New Year, Old Books

It is the real first day of my new year. By that I mean that school starts again for the kids, and it’s no longer OK to spend the entire day on the couch watching the piles of holiday debris grow and tilt on every surface. Of course, like every day in my life, the world has thrown a wrench into my well laid plans to Get My Sh*t Together (2019 resolution, already withering on the vine). One kid woke up with a fever, and our next door neighbors have decided that this is the day to clean out their vents. A big truck pulled up in their driveway, which is mere feet from the side of our house, and the suction process has commenced its ear shattering song. As I write this, it is 7:30 a.m., and I am already reneging on many of the commitments I made to myself (Hello, Internet and your many seductions).

But this is a book blog, not a whine blog (or a wine blog…if I started one, could I sip while I type?). I have decided, as part of the project to eliminate some of my many piles, to make 2019 The Year of the Backlist. And with that decision, I have chosen for the second time to join Roof Beam Reader in the TBR Challenge.

Here’s the premise: I pick 12 books (and two alternates) that were published before 2018 and that are languishing on my shelves (or leaning in a random stack in the closet, or gathering dust on my nightstand). I vow to read twelve of them over the course of the year, thereby reducing the clutter of things undone. This project is good for me because I have two reading habits that conflict: 1)I love to buy books; and 2) I check out hundreds of books from the library. The library books tend to win my attention because of those pesky due dates and even peskier fines. And what happens is the growth of the aforementioned piles and the general hauntings of unread pages.

I have to admit that I tried this challenge four (!) years ago and failed. Or, I suppose, I could reframe the experience and say that I was able to read five books from my incredible leaning stack, leaving just nine to clatter around my house. I am putting a few of those original TBR copies back on this list this year.

I have attempted to make a list that incorporates all the of things I like to include in my reading life – authors from different backgrounds, a mix of genres and topics, and a healthy assortment of challenging and “easy” reads.

It’s time to get started! Here’s the list:

1)    The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison: I got to page 111 of this book of essays before getting distracted. I was loving it and always said I’d need to go back to the beginning and try again. The first one describes the author’s experience being a medical actor, a practice patient for medical students developing their empathy skills. The receipt I was using as a bookmark says that I bought it new at Powells Bookstore in Portland, OR in May, 2017.

2)    Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. I have always wanted to read this book, and yet I always pass it over for other things. I know that several of you have read this and loved it. I admit to shying away from it because both the terrorist and the opera elements of the description been off-putting. It was on my 2015 TBR list, and I’ve had it on my shelf for at least a decade. I fear that I borrowed it from someone and never returned it. Sorry.

3)    Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: I love this author, and I enjoyed Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, and Dear Ijawele,or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (here is my blog post). One of my kids read this novel for school, and this is his copy. I don’t know where it came from, but it includes a 2016 receipt from The Cheesecake Factory (Pumpkin Cheesecake and Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch). Was he reading it while eating?

 

4)    Arcadia by Lauren Groff (alternate): I like Lauren Groff (though here's my conflicted review of Fates and Furies), but I’m not really interested in communes, which is the setting for this novel. I remember hesitating when I bought it at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Texas in 2016. You know how it is when you really want a new book, but nothing really calls out to you? It was one of those days.  I’d rather read Florida by this author – that one is also on my nightstand – but it was published in 2018 and doesn’t qualify for the challenge.

 

5)    The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin: This one came highly recommended from a friend, and it’s by a Pacific Northwest author. From the price tag, it looks like I bought it used at Powells Bookstore in 2016. Historical fiction is not my go-to genre, which is probably why it has sat unread for so long.

 

6)    The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma: I bought this one new at Bookends and Beginnings in Evanston, IL in 2016, after it was highly promoted on the Book Riot Podcast. And then the New York Times called the author, “the heir to Chinua Achebe.” Nonetheless, the violence promised by the description has put me off. I am hopeful to get over my hesitance and try it.

 

7)    Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan: This is another one that friends have recommended, and I really enjoyed the author’s Sourdough last year. I bought this copy used at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, WA. I don’t usually gravitate to fantasy-ish books, but I hope to be charmed. A magic bookstore? OK, I’ll bite.

8)    Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok: I bought this Advanced Reader copy at the Friends of Seattle Public Library book sale for fifty cents more than five years ago. I know you're not supposed to buy unpublished copies, so my apologies to the literary world. I’m a sucker for an immigration story, so I’m not sure why this one has languished on the shelves for so long.

