Usually people share these Goodreads annual summaries around the new year, so I guess I’m kind of late. But hey, every day is a new day, and technically the start of a new year (as defined as a stretch of 365 days). So here is my 2018 year in books.
ByGD
Bonus Poetry at Taste of Iceland
The Icelanders say everyone has a book in their belly, and they are better than the people of most nations at getting that book out. (Don’t think about the metaphor too much, though.) It makes sense that the annual Taste of Iceland would include a literary event. This year, author Andri Snær Magnason spoke at the Elliott Bay Book Company.
ByGD
Because I’ve Read: Covering Islam
It’s a record! I have stuck with a book club for three books. I’m at least a month late, but I finished the third #BecauseWe’veRead book club choice, Covering Islam. Political-fashion blogger Hoda Katebi started the #BecauseWe’veRead after giving a TV interview. The host replied to a factual statement by Katebi with the claim she “didn’t sound like an American.” Katebi laughed it off with, “That’s because I’ve read!” Then she went home and started a virtual book club about the rest of the world. If “sounding American” means ignorance of facts about the rest of the world, I don’t want to sound American.
Because We’ve Read started with a focus on colonialism: Assata; Black Skin, White Masks; and Covering Islam. I’d been meaning to read Assata for literally decades. Black Skin, White Masks was a challenge. The premise was sound, and there is certainly value in exposure to different perspectives on colonialism and race than the American one. But dense social science language – in translation – and a pre-civil rights movement world view made it feel more like a historical curiosity than significant civil rights work.
ByGD
Book Report: The Kiss Quotient
This spring it felt like every bookish social media account I follow was raving about The Kiss Quotient, the debut novel by Helen Hoang. The premise was charming – a gender-flipped Pretty Woman starring a mixed-race man and an autistic woman. The backstory (you know how I can’t resist a good backstory) involved the author locating herself on the spectrum through research for the novel. It was only a matter of time until I read it. Read More
ByGD
Because I’ve Read Black Skin, White Masks
I’ve mentioned my history with book clubs more than once. But I’m trying one more time, with #BecauseWe’veRead, because their inaugural choice, Assata An Autobiography was on my TBR list for literally two decades and this was the push I needed to finally pick it up. Their second choice was a book I’d never heard of, Black Skin, White Masks. But I’m working to fill in the gaps in my reading created by Eurocentric Jesuit education, so I continued with the Because We’ve Read curriculum.