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Books
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Book ♡ Love
Would I call myself an avid reader? Yeah, man. A consistent reader? Nah. I often neglect my books for days on end, even when I ...
Would I call myself an avid reader? Yeah, man. A
consistent
reader? Nah.
I often neglect my books for days on end, even when I know I need a break from all the noise of screens + people + thoughts. It's become a real form of self-care for me that is truly essential.
If I don't consistently make time to read every day, I inevitably fill my 'empty' time with a screen. (Right now that screen plays
13 Reasons Why
, and I just want to find out WHAT ALL 13 REASONS ARE SO I CAN GET ON WITH MY LIFE but the episodes are
so freaking long
and I have hobbies and shit to do! But I digress...).
Anyway, whether I read every day or not, books always seem to play an integral role in my life. I'm always looking at cover art, or making lists of books I need to read, or slipping into
another
used book store, or...well, you'll see. Just keep reading, eh?
Things I've Read Recently
Basically, I have a goal to read 30 books this year, but I
also
made it a goal to read several longer books this year. Longer books that I've been wanting to read for a while. And sure, I'm a pretty fast reader ...
when I read
. But, like I said, I often won't read for days on end. But recently, I did finish a few books that were all great!
A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara
I got through about 1/2 of this book before realizing that a woman wrote it. It's about male friendship + life + pain + abuse and it's really engrossing and long and good and mostly interesting. I do believe I'm a sucker for books about groups of friends, but the real reason I picked up this hunk of paper was because I was tired of seeing the cover everywhere and people exclaiming
Ohhh it's so good and saaaadd and I criieed.
It
is
good, it is
totally
sad, and I
did
cry.
The Arab of the Future
by Riad Sattouf
I didn't know much about this before picking it up at the library. This is just part one of Riad Sattouf's memoir, and it depicts Sattouf as a child moving around the world with his parents. i loved it, but it has detractors; some believe he writes + depicts Arabs as stereotypical. Some people say it's impossible to clearly remember such detail about the early years of one's life. I don't know. I guess I just really enjoyed reading it. The visuals. The small funny things. I found the book reflective of life itself: mundane and profound in fits and spurts. Very short read; finished it in 2 hours. Can't wait to read the other parts!
Turning Japanese
by MariNaomi
Dear MariNaomi,
Please write + draw your entire life forever until you die.
Thanks!
Maria
I'm Currently Reading ...
... The Ground Beneath Her Feet
by Salman Rushdie. And no joke, people: I can't find it anymore. My book. Where is it? I don't know. This is a real predicament. I bought this book some time last year in a feverish frenzy of book-buying. It's been sitting on our shelves/floor stacks for nearly 12 months and the minute I actually
start
reading it, I promptly lose it. I don't where it is, ya'll. After I finish this post I'll probably go on a hunt through the house. Ever rock and every stone shall be upturned!
I actually started a different Rushdie book back in college:
The Satanic Verses
. (Such a spooky name!!!) I never finished it, but I got far enough to be intrigued by his writing style. It's like, kind of magical and all about human interaction. It vaguely reminds me of Haruki Murakami. Anyway, I'm super pumped to read this one. Fingers crossed I find it later today and then buckle down and finish it this weekend! 💪
I Got Much Love For Book Clubs
So I started joining book clubs in Phoenix cos I wanted to meet people and have social interaction in a scheduled, pre-determined manner. I joined three! Two of them were excellent; one was a mistake that actually got me caught up in a really annoying group text for
months
afterward.
I only went to one consistently. It was the best one, though. The other one seemed like it had potential to be great, but the one and only book discussion I attended was after we read
Gone With The Wind
and I found myself at a table full of HWHITE people who thought
GWTW
was (HA!) actually an accurate depiction of antebellum south and slaves and the KKK. Byeeeee!!!!!
After that, I had to miss the next few meetings because of previous engagements and then we moved away never to return again.
Meanwhile, back in Illinois, I also decide to join a book club. SYKE! I actually just
made
a book club because I want to be the change I want to see in the world. There's one established book club (on Meetup) in my area, but they read mostly contemporary, new fiction.
I really wanted to read 'classics' and books that I always hear about but never make time for because I'm a buster. So I made that group. Heeelll yeah! It's called
Classic Reads
and we had our first meeting 2 weeks ago and decided on our first book club book: Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez'
One Hundred Years of Solitude
.
I also discovered
Belletrist
, an online book club created by Emma Roberts (my lowkey fave) and Karah Preiss. The website design is dope, which I always appreciate, and so far, they've picked books I'm really interested in reading! Plus, a couple weeks after I found Belletrist, they were also promoted by two of my fave #bookstagrammers ...
... speaking of #bookstagram ...
Instagram + Books = Love
Yes, there is a niche for literally everything on Instagram, and books are a hugely popular flat lay piece, so #bookstagram (and other related hashtags) seems like a no-brainer.
I actually discovered the book lover's area of Instagram through a friend I follow on the app. Since then, I've been equal parts obsessed with and opinionated about #bookstagram,.
[Actually, sidenote,
that quote
that Hannah Horvath of
Girls
says in the final season: "I don't give a shit about
any
thing, yet I simultaneously have opinions about
every
thing." is always ringing in my head because it feels so relevant to everything + everyone in my generation. Including the way I use + view Instagram.]
I have a few fave accounts that I follow, and always have my eye out for nice cover design (because yeeessss, I judge every book by it's cover why would you NOT) and books to read in the future. It's fun! If you don't already, you should def follow
@oosterbook
,
@bookmateriality
, and
@anintrovertedmess
. And, uh,
me
of course!