 

9)    Commonwealth by Ann Patchett: Another Patchett! I started this one in 2016 just as we were starting our house remodel. I read 75 pages and set it aside. I seem to remember that this was the time when I went four months without reading, because I was too overwhelmed by picking out paint colors and hinges and baseboard styles.  I got this copy for Christmas, and Santa found me a British paperback edition before the American version came out.

 

10) The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell (alternate): I also got this one for Christmas in 2016 and it was set aside for the house remodel extravaganza. The description says that the author goes around the world visiting bookstores. What’s not to love about that!? I have this down as an alternate, but now that I’m looking at it, I might read it first.

 

11) H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald: I bought this copy from the remainder table at Third Place Books, Ravenna in Seattle. Everyone I know said it was fantastic nonfiction about grief, but I haven’t picked it up because I’ve been worried about ending up miserable. I want to read great things, but I don't want to propel myself into a sobbing heap. What a readerly dilemma!

12) Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides:  I got this one as a gift, and the gifter knows how much I enjoy this author. I looooved Middlesex (and, fun fact: Eugenides went to my high school, albeit several years ahead of me). This is a collection of short stories, and I am notoriously bad at getting through short stories.

 

13) The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson: I know that this book the best thing since sliced bread, and I love sliced bread. I promised to read it when I participated in Nonfiction November years ago, and it was also on my previous TBR challenge list. I received this copy in hardcover for Christmas, maybe in 2010.  I don’t know why I am intimidated by this book, but it is time to overcome whatever it is that is in my way.

 

14) We Were Eight Years in Power: A Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates: One of the essays in this collection, Donald Trump is the First White President, knocked me down when I read it in The Atlantic in October, 2017. And I have written before how Between the World and Me changed me forever.  I bought my copy of We Were Eight Years... at Powells when it first came out, and it has been staring at me from my nightstand ever since.

 

My plan is to update you along the way as I successfully navigate my way through this list. I'll be keeping track of my progress on this entry, adding completion dates and links to reviews:

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Arcadia by Lauren Groff
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok -- READ 1/19
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

And if you’re interested in joining me, you can find the “rules” at Roof Beam Reader. Or you can just read your own backlist in your own way, but please let me know how it’s going. I hope you play along!

Onward!

Blogtastic!: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

BLOGTASTIC! We’ve reached the last and final square in the 2017 Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge. Today will feature Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, which fulfills the category, “Book by an Asian-American Writer.”

The book blogosphere loves Ng’s books, because they are very accessible family dramas that offer entry into complicated conversations about identity. Her debut, Everything I Never Told You, was the Amazon Book of the Year in 2014. Little Fires Everywhere was the Amazon Best Novel of the year in 2017 an the Goodreads Choice Best Fiction Book of the Year in 2017. So y’all love your Ng.

I like Ng’s books. I do! But I don’t love them, and that always makes me feel weird. It’s kind of how I feel about Star Wars. Sure, I’ll go, but I have no interest in standing in line in costume at midnight to see it. 

photo credit: Andrew Gombert/European Pressphoto Agency at nyt.com

Little Fires Everywhere is a book that is trying to do several things. First, it is a satire of sorts of white, affluent culture. The novel takes place in Shaker Heights, Ohio, which is the author’s hometown. Ng takes aim at the pristine appearance of the setting, the rules and conventions, and the supposed progressive politics of the very rich people. Second, it is an exploration of the complexities of motherhood, and the novel features several mother/daughter relationships that poke at all the ways that being a “good mother” is difficult. And third, the novel wants to explore intercultural/interracial/interclass adoption, which brings all three themes together. Ambitious, right?

The problem I have is that I don’t think that Ng really trusts her audience to grapple with the complex moral issues at the center of the book. I’m not truly spoiling anything with this discussion, but STOP RIGHT NOW if you are worried about finding out too much about the story. 

The interracial/cultural/class adoption controversy involves a legal challenge between affluent/white adoptive parents and a low income, young, Asian birth mother. Class issues are central here, because the baby will certainly grow up with all sorts of material advantages if she stays with her adoptive parents. But the birth mother’s biological connection and cultural connection sit as important, contrasting advantages.  There’s so much interesting (and tragic) possibility in this subject matter, but I don’t think that Ng allows us to encounter the difficult heart of this problem. I wanted to feel challenged, but the adoptive parents are so completely clueless that I felt manipulated. What if the adoptive parents had surrounded the daughter with people and experiences that would help her connect to her heritage? What if there was genuine goodness – though different goodness - on both sides of the legal aisle? Then the reader would have a real dilemma, just as we do when this issue plays out in real courts, when we have to ask, “How does race matter?” and “How does class matter?”

