The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Color Purple by Alice Walker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was shocked by how wonderful this book is because I'd actually read it before as a teenager and I didn't remember it being this phenomenal. I think as a teen, I was so mired down in the horror and sadness of the beginning that that's what stood out for me the most. Plus, having no life or significant literary reading experience, I failed to get most of the brilliance of the book. But what a beautiful perfect book. Amazing characters, amazing sentences, amazing everything. Favorite favorite.

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Mala by Melinda Lopez

Mala by Melinda Lopez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is so unbelievably good. This is the (Cuban-American) Boomer/ Gen X Death of Ivan Ilyich. Also if you want an approximation of many of the things (but definitely not all) I personally experienced with my dad's and my mother's deaths this is eerily close. My parents were very young though, my dad was 61 and my mom was late 50s. They very much did not want to die and were very scared. Both fought to the end, though my mother did agree to hospice in what turned out to be her last month. She didn't call me "mala" but it was strongly implied any time I tried to restrict any of her choices which I avoided a great deal.

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Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Excellent history and analysis of racism in America. Definitely expanded the way I think about the discourse in this country. Some examination of sexism and intersectionality though it wasn't the central focus. I was persuaded that racism is not caused by ignorance (because who is that dumb at this point?) but as a tool to oppress both black and white populations.

I found almost every paragraph riveting, but here is a favorite:
The Mennonites did not intend to leave behind one site of oppression to build another in America. Mennonites therefore circulated an antislavery petition on April 18, 1688. “There is a saying, that we shall doe to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent or colour they are,” they wrote. “In Europe there are many oppressed” for their religion, and “here those are oppressed” for their “black colour.” Both oppressions were wrong. Actually, as an oppressor, America “surpass[ed] Holland and Germany.” Africans had the “right to fight for their freedom.” The 1688 Germantown Petition Against Slavery was the inaugural antiracist tract among European settlers in colonial America. Beginning with this piece, the Golden Rule would forever inspire the cause of White antiracists. Antiracists of all races—whether out of altruism or intelligent self-interest—would always recognize that preserving racial hierarchy simultaneously preserves ethnic, gender, class, sexual, age, and religious hierarchies. Human hierarchies of any kind, they understood, would do little more than oppress all of humanity.

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On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is pretty short and it's beautifully written. I don't like grouping books like this as "romance" because it is so much more than that, but let's just say it's not for group-audiobook-listening.

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Light from Other Stars by Erika Swyler

Light from Other Stars by Erika Swyler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is such a beautiful and at times subtle book. It's literary science fiction, ala Le Guin. It's the love story between parents and children, and between childhood friends, and about the closest adult friends.

It's a story about a fully independent woman and why she's so independent, and how her life is full of everything that matters.

And it's about time, and how the real physics of time is so magical-seeming, and how our time in an important relationship is just a touch between two people's very separate time on earth. It's about how our era defines and intimately impact us. It's also about a love of science in general, which I definitely share.

Also, as someone who lost my father whom I had a very close relationship with, I could relate so much to the grief, and I could relate also to the beauty in that grief. Swyler conveyed that in such an evocative way.

A gorgeous book overall.

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A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Miss Bartlett, in deed, though not in word, had taught the girl that this our life contains nothing satisfactory. Lucy though she disliked the teacher regarded the teaching as profound, and applied it to her lover.”

This is the thesis that this book seeks to tear down, and it does so in the most delightful way.

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You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett

You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an excellent collection. Almost all the stories are about mental illness with a few exceptions. I especially appreciated “Notes to My Biographer,” “The Good Doctor,” “The Beginnings of Grief,” and “Devotion” (one of the few in the collection not about mental illness). After the first four the stories were harder for me to get through, but still very good.

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Jesus by Marcus J. Borg

Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary by Marcus J. Borg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a young person, I grew up nominally Catholic but was raised with people who held evangelical-style views, even when they were Catholic. Observing their attitudes and behavior, I was more or less pushed away from Christianity. I have been reading a lot of books about religion generally and also Christianity specifically in the last few years, and I read the Bible cover to cover maybe two years ago. This book is written by a serious religious historian, and is exceptionally well-written and reasoned. It also most closely expresses my understanding of Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for recommending this author, Renee Kahl!

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The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A few authors sit down to try to say something about the experience of life and some try to capture a little bit of what God is in their writing. For me, very few succeed in both endeavors. So far, I've only found The End of the Affair, Gilead, and The Road. (My other favorite book is The Death of Ivan Ilyich, but it's not about God.) Please let me know if you know of other books in this class.

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A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought I would feel smarter than I do when I finished this book. Nonetheless an interesting review of the classical philosophers. I don't think it would have killed him to throw in at least one woman, at a minimum with reference to western feminist philosophy, especially considering he included some not terribly deep political philosophers (who weren't necessarily concerned with consciousness or the cosmos but only political realities). I know this suggestion makes me sound like a millennial, but I assure you I'm not.

Bertrand correctly predicted that science would take over a lot of the inquiries on reality- as it has in consciousness and the cosmos, though he wasn't correct that, as in theoretical physics, it would never be based in thought experiments. I wish someone wrote a summary of philosophers and their central ideas picking up where Russell left off.

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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow, what a masterpiece of plot. I wasn’t very impressed at the beginning, and I predicted some of the outcome very early on, but it built and built until it was so much more than I expected. Very well done, and a new favorite of mine.

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Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a beautiful and perfect novel. Beautiful sentences, soulful, and even an incredible plot. While I'm not of the belief that the main character needs to be likable, I also loved the main character, Janie, and her unconquerable spirit. My heart couldn't even handle her third love, Tea Cake. I have read hundreds of books and something this well-written is rare. There are no words worthy of it. This is one I hope to read again and again.