———
Hey! Ho! You've reached the end of this post! You should let me know in the comments: What have you read recently? Do you follow any dope #bookstagrammers?
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Tokyo Mags
So I am casually obsessed with print things. (So much so that that's the name of my Etsy shop...) Today I'm flashing back to th...
So I am casually obsessed with print things. (So much so that that's the name of my
Etsy
shop...) Today I'm flashing back to that way far back time of July 2016 when I visited Tokyo for ten days and came back with a bunch of magazines! I love them all so much; I can never get enough style + design inspiration.
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Review / The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
I spent some time with this book. Goodreads tells me it was 36 days, exactly. I gave it 3 stars. I’m not sure what I wanted from The...
I spent some time with this book. Goodreads tells me it was 36 days, exactly. I gave it 3 stars. I’m not sure what I wanted from
The Goldfinch
, but I wasn’t quite satisfied. Perhaps I wanted intrigue, more movement. The back cover—mine bent and curling now—promises the protagonist trapped inside these pages is “at the center of a narrowing, dangerous circle.” Well, I guess.
I mean, let me not be flippant, the danger is there. The weighty anticipation of it, 600 or so pages in, kept me going. Deep in the narrative, I prepared myself for whatever Theo might come up against, his actions in the previous pages creating more and more knots in the thread of his life. But like, damn Donna, get to it already.
I hate going over plot in a review. That’s what the back cover is for, honestly, so I’ll skip it. I read this book because
The Secret History
is one of my favorite books and Tartt seems more than capable of crafting a story rich enough to hold me for 700+ pages. Which
The Goldfinch
does, mostly. It’s just that, in that last stretch, well, I began skimming paragraphs of dialogue—even the choppy, hilarious prose she writes for Boris, and he’s arguably the most interesting character in the novel.
There is a climax and I was bored. Like a thing you’ve been waiting for all week that just somehow doesn’t satisfy. The thing is, I don’t think the book fails at anything it sets out to do. It’s not really meant to be a thriller; this book has many other mysteries on its mind. Fate and character and art and beauty and the meaning we give to objects. That is all there, and these preoccupations are built into the narrative beautifully, for the most part.
I just didn’t care much for those things. And that is why I was disappointed, I suppose. It’s a fine book, and intriguing for nearly all of its pages. There is a section in the first half of the book, when Theo lives in Las Vegas and meets the unforgettable Boris. This is a rich, rich section that shows off Tartt’s ability to create believable, meaningful relationships between characters. The momentum in this section carries through until the final fourth of the book. Then and only then did reading it feel a bit like a chore, until I finally had to sigh and skim and eventually realize that what I wanted and what Tartt intended are two different things.
This is a book worth reading, but be forewarned: upon completion you may not feel properly rewarded for your efforts.
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Thoughts on Bad Feminist
I'll admit: I stopped reading this book around page 196. I did eventually come back and read the rest—I literally finished it 5...
I'll admit: I stopped reading this book around page 196.
I
did eventually come back and read the rest—I literally finished it 5 minutes before typing this—but only months later, after it had been sitting on my "Currently Reading" Goodreads shelf for what felt like too long. Contrary to her self-identified state as a feminist, Roxane Gay is (clearly) not a Bad Writer.
In fact, I blew through the first several essays in this collection simply because I found her opinion/point of view on everything from teaching to fucking
Sweet Valley High
to be nothing short of riveting. For a week, I carried my copy with me everywhere, receiving a strange, secret pleasure every time I pulled it out on public transit (I feel like anything with
Feminist/m
in the title carries an air of defiance). Her prose is inviting, and her writing style feels almost conspiratorial—like she assumes her reader is not only on the same page (ha) with what she is saying, but would, if given the opportunity, have several paragraphs of reasonably informed opinion to add. That is not to say that Gay assumes her readers will agree with everything she has to say, or even understand where she—an American woman of Haitian descent—is coming from. Gay simply writes with an air of relatability that is reflective, I think, of the current cultural climate.
Everything and everyone is subject to a think-piece.
This relatability is what makes
Bad Feminist
so interesting overall, but somehow made the final quarter of the book slightly tedious to wade through. I like that Gay seems like she could live in the apartment next door to me; she has a tumblr; we are friends on Goodreads. At the same time, it sometimes seemed as though 140 characters would suffice and an admittedly sharp analysis of, say,
12 Years A Slave
just felt a little, eh, overgrown.
I think, really, I should have let the book breathe. In fact, I'll suggest this book works best when given time to simmer. Read a few essays at a time. Skip around, dammit. Resist the urge to swallow these words whole (or in two very separate parts, like I did). Hell, page 196 is in the middle of a particularly astute/juicy review of E. L. James'
classic
Fifty Shades trilogy. How could I have stopped there?
Bad Feminist
is not perfect, but it is—and I'd like to emphasize this, in case I've made it sound otherwise—very, very interesting. Gay's tale of how she joined the world of competitive chess is fascinating, as if she's describing someone's gradual initiation into, I don't know, the Yakuza. I added at least three titles to my "To Read" shelf because of this book. Reading her writing makes me want to read more. To write more. To be willing to dissect the things I think are great
and
awful. To consider myself, as a woman and as a feminist.
This is a fine collection of work and I look forward to reading whatever comes next.
/
I also posted this review on
Goodreads
, which is my new favorite thing.
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