So read this for your book club! There’s a ton to talk about, clearly. You can even wear your Star Wars costume while you do so.

Original from pinterest.com. Then I mangled it.

Here’s an interesting interview with Ng. And here she is in The Atlantic talking about the significance of Goodnight Moon: “If you imagine this book without the words that accompany the pictures, it would be a mystifying work—even a little bit terrifying.”

Blogtastic!: The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Today I’ll be writing about the fourth square on my 2017 Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge bingo card: Book By An “Award Winning” Author of Color. I read The Round House by Louise Erdrich not because I wanted to, but because my high school aged sons were assigned to read this in class.  And I knew from reviews --EEK, the subject matter! And I don’t think this is a spoiler because it happens in Chapter 1:

The main character’s mother is raped, and the bad guy tries to set her on fire.

This struck me as a shocking topic for a tenth grade discussion until I realized that it’s probably the plot of half of the mass market thrillers on bookstore shelves. But still, trigger warning for this entire book!

The main character is a Native teenager who, as his family struggles with this crime, has to confront the idea of justice. And the crime happens at a place where location matters – will it be subject to United States federal law or tribal law? The question of rights and authority is literal, but it is also philosophical: can there ever be real justice for indigenous groups?

The other thing that is striking about this book is that it is a coming-of-age story. So much of this book did resemble novels that I had to read in high school: The Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, etc. It is the terribleness of the crime that sets it apart, and the fact that a young boy has to live with that kind of violence. Is the reason that I was so shocked at this content because people like me (white, economically stable) can assume a protected childhood? Is this belief just another facet of privilege? There’s a connection here to Between the World and Me, in which Ta-Nehisi Coates’ writes a letter to his son about what it means to be young, black boy today. The message: The world might be safe for some people, but it’s not safe for you.

What would Holden Caulfield say about the fact that adults made an online quiz about him to help kids get good grades in school?

I also saw a connection with Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing (#4 on my Best of 2017 list). That book has coming-of-age elements (main character is a teen boy coming to understanding about his family), and it also confronts the idea of whether justice is possible for the characters. There are cultural ghosts in both novels that tether the current day story to history. I can imagine a fantastic book club discussion with the three books together (Erdrich, Coates, Ward) – assuming, of course, that your book club wants to dive into deepest literary sadness.

The Round House won the National Book Award in 2012. Erdrich’s 2009 novel, The Plague of Doves, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.  Love Medicine won the National Book Critics Award in 1984.

The internet just told me that Erdrich owns Birchbark Books in Minneapolis. It’s an independent bookstore that focuses on Native literature and community. So if you’re there for the Super Bowl, go check it out!

Here’s a 2012 New York Times interview with Erdrich about The Round House. And here’s a new one from Elle magazine. The interviewer is Margaret Atwood!

Blogtastic!: Janesville by Amy Goldstein

 We’ve made it to the “free square” on the 2017 Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge bingo card. I’ve decided to choose the category, “Nonfiction About Race or Class in America.” And the book that fills that category is Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein.

I listened to Janesville on audio, and come to think of it, audio books offered a great way for me to branch out from my go-to diet of fiction about sad white ladies. In the final half of 2017, I listened to three audio books that filled squares on my bingo card. Yay, broadened horizons!

Janesville is a true case of narrative ethnography -- only rarely do I feel like the author steps in the middle of it. It follows the trajectory of residents of Janesville, Wisconsin after the General Motors plant closes and offers a complicated story of the declining middle class. I was most struck by the hope that gets pinned on education (workforce retraining) as a way to bolster the middle class in the face of economic change -- and, in this case, its lack of impact.

This book will clearly appeal to people wondering what happened during the 2016 election, and frankly, I think it is better than Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance – which was the book that has received the most praise for trying to explain the mindset that propelled some economically struggling white people to become Trump’s base. Goldstein brings a journalist’s eye and craft to her work, while Vance is talking about his family and his neighbors and his own history. Janesville is part of this same conversation because of Wisconsin’s Electoral College vote outcome and also because it is Paul Ryan’s hometown. It is notable, however, that this is NOT a book about Trump, and Goldstein doesn’t even mention him until the epilogue. Plus, Janesville voted Democratic during the election.

