A little bit of Latin American flair

     So I have just finished three books and though I didn't initially plan it they were all written by Latino/a authors!
I read two by Junot Diaz (a novel The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao and a series of short stores titled Drown) and The Book of Unknown Americans by Christina Henriquez.

     I really loved this triad of books because it really let loose on one of the big downfalls of American literature...all English and all white (minus the "African American section" of book stores, that also holds a lot of amazing work, but yet, has to be housed in a different section, as if the authors are not just telling the story of the real American experience). Anyways, all three of these books are full of just real American stories from the non-whiteys, it's very refreshing to for someone who is in the process of becoming aware of her white, English-speaking, middle class, college educated, able-bodied (ongoing list) privilege and the implications that has on my surroundings. I am by no means fluent in Spanish, in fact, I know very little Spanish. I did well in it as a subject throughout high school but German is my main zweite Sprache now. I would recommend having a little background knowledge in Spanish as it is slipped in very seamlessly. But don't be turned off if you know literally nothing, just be willing to work a little harder, like every non-native English speaker ever. Here's a quick break down...

tio- uncle
tia-aunt
puta- derogatory word for women
fea- ugly woman
mujer- woman
viejo- old man

Okay, you should be set on Spanish 101 now (no). Don't be like JOB and Michael in Arrested Development who couldn't figure out what "hermano" meant and let that mess up their lives (it means brother, guys).

Alright, I'm going to break down the books in the order I read them...starting with...
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao













Awesome awesome book! My roommate in college actually recommended this book to me like 3 years ago but I just never got around to it. Which I think is ridiculous considering how much I loved this book. Like, it should have been shoved in my face until I started reading it. This book has a lot of Dominican history in it, that you should definitely read the wikipedia page on, at the very least, before jumping in. Wild shit. History class would have been so much more interesting if curricula included what happened south of America, considering we are the ones who really caused a lot of this mayhem. But this is more than a history book, obviously, it is a creation of a mythology and an extension on a well established tradition. This novel is funny and deep and heart wrenching in all of the ways. The story jumps from character to character and thank god it does. Diaz develops the characters well and it has a good mix of modern pop culture, old traditions and just enough super hero. Would absolutely recommend that you pick it up right now and not 3 years from now like I did.

Next,  The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez.
I am wild about this book. Maybe it has to do with my current job, being an English teacher for adults, primarily from Latin America, this book just gave me a new context to think about the lives of my students. Some who have been in America for 20 years and only now want to learn English and others who moved here in the middle of the semester. With varying levels of educational backgrounds and legality in the American immigration system I have learned a lot more about the power of an individuals story, especially those who have been over looked for so long in my experience (back home in Buffalo I didn't come across too many immigrants from Mexico/Latin/South America...we have a lot of people coming through Canada but still). But more so this book is (1) a super fast read (2) is a great story. Oscar Wao took me about 2 weeks to get through and I loved it while I was reading it but it was a little slower. Unknown Americans FLIES by.
Broadly, this book also jumps between point of view characters but they are all connected by the apartment complex they live in, although with hugely different backgrounds and experiences within the complex. If you are looking for something quick but thoughtful (definitely evokes a lot of the emotions.) My mom recommended it to me. She's great, you should listen to all her suggestions.

And lastly,
Drown
I just finished this one last night so I'm still trying to process all that it was, sorry if I don't do it the justice it deserves. But as I mentioned at the beginning this is a series of short stories, so it is easy to pick up--read a story, come back another day. A good one for the busy reader I would think, I don't know, I'm not particularly busy. All these stories do seem connected, although they are not a continuation of one specific story. The style is very much Diaz so I would recommend Oscar Wao beforehand (or This is How you Lose Her, another one of Diaz' books that I am wanting to read in the near future, just gotta get my hands on it) to get a sense of how he truly does not give a damn about the reader and it's really awesome once you get a sense for it. The stories are crude, but they are real, so that's life? I tried to put down the book after each short story to try and process it but I am very tuned to just keep going (and I was bored at work so I had nothing to do but keep going). This also has some Dominican history but it is very much about interpersonal relationships and it was heart breaking. But so good.

So, there you have it. 3 super awesome reads. I have a few long drives ahead of me so I guess I should start figuring out what books are going with me on that...



