TTT: My Spring Reading List (and how I did on my winter reading list)

Top Ten Tuesday: My Spring Reading List. 

Below the line is how I did on my winter reading list.

Spring reading list:

Book Club Selections:

1. Such a Fun Age by Reid (April, Group #1)
2.  A Long Petal to the Sea by Allende (May, Group #1)
3. Black Cake by Wilkerson (May, Group #2)
   
4. The Mountains Sing by Nguyen (June, Group #1)
   
5. Lucy by the Sea by Strout (June, Group #2) I've read ahead and already completed  the April book this group.
   

Challenge Books:

1. Classics Club Spin Book TBA from this list -- Romeo and Juliet
   
2. A Past Pulitzer Prize winner from list -- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
   
3. Printz Award winner or honor book from this list (Hopefully: When the Angels Left the Old Country)
   

Books I've already started, recently acquired, and/or have on-hold at the library:

1. The ABC Murders by Christie
   
2. Necessary Christianity by Alexander
   
3. Solito by Zamora
   
4. Freewater by Luqman-Dawson
   
5. The Reading List by Adams
   
6. On the Subject of Unmentionable Things by Walton
   
7. The Hurting Kind: Poems by Limón
8. The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas
   
9. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Kawaguchi
10. Fox and I by Raven
11. Malibu Rising by Reid
12. Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow by Zevin
13. A Deadly Education by Novik
14. Babel by Kuang
15. Horse by Brooks
16. Bewilderment by Powers
    

Update: How I did on my winter reading list.

Highlighted yellow: completed. 

Highlighted aqua: in progress or 

Highlighted green: completed but read note.  

No color: did not read.

Winter reading list:

Book Club Selections:

1. Cross Purposes by Welsh (January, Group #1)
2. Demon Copperhead by Kingsolver (January, Group #2)
3. Citizen Vince by Walter (February, Group #1)
4. The Marriage Portrait by O'Farrell (February, Group #2)
   
5. So Lucky by Griffith (March, Group #1)
   
6. The Dictionary of Lost Words by Williams (March, Group #2)

Challenge Books:

1. Classics Club Spin Book TBA ---On a Winter Night a Traveler by Calvino
   
2. A Past Pulitzer Prize winner from list -- The Road by McCarthy
   
3. Printz Award winner or honor book -- All My Rage by Tabir
   

Books I've already started, recently acquired, and/or have on-hold at the library:

1. A Thousand Steps Into Night by Chee
   
2. The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Lefteri
   
3. Lawless Spaces by Haydu
   
4. When I Found You by Hyde
5. All My Rage by Tabir
6. A Book of Delights: Essays by Gay I had to return it to the library by its due date.
   
7. These Precious Days: Essays by Patchett
8. Creature by Tan
9. Heartstopper, 4 by Oseman
   

I know I have a tall order to read as many books I have identified on my Spring reading list. This list, however, will help. I like will find myself referring to it occasionally just to make sure I am staying on track. As you see from my success on my winter reading list, I almost completed all the books I selected. Woot. Woot.

-Anne

Sunday Salon -- Spring Forward

Weather: Overcast and cool. It will likely rain sometime today. Typical weather for the Pacific Northwest. By the time I finished this post, it did start raining. 😕

National Parks: With our visit to Haleakala National Park on Maui last month, we have renewed our goal to visit as many national parks as we can. Tomorrow we head across the peninsula from where we live in Washington State for a visit to Olympic National Park. We are staying in Port Angeles and hope to make it up to Hurricane Ridge though that might not be possible due to snow and park road closures on weekdays. (See map above. We live near Tacoma so you can chart our course across the Olympic Peninsula to our destination. We are joining friends from New Jersey so we'll have fun no matter what.) This week we also made reservations to visit two more National Parks at the end of April -- Kings Canyon and Sequoia -- both in California. Later this spring or early summer we hope to visit North Cascades National Park in our home state, but several hours north of where we live. A person from Germany once posed a question on Twitter saying he was moving to the US for a job and wanted to know the best places to visit. I thought about it and answered without a doubt, "our national parks represent the very best places to visit."

