I just read Lawyerish’s latest book recommendation post, and my reaction is equal parts “I want to read them all” and “how on earth does she find time to read all of those?” (And read that in a supportive tone, not a passive aggressive “well some people must be letting things slide of they have so much time for reading” tone. Just to be clear.) I want all of the ones she recommends. I sometimes wonder if I should get a Kindle so that I can rent/check out/ purchase e-books that I can get instantly, that don’t take up space and also don’t cost me late fines $$$$ when I inevitably don’t get back to the library by the due date . . . Part of my poor amount of reading lately stems from not having books at my fingertips. I do love a “real” book though. I suppose getting a Kindle wouldn’t prevent me from also reading paper books. I think I just convinced myself.
Below is a list of the scant few books I have read this year, plus some of the podcasts I have listened to.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me. I have slowly been inching my way towards some understanding of the black experience in America – it began when a black mother in a mother’s group I’m in casually noted (this was before Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown) that she no longer let her sons outside to play. They had turned 10 years old and gotten tall, and she had seen white people stop seeing them as little boys and start seeing them as hulking threats. She told me about having to train them to understand that people in America fear them, and that every move they made needed to take that fear into account, because other people’s fear could kill them. It hurt her so deeply, to destroy their innocence (they are still little kids inside, even if they look like teens), but she felt terror that one day they would play in a park with a stick that looks like a gun and someone calls the cops saying a black teen has a gun in the park and BAM. I asked her for more, and she explained some specific circumstances of things that had happened to her children that made me walk away for a minute and take deep breaths. . . . And then Tamir Rice was shot for playing with a toy gun in a park. So. Coates continues the education, in heartbreaking and beautiful prose, again with specific stories of how black people in America are never given the benefit of the doubt, and it puts their bodies and the bodies of their loved ones in constant danger that I will never fully understand. He is a gifted writer, and he gives me a window into the black experience that has helped deepen my Christian understanding of loving my black neighbor, as I am called to do.
Peter Brown Hoffmeister, Graphic the Valley. This was heartily recommended by a friend and I can understand why, but it was a bit too much work for me, at least at this time. The sentence structures are really interesting – the writing is quite creative – but the subject matter is somewhat tough and the quirky sentences can be hard to decipher. It’s a novel about a boy from a tribe that illegally lives in Yosemite National Park. Worth reading, mulling over, and I’ll re-read it someday when I have more of my brain space available for it.
Ron Rash, the Ron Rash Reader. Ron Rash is a favorite – Serena flopped at the movies, and that’s a shame because the book was flawless. I enjoyed the short stories in the Reader – but I like his long-form writing better. In both writing he has a skill for evoking time and place – the place is almost always a town in Carolina, my spiritual home. But I think his greater talent is revealed when he has the room to develop an epic storyline, which a short story simply doesn’t allow. Now I want to re-read Serena. So good.
Carolyn Adams, Ruthless. I read this book in three hours. Technically it’s YA, but a lot of great works are YA (Bridge to Terabithia, anyone?) This is a story of a young girl kidnapped by a sexual predator with very evil intents, and her naked escape from him through the woods. Its pace is perfect, its heroine convincing, its hero fleshed out and 3 dimensional, with a well developed back story. It’s told in the first person, and the inner monologue of the young woman heroine is authentic. It was a great escape from reality, and it sold out at amazon within a few days of release (a second printing has since been released, and it’s available now).
That’s it for books. Pretty sad state of affairs, eh? I sit down on the couch at night to read sometimes, and invariably fall asleep within minutes. If I try to read when the kids are awake – well, that’s a joke. I do read the Atlantic and the Economist (and Southern Living) – and of course, I’ve practically memorized Thomas the Tank Engine and his Friends, Snuggle Puppy, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Jack and I are sort of reading Harry Potter and the Bunnicula books – he reads them to me. This shall have to do for now.
As for podcasts, I had to reduce my podcast listening because I was putting us over our data plan. I do love Invisibilia, Radiolab, Serial, and This American Life. I need to branch out – any recommendations?
You don’t need to buy a Kindle – just get the Kindle app for your phone! (either iPhone or Android) I like having physical books to read in bed before sleep, but otherwise, for being able to carry them everywhere and check books out from the library (and not have to return them!), the Kindle app works just as well as an actual Kindle. (Unless you want to avoid having the internet also at your fingers…which is a totally reasonable concern. :))
I haven’t read Between the World and Me yet, but Coates’ work in the Atlantic has incredibly expanded my understanding of race in America. A couple of books that I read after he discussed them are The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson, and The Half Has Never Been Told, by Edward Baptist. The Warmth of Other Suns is the story of the Great Migration, and it is one of the best books on any topic that I have ever read. The Half Has Never Been Told is about how slavery was fundamental to the expansion of American capitalism and American economic power, north and south. It is a HARD book to read, but very, very worth it.
I would second Lawyerish’s recommendation of Kate Atkinson. I just finished A God In Ruins, and I wish I had been able to slow down a little and savor more, because it was so good.