 

Poetry (let's try something new!)

My dear roommate Emily is a very artistic mind. Around October she brought me to hear Charles Wright (the Library of Congress named him as the poet laureate in 2014) at Emory University.

And so I've been trying to engage a little bit more in this mystic art of poetry (and by a little bit, I mean I'm trying to acknowledge it which is pretty hard for someone who isn't used to thinking this way.)

Anyways some of the highlights of Charles Wright


Stud.

Black Zodiac pg 23 



Poem half in the manner of li-ho

All things aspire to weightlessness,
some place beyond the lip of language,
Some silence, some zone of grace.

Sky white as raw silk,
opening mirror cold-sprung in the west,
Sunset like dead grass.

If God hurt the way we hurt, he, too, would be heart-sore,
Disconsolate, unappeasable.

Which I then read the line

"that love could be soft and understanding;
 that, soft or hard, love was an act of heroism"
Tanahsi Coates, between the world and me

Maya Angelou- so she is just like my hero. I love all of the words she writes.



I think she is so talented at writing the woman's experience down on paper.
She picked a good poem to name her book after because I really liked "Still I Rise"

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with glood?
Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes sprining high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Angelou is actually Beyonce before Beyonce even existed. Her words are so penetrating. Although, I'm really glad I read her autobiography (the heart of a woman) before I read this book of poetry. Like, so glad. Everyone should read that anyways.  She is just fierceness all the time. I wish I could have met her. She's not low key my hero.

Next on my poetry adventures I'm going to be talking about Emily again because she's wonderful and a poem of her's was published recently and it was actually just amazing.

Emily's awesome Van Gogh poem

Van Gogh
Emily Cinquemani

In one version of my story, the police find
my apartment covered in blood, and I gift
the crescent sliver of my ear to a woman
down the street, tell her, this is important.
Maybe they wonder what makes a man want
to cut away a part of himself, but I prefer
to dwell on sharp strokes across canvas,
on the way lines can form a single shape,
on how the ring marks from a lover's glass
once drew faint circles along my kitchen table.
 
Some nights, the wind rams its fingers through rib
white chair spokes on the porch, and, alone, I paint
only to ignore their ghost-rocking. I paint my ear
bandaged, paint beyond my touch and her recoil.
I try to remember what makes anyone want
to press themselves into a stranger's hands.
What shifted across the bright veins in my chest
when I touched the speckled landscape of her arm?
And what part of myself did she hold
there, in the hollow of her palm?

And lastly I dabble, for the experience. Humor me.
This first one was when I was traveling on by myself for the first time and was just very focused on myself and my body and my whole being. It was a lot. I know but I wrote it and I like it.

Traveler's Story

I am but one body and one mind,
One body and one mind who work in
a way unlike any other,
Who ebb and flow with the course of
the world aroudn me.

One body who is strong when the
mind is heavy and burdened,
Who can carry me to the edges of the earth,
Who yearns to walk the path of
others,
and tough the world it has been
placed in.

One mind who is strong when the
body is timid and weak,
Who knows there is more to know,
And strives to know the stories of
people who have come before.

One body and one mind who are strong enough to change this world,
Who seek answers and challenge the
way of the world today,
To leave footprints and words so that
another body, another mind may find a
better future than the past.

If one ever finds me weak in body
and weak of mind.
One must check,
for I surely must have left.

The next one is pretty standard. One of my roommates asked us all to write "I am from" poems this week, so since we are on that topic I guess I will throw that on here too.

I komme de....

I am from a perfect life
thrown into an imperfect world.
I am from a comfortable mindset
but now crave the discomfort
that comes with learning and loving
the stories of others.

Yo soy de un mundo
donde errores son no fatal.
Soy de un mundo
donde aprendiendo es ocio
y no es una necesidad.

Ich komme aus ein Welt,
voll auf Liebe.
Aber ich lebe in ein Welt,
wo hass will ueberall fuer
selbst nehmen.

I want/You quiero/Ich will
to be from/ser de/ kommen aus
a world/un mundo/ein Welt
full/ completo/ voll
of love/de amor/auf Liebe
for all/ para todo/ fuer alles.


So glad this post is over, it has taken me a long time to get through all of this poetry info and I still know nothing so that's awesome. But it was fun (:

Running list of books I plan on Reading

Here it is...