Lent: is a period of 40 days (plus Sundays) during which Christians remember the events leading up to and including the death of Jesus. The term Lent is from an old English word meaning 'lengthen'. It is a time of reflection and asking for forgiveness, as Christians prepare to celebrate Jesus' resurrection at Easter. My church doesn't demand fasting or abstaining from anything, like sweets, but encourages spending time each day contemplating our life in Christ. This past week I was very touched by this devotion, "Swimming or diving." Perhaps it spoke to me as a one-time swim team member or because, as I age, I am very aware of my limited days. I hope the print is large enough that you can read it.

"Eternal life means a life of depth. It means knowing that we are always caught by the buoyant waters of God's grace. It means living in a profound sense of all-embracing love, whether here and now, or in the mystery of life after death. Eternal life is about the depth of life we live in God through Christ -- and it is deep."

Books: I completed several books this week and began several others.

• Completed:
• Banned Books: The World's Most Controversial Books Past and Present by D.K. Publishing-- I knew about most of these books and have read almost 40 of the 80 listed. Banning books is such a bad idea. One example that really made me scratch my head was Black Voices from Prison (1970) by Etheridge Knight. As the title suggests, this is an anthology of writings and poems from Black prisoners. In 1999 when an inmate requested a copy, the request was denied because of 'racial content.' This request led to the book being banned throughout the entire penal system in Texas. At the same time, this prisoner could have checked out Mein Kampf. It just goes to show that most book banning is either done by people who haven't read the work or are interested in promoting their own personal preferences/beliefs. Sigh.
• Musical Tables: Poems by Billy Collins. A delightful collection of small poems. Most made me laugh, many were poignant, several were irreverent.
• The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken. A short novelized memoir by an author I discovered last year. McCracken writes a memoir but makes it a novel for two reasons: the book is about her relationship with her mother and her mother hated memoirs; and she was able to cut out superfluous information (like the fact that she has a brother) to make the telling tighter and lighter. I did enjoy her writing again.
• Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal-- the second memoir I've read by this author in 2023. I loved Textbook as much as I loved her first Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, but this time I knew throughout its reading that the author had died in 2017. It caused a pall to hover over the edges of my reading.
   
• Currently reading:
• Solito by Javier Zamora. A memoir highly recommended by other bloggers. I just started the audiobook today. I have ten days to finish it before my library checkout will expire. I've waited for my turn so I'd better go, go, go. 3% complete, audiobook read by the author.
• Necessary Christianity: What Jesus Shows We Must Be and Do by Claude Alexander. This is what I'm reading for Lent this year. So much to think about using examples from Jesus' life. After a particularly stressful few days early in the week I leaned into these words: "Necessary Christianity is maturity in Christ. It knows the difference between making a living and living for Christ. Occupation vs. vocation."
• Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson. This is the Newbery Award winner for 2023. I just started, so I don't have anything to report yet. Print. 5% complete.
• The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie. I am trying to make up for lost time. This is my fifth Christie in total. E-book. 12% complete.
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas. I made pretty good progress this week and I am approaching or have just past the climax. On page 887 of 1069, 83%, print and audio.
• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. This is for an upcoming book club meeting. I started the book back in 2021 and set it aside for some reason. Now I'm back into it and know I'll finish it this time. Audio and print, 35%.
  

• Blog posts:
• TTT: Jane Austen characters I'd like to meet
• Tanka-poetry reviews 
• Review: THE ROAD
• Review: TEXTBOOK 
   

Food for thought: Frustrated by book banning, eliminating abortion rights, and people who don't believe in truth anymore? Here is some advice to keep you motivated to work for good:

“It is important to fight and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay though never quite eradicated.”

                                                     – Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

 

Please watch Arnold Schwarzenegger talk about how we must stand up to hate (12 minutes long but worth every minute):

  

Humor for the week:
 

This is the cutest thing you'll see all day/week/month:

 

Have a good week!

Anne

Review: TEXTBOOK by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5+ stars.

I love this book as much as Rosenthal's Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life except there was a pall hanging over me the whole time I read it because I had learned about the author's death between the reading of the first and second "adult" book.

There is one section where Rosenthal talks about recognizing that her life is limited so she must treasure those moments of gazing at trees (or whatever) but in her example she says it is likely she'll die somewhere around age 80. I'm pretty sure that I sobbed at that point knowing that she was right, she did have a limited life span, but it had been much more limited than she guessed. Sigh.

