en-US Mon, 17 Aug 2020 13:15:50 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 18209268 588 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Kathleen 4 fiction, read-in-2016 4.31 2013
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2016/02/07
date added: 2020/08/17
shelves: fiction, read-in-2016
review:

]]> 27502938 384 Richard Kreitner 1784536350 Kathleen 4 non-fiction, read-in-2016 3.38
author: Richard Kreitner
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.38
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2016/05/18
date added: 2018/09/26
shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2016
review:
Not a pro-Hillary book...but not exactly an anti-Hillary book either. Recommended for those willing to look beyond the smear articles and Facebook memes who truly want an answer to the title question.
]]> 27161156 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062300546.

Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance's powerful origin story...

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class.

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.]]> 264 J.D. Vance Kathleen 3 3.81 2016
author: J.D. Vance
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2017/01/02
date added: 2017/01/11
shelves: memoir, non-fiction, read-in-2016
review:
"Here is where the rhetoric of modern conservatives (and I say that as one of them) fails to meet the real challenges of their biggest constituents. Instead of encouring engagement, conservatives increasingly foment the kind of detachment that has sapped the ambition of so many of my peers. I have watched some friends blossom into successful adults and others fall victim to the worst of Middletown's temptations - premature parenthood, drugs, incarceration. What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It's not your fault that you're a loser; it's the government's fault." (p.194)
]]> 29496435
Phoebe Robinson is a stand-up comic, which means that, often, her everyday experiences become points of comedic fodder. And as a black woman in America, she maintains, sometimes you need to have a sense of humor to deal with the absurdity you are handed on the daily. Robinson has experienced her fair share over the years: she's been unceremoniously relegated to the role of "the black friend," as if she is somehow the authority on all things racial; she's been questioned about her love of U2 and Billy Joel ("isn t that . . . white people music?"); she's been called "uppity" for having an opinion in the workplace; she's been followed around stores by security guards; and yes, people do ask her whether they can touch her hair all. the. time. Now, she's ready to take these topics to the page and she s going to make you laugh as she s doing it.

Using her trademark wit alongside pop-culture references galore, Robinson explores everything from why Lisa Bonet is "Queen. Bae. Jesus," to breaking down the terrible nature of casting calls, to giving her less-than-traditional advice to the future female president, and demanding that the NFL clean up its act, all told in the same conversational voice that launched her podcast, "2 Dope Queens," to the top spot on iTunes. As personal as it is political, "You Can't Touch My Hair" examines our cultural climate and skewers our biases with humor and heart, announcing Robinson as a writer on the rise."]]> 285 Phoebe Robinson 0143129201 Kathleen 3 read-in-2016 3.84 2016
author: Phoebe Robinson
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2016/12/09
date added: 2016/12/09
shelves: read-in-2016
review:

]]> 18505796
Eventually Harris stumbled upon an effective way to rein in that voice, something he always assumed to be either impossible or useless: meditation, a tool that research suggests can do everything from lower your blood pressure to essentially rewire your brain. "10% Happier" takes readers on a ride from the outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to the bizarre fringes of America's spiritual scene, and leaves them with a takeaway that could actually change their lives.]]> 256 Dan Harris 0062265423 Kathleen 2 3.87 2014
author: Dan Harris
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2016/11/26
date added: 2016/11/26
shelves: diethealthwellbeing, read-in-2016
review:
A formulaic memoir on Harris' discovery and implementation of meditation into his life. Each chapter follows the same pattern: Harris is skeptical about some aspect of meditation, he explores the aspect, he's then not so skeptical. I found Harris' descriptions and insight into working for corporate media the most interesting aspect of the book, along with the appendix which includes some helpful information and instructions on meditation.
]]> 29340182 260 Lindy West 0316348406 Kathleen 5 4.16 2016
author: Lindy West
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2016/11/22
date added: 2016/11/22
shelves: feminist, memoir, read-in-2016
review:

]]> 28369597
So began a lifelong friendship that fourteen years later would result in the formation of The Cure, a quintessential post-punk band whose albums-such as Three Imaginary Boys, Pornography , and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me -remain among the best-loved and most influential of all time.