Tattoo's on the Heart by Fr. Gregory Boyle

The Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Lies my teacher told me James Ioewen,

The guns of August

The four God's of America (I don't think that's the right title but this is more to trigger my memory later)

The Gollem and the Jinny

12 Years a Slave (I STILL haven't read it yet)

The Girl on the Train

and other recommendations that come my way (i'm not a very fast reader I'm learning, but at least I try)

Some Drama

So i just finished reading this bad boy, Monday Mornings by Sanjay Gupta. And it did take way too long for my liking (290 pages of drama!) I will say it is a great beach read. Unfortunately, I am not at the beach. I started it at the beach and then I got home to my very cold house and just kept falling asleep reading it.
It is a page turner and probably a fast read for those of you who are motivated to just get a meaningless book under your belt.
I did feel like the characters were a little unrealistic, like they belonged in a TV show.....which, as the book cover shows, it now is...on the TNT!

If you feel like giving the book a go and starting anyways, but then decide it's not for you a little ways in SKIP TO THE END!! That is where all the good shit happens. Like it's dramatic the whole way through but I didn't realize how much was building and then BAM! Everything hit the fan at once. The last fifty pages are wild.

Fun thing about Gupta I just realized...he lives in Atlanta (and I live in Atlanta). Although, come to think of it I totally knew this because my roommate had to give a presentation about her nonprofit to a school and that just happened to be the school Gupta's kids go to! But yeah, if I'm ever rushed to the hospital (Grady) he could be the guy that has to poke around on me...if he's not too busy talking to the Silver Fox.

Anyways, hoping to get into some more critical books, but we'll see what comes next with my suddenly very busy schedule.

My favorite book(s) of 2015

While I meant to make this blog like two months ago, it's here now, right at the beginning of the new year. So let me give a quick run down of the books I've read in my first few months living the high life in Atlanta. Note, it's been a few months since I read some of these so don't expect to read gold, actually, never expect that from me...

**Note: my favorite book is the last book I write about on this post so if you are interested in that just go to the end, okay?**

-The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch 
Quick read, would recommend

Very inspirational narrative in the vain (I thought) of Mitch Album's
Tuesday's with Morrie, although in this book the man talking is the one dying. Smart man. I likes how he doesn't hold back on times he was an ass, but also he's done great things. I was reminded of how special the everyday life is. One of my favorite takeaway's was the idea that you can only be disappointed in something you love.

Randy used that to talk about his relationship with his father. I use it to help talk about how I feel about living in America. It's the same.

Also, since we live in the age of technology someone recorded the last lecture he gave at CM and put it on the internet!!! Please read the book before you watch it though...the link to the lecture is below, although anyone with the wit to navigate themselves to this page probably also has the capability to type "Last Lecture" into google and hit the first video they see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

-In the Company of the Poor Conversations by Dr Paul Farmer and Father Gustavo Gutierrez 
Medium-speed read, intentional read, would recommend


If you are at all interested in anything theological or medical you might want to check this out. I keep telling my brother, who is currently in med school to read it but he keeps blowing me off as if he has something better to do.

This book is a series of conversations between two men (as you may have gathered from the title). Farmer is a well off white man who has figured out that there is injustice in the world, who really came to understand the liberation theocracy through his medical vocation. Gutierrez is a Latin American priest who was, in large part an inspiration for Farmer, when Farmer was on his first medical mission trips in Central America.

The book can be slow at some points, but ultimately I thought it was a very interesting read given that I'm current living in a world where social justice issues are everywhere in my life. Also, good discussion book. Probably don't read it if you aren't planning on talking with someone because I think the discussion really prompts a lot more thought.

-The Red Tent by Anite Diamant
Medium read, not trying to be sexist but this book is more for women.

I'm glad I read this book when I did. For whatever reason I was at the point in my life that I really wanted to hear about women being nice to other women, I didn't realize I wanted that but I guess I did. I'm also not super scared of like motherhood anymore. To clarify, I'm not about to run out and get pregnant, nor do I necessarily want a child at any point anywhere in the future, but now I'm just not as vehemently against children as I think I was before...maybe it's just because the point I'm at in life where it's no longer frowned upon by society to have a child because I have a piece of paper that says I'm educated, or maybe I'm just an emotional mess. Either way...women and children are okay in my book now not entirely because of this book, but really pushed it in the right direction.