I decided I want my mother to read her books, Encyclopedia and Textbook, but I will give her stern warnings not to open the card from me until she is done reading both. In the card I will explain that the author died of cancer in 2017, just a year after this book was published. It will make the memory of the book both sweet and poignant for her, I believe. My mother, btw, is 94 and a person of life who really treasures life and ordinary daily happenings. She'll appreciate Amy Krouse Rosenthal's gusto for our ordinary lives.

Now I'm off to see if any of her text links or email links are still alive...Amy Krouse Rosenthal TEXTBOOK website is a thing and I actually was able to submit a purple flower moment "Scones and barking". It is a fun interactive website where you can see photos of rainbows and self-portraits, and listen to recitations and music. I recommend spending some time on it. TEXTBOOK Amy Krouse Rosenthal

View all my reviews -Anne

Review and quotes: THE ROAD

Title: The Road by Cormac McCarthy 

Book Beginnings quote: 

When he woke in the in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him.

Friday56 quote:  

The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.

Summary: In a post-apocalyptic world a father and son make their way along the road, en route to the coast. The landscape is burned. Nothing moves except the ash in the wind. It is cold. The boy and his father are a world unto themselves, having only each other with no hope for the future but a love that sustains them. "Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation" (Book jacket).

Review: Years ago I decided I wanted to read all the past Pulitzer Prize winners. Then the reality of that decision actually sunk in and I amended my goal to reading all the winners for this coveted prize from the 21st-century only, with a few others, from the 20th-century, thrown in for good measure. With the completion of The Road, the 2007 winner, I am within three books of my goal and I'll be done!

My husband read The Road soon after it was published in 2006 and has been making veiled comments about it ever since. I wasn't sure I wanted to rush to read it since there is so much depressing news in our lives already why would I want to read a book about what life might end up being like in our future -- bleak and hopeless. What I didn't expect was the love and the power of that love to overcome the tragedy of the end times. While other survivors roamed around in packs looking with menace on their minds this unlikely team stick together and make their way through the dark and cold with dignity and resolve. The father does his best to shield his son from the horrors of their reality and tries to find moments and small things to delight him, like the time they found a bottle of coke and the boy gets to taste it's syrupy sweetness for the first time in his life. Or the time the man enters a barn looking to see if there was anything inside they could use and instead he finds three dead people hanging from the rafters. The boy wants to enter anyway, just in case there is food inside. But the father blocks his entry saying,  “Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.” He tries to protect his son from the potential of horrible memories that will haunt him forever. In a world which has completely fallen apart that is an impossible task, but a worthy one.

Clearly there is no happy ending to this tale. But there is an ending with a tinge of hope and so much love. In the end, after all, only love remains.

(I'm crying right now. I didn't realize how profoundly this book touched me until I started writing this review.)

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material. 

-Anne

Tanka-poetry reviews

Thanks to Lark Writes for giving me the inspiration to write short, poetic book reviews. Hers are called 'Haiku Reviews.' I'll make mine a little longer and call them tanka-poetry reviews. Similar to haikus, tanka poems are short, using only 31-syllables in the cadence pattern of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7. I call these reviews tanka-poetry but the books I am reviewing are not specifically poetry books.

 

 Musical Tables: Poems by Billy Collins 

Random House, 2022.

This new collection

is chock full of small poems --

My favorite kind.

Most are funny or poignant.

All made me laugh or smile.

 

Rating 4.5 out of 5 stars.

 

 

Banned Books: The World's Most Controversial Books, Past and Present

D.K. Publishing, 2022.

Title says it all --

banned books throughout the ages.

I've read almost half.

My favorite parts were quotes

by authors, impacts us all.

 

Rating 4 out of 5 stars.

 

 

The Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti

Macmillan Collector's Library, 2022, first published in 1862.

 

The foremost female

poet of her time. "Goblin

Market" is a weird

and ghoulish poem. So cool.

The others are not so good.

Rating 3 out of 5 stars.

 

Prairie Reunion by Barbara Scot

Riverhead Books, 1995.

A woman goes back

for bittersweet homecoming.