Several reviewers have noted that Janesville needs a part 2. Understanding the state of our politics requires grappling with race, and Goldstein does not do that with much depth. It’s true that the Janesville community is over 95% white, but the existence of the all-white communities is part of the story of racial segregation and exclusion that is central to American economic history. Goldstein does give a nod to the fact that Beloit, Wisconsin – just down the freeway from Janesville – is more racially diverse (15% African American and 17% Latino). The politics that led to a region that has those racialized elements is important.

Of course, there might be a bigger question at stake for readers who pick up a book about Wisconsin. What is the appeal of cheese curds? Why?!?!?!

 

Vat O'Curds

Valentine's Day Themed Curds?????

Here’s a link to a Marketplace interview with Goldstein, with an edited print transcript included. And here’s a review that I liked from The New Yorker.  Janesville won the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year for 2017.

Blogtastic!: Dear Ijeawele: A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Today I’m focusing on bingo square #2 on the 2017 Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge: Nonfiction About Gender or Gender Roles. Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a letter the author writes to a friend about how to raise a feminist.

Like in her fiction (Americanah is my favorite!), Adichie is writing about her understanding of both Nigerian and Western/American contexts. Growing up a feminist is both culturally specific and more universally political, and it was interesting to think about the idea of equality with that in mind.

I listened to this book on audio, but I have since read excerpts of it in print. Though I am enjoying the way I can grow my stack of books by listening to audio versions in the car, I will say that audio does this book a disservice.  Adichie is a powerful speaker. I have used her TED Talk, "The Danger of a Single Story," in my classes. THIS is the voice readers need to hear in their head when they read this book. The American audio reader sounds particularly disconnected from the letter in her hands.

I listened to this book before the #MeToo events of this fall, but the book is even more profound with that movement in mind. Raising a child is a political act, and it helps to be thoughtful about our language (princess?) and about binaries (can you be both feminist and feminine? Or are those opposite constructs?) I was especially compelled with her critique of the idea of “likeability.” We certainly expect powerful women to be likeable, but we don’t expect the same of men (think: 2016 election). Here’s a little excerpt, which I took from her Facebook page:

Please do not ever put this pressure on your daughter. We teach girls to be likeable, to be nice, to be false. And we do not teach boys the same. This is dangerous. Many sexual predators have capitalized on this. Many girls remain silent when abused because they want to be nice. Many girls spend too much time trying to be ‘nice’ to people who do them harm. Many girls think of the ‘feelings’ of those who are hurting them… We have a world full of women who are unable fully to exhale because they have for so long been conditioned to fold themselves into shapes to make themselves likeable.

Helping a child become a good person is such hard work. Adichie reminds us that consciousness-raising requires being conscious of all the little things. Now that the holidays are over, I'd like to add a 16^th suggestion. Can we get real about Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer? I think it might be time to stop celebrating Rudolf's story – or at least call out his sexist dad – don’t you think?

I recently listened to an interesting Atlantic Interview podcast featuring Adichie and Ta-Nehisi Coates. I downloaded it from Apple Podcasts, but the YouTube link gives you the audio. And here’s an article about her from The Guardian.

Blogtastic! The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Today I’m focusing on bingo square #1 on the 2017 Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge: YA Novel By a Writer of Color. It’s possible that The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is the only YA novel I read last year. I do find that I read fewer of them these days, despite having young adults in my house, because I’m not much into dystopia or dragons. Next year I might put a new square on the bingo card: YA Novel About Humans in a Real Life Situation. But, of course, the line between fictional dystopia and real life is getting more and more blurry…

I was drawn to The Hate U Give because of the buzz around it, but also because it ties into one of the content strands in the courses I teach. The last few years, my students and I have looked at Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson. I teach about education policy, and the purpose of focusing on this event has been to look at the idea of “separation” as a tool. What does segregation do in our society? Why do we intentionally separate people, and to what end? Together, we read parts of James D. Anderson’s Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 to look at the logic Southerners used when they excluded African Americans from the public school system (and how African Americans fought back).  We listen to the This American Life podcast, "The Problem We All Live With, Part 1," to see the modern day version of that problem in the schools surrounding Ferguson, MO. And we read parts of We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation by Jeff Chang to see how streets and towns and bylaws and policies were created in the Ferguson area (and most places) to invent and reinvent separation again and again.