Besides the fact that I have grown a maternal bone as a result of this book, it's also a fun look into how awful life may have been while the Bible was being written. Lots of Bible history things, as this story is the female perspective of some Bible story or something that was briefly mentioned. So if you are into that, it's def a good one. Also if you're a mom you'll probably like this, mom's like these kinds of things I like.

-The Dover Keepers by Alice Hoffman  
Slower read, would recommend if you like the Red Tent or things about really ancient times or like very pro-woman reads.

Mystical would probably be a good way to describe this one. I did like it, but it took me a little bit longer to read because it is a very different book from what I'm used to. It takes place in Roman times, but like EARLY Roman times. It was actually pretty difficult to place, so maybe, if you just want to read it, for something different you should just go with it and try not to question too many things or you'll probably end up with a research paper.

This was both a fun book but also really dark. Hoffman does a good job developing characters, I think, but it does drag a little bit...especially at the really morbid parts.  Also this is a definitely a Hallmark/Lifetime movie that my mom recorded and watched and really liked. So I guess this is another book that is good for moms. I don't really see it as a great book club book though. Like, it would be okay but there are like five better choices for book club books on this page. And even though I sound pretty anti-this book, I am glad I read it because it was different and for the most part kept me pretty engaged.

-The Martian by Andy Weir 
Fast read, would recommend. Good beach book

If you haven't heard, this is a feature length film staring Matt Damon. But it is a page turning book. I really think this book speaks to a wide range of audiences (except for people who are just generally uninterested in the world). We have botany, space, math, love, music, fights, struggle, life/death situations, hope, and even humor.

I will admit, my mom did have to really coax me to read this book...but that's mostly because it takes so much effort to hit the download button on the Nook. I'm actually just the worst and it was a very entertaining read, I didn't want to talk to my family for like a whole day and a half because I had to know what happened!

Again, I think this is a good discussion book because by the end you really want to talk to someone about your thoughts. You could poke some holes in it, but ask yourself, is it really worth it to be a dick and ruin a fun book? That's what I thought. Enjoy life for once, god.

I haven't seen the movie yet, so I'm not going to try to tell you not to see the movie before reading the book, but I am saying that the book was definitely worth it and I'm trying really hard not to ruin anything because it is such a fast read.


and now...my favorite book of 2015, by far

-The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou 
I kept getting so excited I had to put the book down good, must read

I could not tell you one specific thing about this book that made it make such an impact. Maybe it's because I've never read any of her other works, maybe because I only knew little facts about her but never actually knew anything about her, maybe because it was her amazing honesty, maybe it's because she is just so damn cool. Like, she is SO COOL.

At every step in her life I felt I related to her so much, which is amazing because we literally have nothing in common. Like, I'm not black, I'm not a mom, I'm not a leader of the civil rights movements, I've never been to Africa, I'm definitely not a performer but through it all I just felt like there was a connection. She's a great writer. I love her.

Also very refreshing to read an autobiography of a woman who carries no shame and does not hold back on any part of her sexual history. It was amazing to read it and not feel like there was more to the story or that she was holding something back.

I want to keep writing and writing about her but please just read it, or reread it, she makes it feel okay to make mistakes and to live life, to go into things without knowing what you're doing and to just be. Also she's such a kind woman who also threatens gang members for messing with Guy and I'm like YESSSSSSSS YOU ARE SO GOOD AT LIFE!

And that is my very acedemic review of this book. Read it, just please read it.

Happy 2016!

Happy 2016 world!

I have been thinking about doing this for awhile, now that I have starting reading again, kind of, it's on and off with my crocheting because I feel like an old retired person now that I'm out of college.

Based on the title on this blog I'm sure I will be the only one reading this blog unless my parents accidentally mess up on their phones trying to look at my other blog but that is okay.

Basically I want to just have a place to write about the things I'm reading just to try and make sure I'm staying engaged. If you are looking for books to read I don't stick to a specific genre and am pretty all over the place so hopefully if you are aimlessly scanning the internet for something to read you can find this helpful

So if you want the reviews of an (almost) 23 year old white middle class woman with absolutely no problems in her life enjoy!