Tries to understand

why her father abandoned

family when she was young.

 

Rating 2 out of 5 stars.

 

 

The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan

Scribner, 2014.

 

Marina Keegan

Died days after her college

graduation. Sad

family and friends compiled

her stories for this book.

 

Rating 3 out of 5 stars.  

When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Amazon Publishing, 2013.

Child buried alive.

Man rescues him, nick of time.

Then spends rest of life

rescuing the boy from more

disastrous decisions.

 

3 out of 5 stars.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Duke Classics, 2012, originally published in 1920.

Debuting Poirot,

the famous Christie P.I.

Was death a murder?

Was it poison? Who did it?

We all know by end of book.

 

3.5 out of 5 stars.

 

 

-Anne

TTT: Jane Austen characters I'd like to meet in person

Top Ten Tuesday: Literary characters I'd like to meet in person, Jane Austen edition.

I love all of Jane Austen's books, most of the movies made of her books, and the spinoffs created by others using her characters or settings. Here is a list of her characters (or spin-off characters) I'd most like to meet in person and why.

 

1. Miss Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice) -- Because she is so grounded, smart, and unflappable.

2. Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice) -- Is he really as handsome, shy, and rich as we are led to believe?

3. Mr. Charles Bingley (Pride and Prejudice) -- Is he really as affable and charming, yet gullible as he is portrayed?

4. Mr. George Knightley (Emma) -- I wonder if his name matches his real personality, one full of valor.

5. Miss Anne Elliot (Persuasion) -- Because she remained so level-headed when raised by the most narcissistic father in all of literature.

6. Miss Elinor Dashwood (Sense and Sensibility) -- I'm sure we could be great friends.

7. Mr. Henry Crawford (Mansfield Park) -- Because I want to check him out. As my favorite Austen cad I want to know why I cheered for him to turn from the "dark side." (Which he didn't.)

8. Mr. Henry Tilney (Northanger Abbey) -- Is he really as kind and thoughtful in person as he is in the book?

9. Miss Charlotte Heywood (Sanditon, TV mini-series) -- Sanditon was never completed by Austen before her death. I'd like to ask Charlotte what the TV producers got right and wrong when they completed the story for the series. (I think I know some of the answers,)

10. Mr. James Stringer (Sanditon, TV mini-series) -- I'd like to find out if he ever went to architecture school and why he was dropped after season one. (Was he in the book, half finished by Austen? I don't think so.)

-Anne

Sunday Salon...March -- In like a lion or was it a lamb?

Snow in February. When we were in Hawaii my brother-in-law's brother, Gary sent us this photo taken from his living room window in Oregon. Isn't it artsy? I love it. Photo credit: G. Buhler, used with permission.

Weather: March weather comes with it's own little saying which we twist around if it is the opposite. "In like a lion, out like a lamb" or the opposite, "In like a lamb, out like a lion." March 1st was a lovely day (lamb) but March 2nd was stormy with wind and rain (lion.) Today started out sunny and glorious, now it is stormy with cold rain pelting down. It's looking like we should add another phrase to March weather -- "In like a lionish lamb, expect the same all month." 😏

Darling project: My daughter, who taught herself to crochet during COVID lockdowns, created these  little pea-people with different flower hats. Aren't they darling? I thought she was making them for herself but after creating all the little hats in the book, plus one of her own creation, she gave them to me. Can't wait to figure out a way to display them. Thank you, Carly!!! I love them.

Books, reading, and blogging:

• Currently reading:
• Banned Books: The World's Most Controversial Books by DK Publishing. I've read 36 of the 80 books named. Funnily, I don't have an urge to read most of the ones I haven't read. 57% complete. Print.
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas. I made quite a bit of progress this week, finally getting back on track reading it. I'm on page 745 of 1068, or 70%. I am going to finish this thing! Audio and print.
• The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken. This is a novelized memoir, I think. Very clever. 30%. Audio.
   
• Recently completed:
• A Thousand Steps Into Night by Traci Chee. A YA novel which uses Japanese mythology and history but is a fantasy novel. Very clever but also confusing with unrecognizable terms and names. Audio.
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. The first Poirot mystery. E-book.
• The Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti. I liked the title poem but didn't care for any of the others so I stopped reading about 80%. Print.
   