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Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger by Rebecca Traister
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

10 million stars. I'm recommending this to everyone. Despite the large number of books I've been reading about feminism, this one is still transformative. Has the slow trickle of oppression been why I've been just sloshing around in a vague depressed state for the last decade? I think so. It's like having someone snap their fingers in front of your face until you awaken to how powerful passionate (angry) groups of women can be, and how all this squashing of emotion has been maintaining a terrible status quo.

Here are some things I'm ENRAGED about:
1) That time Trump suggested “the second amendment people” murder Hillary. What an attack on democracy to suggest people murder your political opponent! What a monstrous-woman-abusing thing to say! What a monstrous pro-gun-for-murder thing to say. How he so lightly endangers the secret service too. RAGE.
2) Total inaction in the face of global warming. Goodbye, humanity. Sorry future grandkids, no planet for you.
3) School shootings. My son had to hide during a lockdown THIS WEEK. This is his third lockdown. He is in second grade. I AM SO ANGRY, I CRY ABOUT THIS.
4) Kids in detention camps. If this doesn't make you enraged, you might be suffering from mild-to-intense sociopathy.
5) The Supreme Court is at least 33% misogynistic men: Kavanaugh, Thomas, Gorsuch.
6) The number of Americans that are totally unaware of the oppressive history of our country, how this has built systemic injustice that is still completely relevant.
7) I am still so angry about Matt Lauer. Forget that he was so without skill or talent in the first place, what he did to America in the 2016 Election is unforgivable. Not if he feeds all the world's orphans. (Okay, maybe only if he feeds all the world's orphans.)
8) Every time men use the expression "witch hunt."
9) The very idea that "the war on Christmas" is real, but that institutional racism and sexism is not real or individually surmountable. Remember all those men that got harassed at work because they celebrate Christmas? Those kids that got sent to detention camps because they are Christian? Nope, me neither.


ROAR!!!

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Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I highlighted a million sentences in this book. I loved the characters, even and especially the ones I disliked. Lynn the boss! Benny who tells stories all day! Marcia! Joe! Joe!! Amber! Jim! Carl! Hank! Even Karen, but not really Tom. It takes a while to get to know the characters though because they're trying to figure each other out. I loved the plot, though there wasn’t exactly a plot. The plot was life. And work. And death. And more life.

This took me a long time because I accidentally listened to the abridged audiobook. I don’t believe in abridged books of any kind, and I discovered my mistake when I finished and was reading reviews on Goodreads. I had to start over with a complete copy. It was slow because sometimes I had to read things I’d already listened to, and sometimes I had to take in totally new information that changed my view of everything. The book was way better in its complete form, but apart from that, it was just a great book.

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Becoming by Michelle Obama

Becoming by Michelle Obama
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The memoir started out slowly and I was worried that it wouldn't live up to my hopes and expectations. Turned out, it far exceeded my expectations. At one point, having burst into tears so many times during reading it, I started keeping count: I cried 6 times. Her parents are so amazing. Her love for her husband is the real kind of love that is based on mutual respect and sacrifice. Her love for her home neighborhood, and especially the kids there, and really, children throughout America, it's a lot to get through without some serious tears.

Also, Michelle Obama is definitely not running for office. I believe her. This is practically an essay on "I'm sorry, I love you too, and I know you want me to run, but I did my time and I'm never going back to the political world. Here is why."

One of her big points is how much we can do, and should do, to move our society forward and to help the most disadvantaged outside of politics. We should vote, yes, but we should also do things to actually help. But she doesn't make this point by lecturing us, she makes this point just by showing her own struggles and hopes so that we see our struggles and hopes are normal too. And here's a thing that I actually got from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, but is illustrated very clearly in this book: we don't need huge groups of people to change the world (though we certainly have millions of Americans on our side) we just need a few very determined hard-working people to make big important positive changes.

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So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is race and racism 101. The explanations were extremely cogent and even where you might not initially see the author's point she is also very persuasive. I especially loved when she explained some of the dynamics in her relationship with her white mother and how she had to explain some things even to her. This would be a fabulous gift for almost everyone in America.

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Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is excellent. I try to read a lot of books about feminism and racism, and this book is so great because there is not one wasted paragraph- not once did I think oh, I've read all this before. Cooper has an excess of interesting and nuanced ideas. She is an excellent writer as well, so she is able to communicate her unique ideas in an especially clear and persuasive manner. This is clearly going to be one of those nonfiction books that I proselytize about by buying it for lots of unsuspecting friends and family.

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Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful story about first love. The characters are wonderful and perfectly imperfect. I enjoyed every minute of reading this book. In addition to the romance story, I appreciated the serious way the book dealt with the issue of poverty and abuse.

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Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have become a very skeptical reader, and as such, I was kind of dubious for a large chunk of this book. Mostly I objected to the form of the book because it feels like it's part novel and part essay collection. I wasn't in love with that format. Also, the thing about the essays is that I agree with every word of them- or very nearly every word- but they lack the scholarly historical flavor that both the character Blaine and I prefer in our nonfiction.

But by the end I cared so much about the main characters, I love them so hard, I think Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a genius of fiction writing and if she wants to throw in essays, she can do whatever she wants. A new favorite!

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Stormcaster by Cinda Williams Chima

Stormcaster by Cinda Williams Chima
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The best. If you like the fantasy genre and/or YA or joy, just drop everything and start with The Demon King by this author. Read all 7 books and then sit with me impatiently while we wait for the 8th book to come out. You’re welcome.

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