As two of the first punks in the provincial English town of Crawley, Lol Tolhurst and Robert Smith didn't have it easy. Outsiders from the start, theirs was a friendship based initially on proximity and a shared love of music, from the punk that was raging in nearby London to the groundbreaking experimentation of David Bowie's "Berlin Trilogy." First known as The Easy Cure, they began playing in pubs and soon developed their own unique style and approach to songwriting, resulting in timeless songs that sparked a deep sense of identification and empathy in listeners, songs like "Boys Don't Cry," "Just Like Heaven," and "Why Can't I Be You?," spearheading a new subculture dubbed "Goth" by the press. The music of The Cure was not only accessible but also deeply subversive, challenging conventional notions of pop music and gender roles while inspiring a generation of devoted fans and a revolution in style.

Cured is not only the first insider account of the early days of the band, it is a revealing look at the artistic evolution of the enigmatic Robert Smith, the iconic lead singer, songwriter, and innovative guitarist at the heart of The Cure. A deeply rebellious, sensitive, tough, and often surprisingly "normal" young man, Smith was from the start destined for stardom, a fearless non-conformist and provocateur who soon found his own musical language through which to express his considerable and unique talent.

But there was also a dark side to The Cure's intense and bewildering success. Tolhurst, on drums and keyboards, was nursing a growing alcoholism that would destroy his place in The Cure and nearly end his life. Cured tells the harrowing and unforgettable story of his crash-and-burn, recovery, and rebirth.

Intensely lyrical and evocative, gripping and unforgettable, Cured is the definitive story of a singular band whose legacy endures many decades hence, told from the point of view of a participant and eyewitness who was there when it happened-and even before it all began.]]> 287 Lol Tolhurst 0306824280 Kathleen 4 memoir, music, read-in-2016 4.03 2016
author: Lol Tolhurst
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/10/20
date added: 2016/10/24
shelves: memoir, music, read-in-2016
review:
Beautifully written and moving memoir on Lol's involvement with The Cure and his friendship with Robert Smith. So many fun, and poignant, stories and reminiscences. A must read for die-hard Cure fans.
]]> 28696601 The highly anticipated continuation of Riad Sattouf’s internationally acclaimed, #1 French bestseller, which was hailed by The New York Times as “a disquieting yet essential read�

In The Arab of the Future: Volume 1, cartoonist Riad Sattouf tells of the first years of his childhood as his family shuttles back and forth between France and the Middle East. In Libya and Syria, young Riad is exposed to the dismal reality of a life where food is scarce, children kill dogs for sport, and his cousins, virulently anti-Semitic and convinced he is Jewish because of his blond hair, lurk around every corner waiting to beat him up.

In Volume 2, Riad, now settled in his father’s hometown of Homs, gets to go to school, where he dedicates himself to becoming a true Syrian in the country of the dictator Hafez Al-Assad. Told simply yet with devastating effect, Riad’s story takes in the sweep of politics, religion, and poverty, but is steered by acutely observed small moments: the daily sadism of his schoolteacher, the lure of the black market, with its menu of shame and subsistence, and the obsequiousness of his father in the company of those close to the regime. As his family strains to fit in, one chilling, barbaric act drives the Sattoufs to make the most dramatic of changes.

Darkly funny and piercingly direct, The Arab of the Future, Volume 2 once again reveals the inner workings of a tormented country and a tormented family, delivered through Riad Sattouf’s dazzlingly original talent.]]> 154 Riad Sattouf 1627793518 Kathleen 5 graphicnovels, read-in-2016 4.21 2015
author: Riad Sattouf
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2016/10/07
date added: 2016/10/08
shelves: graphicnovels, read-in-2016
review:

]]> 16280 464 Beverly Daniel Tatum 0465083617 Kathleen 5
"What if I make a mistake?' you may be thinking. 'Racism is a volatile issue, and I don't want to say or do the wrong thing.' In nearly twenty years of teaching and leading workshops about racism, I have made many mistakes. I have found that a sincere apology and a genuine desire to learn from one's mistakes are usually rewarded with forgiveness. If we wait for perfection, we will never break the silence. The cycle of racism will continue uninterrupted." (p. 205)]]> 4.32 1997
author: Beverly Daniel Tatum
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2016/10/04
date added: 2016/10/08
shelves: non-fiction, blacklivesmatter, read-in-2016
review:
"I have heard many people say: 'But I don't know enough! I don't have enough of the facts to be able to speak up about racism or anything else!' They are not alone. We have all been miseducated in this regard. Educating ourselves and others is an essential step in the process of change. Few of us have been taught to think critically about issues of societal injustice. We have been taught not to notice or to accept our present situation as a given, 'the way it is.' But we can learn the history we were not taught, we can watch the documentaries we never saw in school, and we can read about the lives of change agents, past and present. We can discover another way." (p. 204)

