly meaning I listened to a few more audiobooks, and made it through fewer actual books. This was because I hit a slump with a few books that were tough to get through, and because it has just been a busy month. I have also been struggling because the political events of the past few months have left me feeling very raw, particularly as I look at who the media and the powers that be seem to want to tell stories about, and how blatant that can be and still be considered to be acceptable. I will likely have more…
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My Reading Month: January
Last year, I started slow, but a stressful fall meant that I leaned into reading to keep myself sane, and I ended up finishing over 100 books in 2019. I don’t say this to brag because I do sometimes worry that the quantity of what I read can decrease the quality of my enjoyment. I feel ambivalent about it all, but the truth is, if I love a book, I love a book, no matter how quickly I read it, and that has to count for something. That reading momentum also meant that I finished the year feeling jazzed and motivated about reading, which is a wonderful feeling to have!…
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Book Award Round Up: Part 1: Latino, Arab and Australian!
You have probably heard the buzziest book award news in the last week as Margaret Atwood and Bernadine Evaristo shared the Man Booker prize for only the 3rd time in the history of the UK’s most prestigious book award. This was fun news and I know that I personally loved seeing two female authors, including an author of color, get such a prestigious honor. However, book awards over the last few months have also highlighted the achievements of many more authors from around the world and I am excited to share them all with you – these awards are such a great way to be introduced to the best work…
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My Reading Month – Trees and Murder
I feel like I have been coming out of a bit of a fog over the past month – between work and life things, my life has been incredibly crazy over the past year, and it is so lovely to begin to have a little breathing room. I still have not found myself reading all that much over the past month, and have only finished 1 or 2 physical books. This is probably due to the fact that the one of my other obsessions, RuPaul’s Drag Race, has been airing the final episodes of its most recent season, so I have been going down that rabbit hole instead. (Go Big,…
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Diversity in Children’s Literature: The Pride Month Edition
The generally white, always heterosexual parents of my favorite children’s books as a kid are a stark contrast (at least in terms of sexuality) to the world I was brought up in. However, while same-sex couples I grew up around never stood out as different to me, it was still incredibly difficult for non-heterosexual friends of mine, raised in that same community, to explore and express their personal feelings, and issues of intersexuality and transsexuality were never discussed (or shown on the pages of my books). In fact, I vividly remember reading Middlesex as a (maybe) 14 year old and being kind of mind-blown by the idea that a person…
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Dangerous Fiction: Stories of the Displaced and Placeless – A Reading List by Omar El Akkad
A few months ago, I got the opportunity to attend a talk by Omar El Akkad, the author of the incredible book American War. We were in a small room with about 10 people, and I was in heaven. His talk was fascinating and centered on the ways that displacement and disruption can fracture personal identities. In addition, he did something that will always win me over. He gave us a book list. Some of the books I had read, some I had heard of, and some were completely new. I wanted to share this list with you. It is for those who read American War, and also for those…
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Dead Feminists: A Reading List
Recently, I picked up a beautiful book by Seattle printers Chandra O’Leary and Jessica Spring. Dead Feminists combines brief biographies of women who have worked for feminism and social justice with reproductions of prints they have designed for each woman. Their beautiful broadside prints highlight the words and accomplishments of women throughout the ages, from Sappho in ancient Greece to the Thea Ross, the inspiration for Tugboat Annie. Furthermore, Chandra and Jessica donate part of their proceeds from each print to charities and organizations related to the message and work of the feminist being profiled. These are still being made, and there make a limited run of between 100 and…