• Blog posts from this past week:
• TTT: Books that Enhanced My Appreciation of Other Cultures Than My Own
• Review: The Poetry Remedy 
• Review: The Marriage Portrait

Flowers: I find myself buying flowers more often when I pass them in the grocery store. For years I considered them a frivolous purchase. Now I would forego a food treat for a beautiful bunch of flowers. Who is with me? I highly recommend them as mood-lifters! Here is this week's purchase:

Prayers for two men: R and B. Both have been diagnosed with blood cancer.  May God's healing light enter their bodies.

We went to a movie theater in person: The first time since the beginning of COVID. It felt like such a normal thing to do (but I was glad the theater was nearly empty so I didn't feel compelled to wear my mask.) Don and Carly and I saw Everything Everywhere All At Once. We all loved it!

Just for fun:

The church service today was on new beginnings. The children's sermon was actually about a new take on the Humpty Dumpty story. It made me think of this cartoon.

 

-Anne

Review: THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell is a novelized story of the the life of the actual 16th-century noblewoman, Lucrezia di Cosimo de'Medici. Little is known historically about Lucrezia but what is known is that she was forced to marry a much older man, Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, thus merging two dynasties, at age thirteen, though they did not live together until she was fifteen. By age sixteen the girl was dead. In order for Lucrezia to do her duty to her husband she had to produce an heir. No child came out of the couple's short union. From the time of her death there were whispers that the unfortunate bride was poisoned, though most experts believe she probably died of tuberculosis.

One painted portrait of the young girl exists and from that picture and the small amount of information left behind, Maggie O'Farrell has spun a story of the life of women in the 16th-century, especially those in the noble classes. Her idea for the novel came from Robert Browning's famous poem "My Last Duchess."

Browning’s dramatic monologue takes us inside the mind of the Duke of Ferrara, as he shows a painting of his former wife (Lucrezia) to a representative of the family of his next bride-to-be. An avaricious megalomaniac, the duke prefers her ever-smiling portrait to the original girl because the image is inert and easier to control. (The Guardian)

The first chapter starts at the ending, with Lucrezia at a hunting lodge with her husband, away from any plausible help, where she is sure she will be poisoned. Obviously, the author intends for her readers to be looking out for instances of high drama that would lead to such a claim and indeed there are many circumstances that lead the reader to believe the husband has little love for his bride and could indeed pull off such a deadly plan as to have her murdered. But many professional reviewers point out that this is melodrama reworked to appeal to a progressive 21st-century audience. We are led to believe that Lucrezia was raised by thoughtless and uncaring parents and that she had the possibility of escaping her circumstances. But the truth of the matter was that noble women growing up in that time period knew their place in life and knew they would likely end up in a loveless marriage, their main role would be to create heirs to carry on the family's line. There were not many other options for them.

But I confess I am a 21st-century woman so I was part of the prime audience for The Marriage Portrait. I cheered for Lucrezia as she found little ways to be remain independent and remained resolutely defiant in the the face of her bullying husband and his cronies. The ending, which is not in keeping with the historical records, was surprising and redemptive. 

I became an O'Farrell fan after reading Hamnet in 2021. That story, also set in the 16th-century was about Shakespeare's family, specifically his wife Anne. That story had an air of plausibility about it and O'Farrell's writing style and skills had me enraptured from page one. The Marriage Portrait seemed less plausible plot-wise, but it beautifully captured what daily life was like for women living in that time. I could picture it all from O'Farrell's detailed descriptions.

I listened to the audiobook version of The Marriage Portrait which is usually a good choice for me, but this time I wished I were reading the print version. I wanted to linger on the beautiful prose as well as ponder over the clues of the mystery and the full cast of characters, also plucked from history. It was a book club selection and we had a fairly good discussion over the book, though no one was wildly crazy about the book, no one hated it either.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

-Anne

Review and quotes: THE POETRY REMEDY

Title: The Poetry Remedy: Prescriptions for the Heart, Mind, and Soul by William Sieghart

Format: In 2014 William Sieghart began The Poetry Pharmacy where he prescribes poems after consultations with persons needing a poetry prescription. Since that time he has prescribed thousands of poems to folks in the U.K. and spent hundreds of hours of in-person consultation. This book is organized around the oft-sited concerns of his "patients." The left side of the page explains how poetry can speak to problems/concerns/situation. The right side of the page has a sample poem which Sieghart often prescribes.