"What if I make a mistake?' you may be thinking. 'Racism is a volatile issue, and I don't want to say or do the wrong thing.' In nearly twenty years of teaching and leading workshops about racism, I have made many mistakes. I have found that a sincere apology and a genuine desire to learn from one's mistakes are usually rewarded with forgiveness. If we wait for perfection, we will never break the silence. The cycle of racism will continue uninterrupted." (p. 205)
]]> 183097 304 Dave Zirin 1931859205 Kathleen 3 read-in-2016, non-fiction 3.97 2005
author: Dave Zirin
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2016/09/19
date added: 2016/09/28
shelves: read-in-2016, non-fiction
review:
A good, basic overview of numerous examples of political protest by American athletes. There's no real narrative or analysis tying all the examples together so in that sense the book becomes a bit scattered, just jumping from one example to the next, but it's still a good reference book. I found it immensely helpful in giving background to and putting into context Colin Kaepernick's current protest.
]]> 529172 Chosen by John Updike as a Today Show Book Club Pick. Already an award-winning writer, ZZ Packer now shares with us her debut, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Her impressive range and talent are abundantly evident: Packer dazzles with her command of language, surprising and delighting us with unexpected turns and indelible images, as she takes us into the lives of characters on the periphery, unsure of where they belong. We meet a Brownie troop of black girls who are confronted with a troop of white girls; a young man who goes with his father to the Million Man March and must decides where his allegiance lies; an international group of drifters in Japan, who are starving, unable to find work; a girl in a Baltimore ghetto who has dreams of the larger world she has seen only on the screens in the television store nearby, where the Lithuanian shopkeeper holds out hope for attaining his own American Dream.

With penetrating insight that belies her youth—she was only nineteen years old when Seventeen magazine printed her first published story—ZZ Packer helps us see the world with a clearer vision. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a striking performance—fresh, versatile, and captivating. It introduces us to an arresting and unforgettable new voice.

Brownies --
Every tongue shall confess --
Our Lady of Peace --
The ant of the self --
Drinking coffee elsewhere --
Speaking in tongues --
Geese --
Doris is coming]]> 265 ZZ Packer 1573223786 Kathleen 5 3.88 2004
author: ZZ Packer
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2016/09/01
date added: 2016/09/02
shelves: blacklivesmatter, read-in-2016
review:
Loved this. Highly recommended.
]]> 30555488
In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]> 320 Colson Whitehead 0385542364 Kathleen 4 4.04 2016
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/08/22
date added: 2016/08/22
shelves: blacklivesmatter, fiction, read-in-2016
review:
The simmering undercurrent of suspense throughout the whole book kept me riveted. I loved the main character, Cora. It ends perfectly set up for a second book, and I really hope he writes one.
]]> 13269708 A new edition of the book many have called James Baldwin’s most influential work

Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era. Writing as an artist, activist, and social critic, Baldwin probes the complex condition of being black in America. With a keen eye, he examines everything from the significance of the protest novel to the motives and circumstances of the many black expatriates of the time, from his home in “The Harlem Ghetto� to a sobering “Journey to Atlanta.�

Notes of a Native SonĚýinaugurated Baldwin as one of the leading interpreters of the dramatic social changes erupting in the United States in the twentieth century, and many of his observations have proven almost prophetic. His criticism on topics such as the paternalism of white progressives or on his own friend Richard Wright’s work is pointed and unabashed. He was also one of the few writing on race at the time who addressed the issue with a powerful mixture of outrage at the gross physical and political violence against black citizens and measured understanding of their oppressors, which helped awaken a white audience to the injustices under their noses. Naturally, this combination of brazen criticism and unconventional empathy for white readers won Baldwin as much condemnation as praise.

