#pleasure reading

[selfcarereminder]

read something for fun tonight. not something improving or educational, something you genuinely want to read just for yourself

[bonniejamesarc]

Celebrate Banned Book Week: September 22-28, 2013

Celebrate Banned Book Week: September 22-28, 2013

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its shame.“ –Oscar Wilde This week is Banned Book Week, and here in Ohio our State Board of Education is marking the occasion by attacking Nobel-prize wining Ohio author Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel The Bluest Eye and recommending that it be banned from the suggested reading list for Ohio high schools.  Board president Debbie…

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[poetsandwriters]

We are taught, especially in MFA culture, to slog through writing we don’t necessarily feel because it’s a good exercise in reading and expanding our horizons. But there’s way too much stuff out there to be moved by and to enjoy instead of wasting time with a backlog of books you loathe. It’s important to challenge yourself and to branch out, but life’s too short and there aren’t enough hours in the day for that kind of pain.

Kimberly Reyes, in this week’s Ten Questions; read the rest at pw.org!

[theregoesreader]

my personal quarantine

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Sunday Edition: Memoirs and Autobiographies

What does it mean to write about one’s self? In these examples it means gripping narratives, overcoming oppression, creatively adapting to your environment, or finding home. These four autobiographies have garnered critical attention and praise for their magnificent prose and exciting plots. Check one out (new books shelf in Azariah’s Cafe) for some leisure reading!

Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth (p. 2014)

When Ron Stallworth was hired as a detective for the Colorado Springs Police Department he became the first African American of his profession at the police station. Constantly having to fight for his professional abilities, Stallworth navigated a tricky work situation only to become directly involved in a dangerous and unbelievable extended encounter with local branches of the Ku Klux Klan. Stallworth’s convincing work got him meetings with the then Grand Wizard, David Duke. This past year Spike Lee famously created a film rendition of the memoir that received an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. At a time in which a variety of political voices shout clashing mantras, BlacKkKlansman is a semi-comedic, fully-gripping navigation of the middle ground by an amazing man.

Welcome Home by Lucia Berlin (p. 2018)

Lucia Berlin’s work experienced a strange boom with the 2015 publication of A Manual for Cleaning Women, a series of recovered short stories published eleven years after her death. Despite not having been a bestseller or massively popular writer while she was alive, her posthumous work took on a life of its own and gained massive amounts of traction. Welcome Home continues this tradition of posthumously recovered writing and puts an autobiographical twist on it. The same wonderful writer who deftly crafted so many short stories approaches her own life and different homes in a similar, retrospective, and caring manner. This is a great, short read.

She Wants It: Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy by Jill Soloway (p. 2018)

This self reflective book details the personal story and experience of Jill Soloway, the creator of the celebrated, Golden-Globe winning Amazon television show, Transparent. In this work readers are invited to explore the source code for the TV show, as Soloway details her professional and everyday experiences, as well as her Mother’s. They both have faced innumerable examples of discrimination due to their gender identity and sexuality. This book allows readers to consider the difficulties that come along with being a woman or trans in the workplace, and encourages them to continue pushing the docket and rewriting the standards of what is accepted and expected of women and trans folk.

Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas (p. 2018)

In reference to this book, the author, Jose Antonio Vargas, writes, “This is not a book about the politics of immigration… This book is about homelessness.” In Dear America, Vargas contemplates life on the peripheral in the United States, calling into question the forces that pushed him to a status of in between-ness, left without a holistic national identity to claim. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the memoir focuses far more on the minutiae of everyday life as an immigrant rather than making a bold, comprehensive political statement. This way readers are clued into the personal experience and empathy rather than considering the politics first. Vargas navigates a thin line carefully and shows that life in between nations can be a grueling process that requires deep focus.

The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy (p. 2018)

Deborah Levy demands familiar representation. She finds that the erasure of women’s names, marks, and histories in public and private spaces has gone all too far for her. This inspires a broad array of reactions from the author in regards to gendered practices. Levy writes this autobiography in order to reclaim control of her narrative from stereotypes, lack of record keeping, and sexism. This work critically challenges the genre, and forces the readers to think about representation and accountability in this famed medium for storytelling. A two-time Man Booker prize finalist, Levy is a craft wordsmith who delicately composes sentences and makes them stick.   

[ordinaryhumanlife]

It was now the second week of March and a time of tender growth, when it slowly dawned on people that the world would not always be cold and brown.

Paulette Jiles, News of the World

[zeddfrost]

My date for the weekend @kierongillen. I swear it even smells distinctly magical inside.

[amylivinglife]

I was supposed to spend this weekend with my best friend, but unfortunately her husband and one of their kiddos is sick. I'm sad that we won't be seeing them, but I tried to make the best of a surprise unplanned day off. A little productivity and a lot of relaxing. [Note: I did, in fact, spell turmeric incorrectly in the above photo.]