Book Beginnings quote: 

Condition: Anxiety

Also available for: Fear for Children; Fear for the future; Sleeplessness; Stress; Worrying.

 

For as long as anxiety has existed, human beings have woken up panicking in the night. And anxiety has existed for a long time: at the very least, since we first became aware of ourselves and of the future, however many millennia ago. Yet it was not until the modern age that anxiety seemed to become epidemic. Ironically, in the time of greater plenty, health, and comfort worldwide than ever before, we are more racked by worry than have ever been. [And so forth]... I find the calming words of Wendell Berry's "The Peace of Wild Things" help me put things into "...

"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry.

Friday56 quote:

Condition: Need for Mindfulness

Also available for: Disconnectedness; Need for Gratitude.

 

Prayer, to many in our secular age, has become a dirty word. The concept is dismissed as fusty or naive; the practice even more so. And yet as the popularity of meditation and mindfulness soar, there seems to be a collective longing for a moment of quiet in our busy lives. [And so forth]... Mary Oliver reminds us that we are all in need of a doorway into thanks; a way of relating to the world without our egos and, for just a moment, allowing ourselves to feel quiet gratitude for all the small moments of grace that we encounter daily...

"Praying" by Mary Oliver.

Summary:  

Sometimes only a poem will do. These poetic prescriptions and wise words of advice are tailored to those moments in life when we need them most, from general glumness to news overload, and from infatuation to losing the spark. Whatever you're facing, there is a poem in these pages that will do the trick.

This pocket-size companion presents the most essential fixes in William Sieghart's poetic dispensary--those that, again and again, have shown themselves to hit the spot. Whether you are suffering from loneliness, lack of courage, heartbreak, hopelessness, or even an excess of ego--or whether you are seeking hope, comfort, inspiration, or excitement--The Poetry Remedy will provide just the poem you need in that moment. (Publisher)

Review: I always enjoy reading poetry books like this one which have some analysis or talk about aspects of the poems or hidden meanings. I found new poems and pondered familiar ones with new eyes. I have always read poetry like prescriptions for remedies when I need a lift, am feeling sad, or want to experience new thoughts/insights.

Here are some of the poetry prescriptions I really appreciated:

"Celia Celia" by Adrian Mitchell

"Everything is Going to Be All Right" by Derek Mahon

from "My Brilliant Image" by Hafiz

"You Reading This, Be Ready" by William Stafford

"When Death Comes" by Mary Oliver

"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop

"The Guest House" by Rumi 

and so many more.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material. 

-Anne

TTT: Books which enhanced my awareness about cultures other than my own

TTT:  Genre Freebie: Books which enhanced my awareness about cultures other than my own. (Not sure if that is an actual genre delineation but I'm going with it.) I've read all of these books within the past three years.

Fire Keeper's Daughter by Angeline Bouley   //   Native American culture and practices. YA. Fiction.

 

 

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See.  //  Korean culture, food, history, and unique practices. Fiction.

In the Beautiful Country by Jane Kuo. // Taiwanese culture in America for recent immigrants. MG. Novel-in-Verse. Fiction.

Interior Chinatown by Charles Wu. // Chinese American experiences in the US. Fiction. Written as a TV or movie script with stage directions included.

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott. // Expectations placed on Blacks in America which are unfair and often terrifying. Fiction. Award winner.

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel. // Migrants from South America in the US. Their experiences, culture, language. Fiction.

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. // Native American history, culture, religion, practices. Fiction.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri. // Syrian culture, religious and family life before and during time of war, when forced to flee for safety. Fiction.

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. // Race issues in America written by a Black woman. Nonfiction.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel. // Being trans in an American family. Fiction.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. // Indian cultural and religious practices. Fiction.

Abuela, Don't Forget Me by Rex Ogle. // Latino culture taught to Rex by his abuela, not his mother. Memoir-in-verse.

I recommend stretching your brain. Learn about new cultures. Grow. Be a good citizen of the world.

Anne