But if I’m honest, it was not until I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me that I truly felt what it meant that the law is not on everyone’s side. The distinction between feeling and understanding is important for me. The reason that this book affected me so much is because Coates is writing a letter to his child. He is preparing him for the world, just as I have to prepare my own kids for the world. But in this letter, he is telling his son that he is not safe, that he has to carry the burden of society’s distrust and disdain.  And I felt my privilege in not having to write my own sons such a letter, and I felt through his words the pain of that process. That is what a good book can do, right? In some cases, you see your own truth validated, and in others, you get to walk in someone else’s shoes, or, perhaps, live in their skin.

The Hate U Give, which was nominated for a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature last year, is a debut YA novel that looks at the murder of an unarmed black boy by police. The story focuses on an African American teen that lives in a black neighborhood but goes to a mostly white, suburban school. When she witnesses the death of her friend, she has to navigate her experience of injustice in both contexts.

I always have to dial down my inner critic’s voice when I read YA, because I tend to feel like there’s just too much going on. Too many plot lines! Too many characters! But I suppose that’s what adolescence is -- so much simultaneous intensity. What did really interest me was the move in some communities to block access to this book, as if adults should shield kids from the world they already live in. Or is there a presumption that “YA readers” are white and should be kept separate from racial violence*?

Here’s a great article about Thomas from the Guardian.

*The reason the book was removed from school shelves in Katy, Texas was, supposedly, “explicit language.”

The Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge Bingo, 2017 Edition

We are a month into 2018, and I am still considering last year. And before I stop accidentally writing 2017 on all my checks, I thought I’d revisit The Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge.

I started this challenge in 2015, when I was trying to read more broadly and encounter more points of view. The purpose of the challenge was to be more intentional in my reading life, and so I created a drinking game for myself. If I filled a row on my homemade bingo card, I would take a drink and holler, “Blogtastic!” The members of my family already think I’m pretty unusual, and the teens, in particular, aren’t thrilled when I have weird bookish outbursts. But too bad, suckers! I’m working on being a better reader and a better person.

2015 date changed to 2017. I haven't updated the card or fixed the typos because I'm lazy.

As you know, 2017 was not a good blogging year for me. It also wasn’t a great reading year, and I didn’t attempt to achieve any goals. But hey! It turns out that I filled THREE columns/rows on my Bingo card!* In honor of that success, I will post every day this week, highlighting one of the books. I have decided to focus on the center column, because that one allows me to write about some books that I didn’t cover in my “Best of 2017” list a couple of weeks ago.  Many of those books could easily fulfill squares in this challenge (4 out of 5 of them, actually). 

If you’re looking to jump down an internet rabbit hole, the We Need Diverse Books public Facebook page always has great links to articles about diversity and publishing --  not that I'd advocate internetting when you could be reading, of course.

This is a shot glass, in case someone wants to send me a gift. Cafepress.com

*Note: Three rows = three drinks! Drunk blooging is dangerous. Blogging, not blooging. Whatever (hiccup).

The Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge Bingo

Last month, I told you about my desire to read more broadly. In particular, I want to push myself to read books by authors from different backgrounds and about different cultures and experiences. I want to do this because I feel that I am a voracious reader but a narrow one. I also feel like I will grow as a person if I “travel” more extensively with people and to places beyond my own experience.

I listen to a bunch of book podcasts, and I remembered hearing on the Books on the Nightstand podcast about a summer reading bingo game the hosts created last year. I have decided to borrow their idea and use the bingo format for my own challenge. Welcome to the Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge Bingo game!

Here’s what I did: I made a bingo card with some broad diversity-related categories. My personal goal is to read books that fill as many rows as possible. You, of course, can decide to fill just one, or several, or all. You can even change the categories if you want because bookish bingo anarchy is just fine. You are free to bingo as you see fit.

An important side note: this project is a creative way for me to challenge myself. I will decide for myself what terms like “non-Western,” “disability,” “of color,” and “classic” mean. You might have different definitions, and that’s great. Use them!

Here’s the card that I printed:

You can print your own card here.

The directions for the Leaning Stack of Books Diversity Challenge Bingo game were supplied by the online bingo game-making site. Here they are: When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout “Blogtastic!” Or play as a drinking game and for every block you mark off, take a sip, and finish your drink each time you get five blocks in a row.

(Drinking Bingo photo courtesy of Amazon, where you can purchase your books and real drinking bingo game equipment with a single click! Classy!)

I did not make up these directions, but I totally support them. However, if you want to have tea instead, or shout something else, again, that’s up to you.

I would LOVE it if you would join me. Please just let me know by leaving a comment. We’ll do a check-in in July to check our progress, and then do a wrap-up in December. Happy reading!