Notes is the book that established Baldwin’s voice as a social critic, and it remains one of his most admired works. The essays collected here create a cohesive sketch of black America and reveal an intimate portrait of Baldwin’s own search for identity as an artist, as a black man, and as an American.]]> 64 James Baldwin 0807006238 Kathleen 5 4.34 1955
author: James Baldwin
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1955
rating: 5
read at: 2016/08/08
date added: 2016/08/08
shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2016, blacklivesmatter
review:
"Americans are as unlike any other white people in the world as it is possible to be. I do not think, for example, that it is too much to suggest that the American vision of the world - which allows so little reality, generally speaking, for any of the darker forces in human life, which tends until today to paint moral issues in glaring black and white - owes a great deal to the battle waged by Americans to maintain between themselves and black men a human separation which could not be bridged. It is only now beginning to be borne in on us - very faintly, it must be admitted, very slowly, and very much against our will - that this vision of the world is dangerously inaccurate, and perfectly useless. For it protects our moral high-mindedness at the terrible expense of weakening our grasp of reality. People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster." (p. 178)
]]> 25664490 You Are Having a Good Time, Amie Barrodale’s collection of highly compressed and charged tales, the veneer of normality is stripped from her characters� lives to reveal the seething and contradictory desires that fuel them. In “Animals,� an up-and-coming starlet harbors a complicated attraction toward her abusive director. In “Frank Advice for Fat Women,� an ethically compromised psychiatrist is drawn into the middle of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. And in “The Imp,� a supernatural possession ruins a man’s relationship with his pregnant wife.

Barrodale’s protagonists drink too much, say the wrong things, want the wrong people. They’re hounded by longings (and sometimes ghosts) to the point where they are forced to confront the illusions they cling to. They’re brought to life in stories that don’t behave as you expect stories to behave. Barrodale’s startlingly funny and original fictions get under your skin and make you reconsider the fragile compromises that underpin our daily lives.]]> 208 Amie Barrodale 0374293864 Kathleen 3 fiction, read-in-2016 3.38 2016
author: Amie Barrodale
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2016/07/31
date added: 2016/07/31
shelves: fiction, read-in-2016
review:

]]> 25387813 Six weeks before sex reassignment surgery (SRS), I am obliged to stop taking my hormones. I suddenly feel very differently about my forthcoming operation.�

In July 2012, aged thirty, Juliet Jacques underwent sex reassignment surgery—a process she chronicled with unflinching honesty in a serialised national newspaper column. Trans tells of her life to the present moment: a story of growing up, of defining yourself, and of the rapidly changing world of gender politics.

Fresh from university, eager to escape a dead-end job, she launches a career as a writer in a publishing culture dominated by London cliques and still figuring out the impact of the Internet. She navigates the treacherous waters of a world where, even in the liberal and feminist media, transgender identities go unacknowledged, misunderstood or worse. Yet through art, film, music, politics and football, Jacques starts to become the person she had only imagined, and begins the process of transition. Interweaving the personal with the political, her memoir is a powerful exploration of debates that comprise trans politics, issues which promise to redefine our understanding of what it means to be alive.

Revealing, honest, humorous, and self-deprecating, Trans includes an epilogue with Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?, in which Jacques and Heti discuss the cruxes of writing and identity.]]> 311 Juliet Jacques 1784781649 Kathleen 4 3.88 2015
author: Juliet Jacques
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2016/07/06
date added: 2016/07/06
shelves: read-in-2016, memoir, non-fiction
review:
An engaging, accessible, no-frills memoir about Jacques transitioning while also trying to continue going about her daily life. Interspersed throughout the memoir are side essays on trans history and culture ("A History of the Sex Change," "Conundrum: The Politics of Life Writing"), making this part memoir/part reference book. An important read.
]]> 25489136 Fitness and alignment expert Lauren Roxburgh � who has worked with such stars as Gwyneth Paltrow, Gabby Reece and Melissa Rauch � has the solution to keep your fascia supple, flexible and strong. Using only a foam roller, you can reshape and elongate your muscles, release tension, break up scar tissue and rid yourself of toxins for a leaner, younger look. In just 15 minutes a day, Roxburgh’s 21-day programme will guide you through a simple series of her unique rolling techniques that target 10 primary areas of the body, including the shoulders, chest, arms, legs, hips, bottom, back and stomach. The end result is a healthy, balanced, aligned body that not only looks but feels fantastic. Includes over 80 photographs to help guide you through the exercises.]]> 304 Lauren Roxburgh 110188617X Kathleen 1 3.89 2016
author: Lauren Roxburgh
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2016
rating: 1
read at: 2016/06/30
date added: 2016/07/01
shelves: read-in-2016, diethealthwellbeing
review:
I found the black and white photographs of the exercises in this book nearly impossible to understand. The photos are taken at strange angles, and it's hard to detect precisely what movements the author is making. The text is written simply and is easy to understand, and it seems like a good program to undertake, but since I couldn't be sure how to properly do the exercises, unfortunately the book is of no use to me. I recommend saving your money and instead pay to watch the video bundles on her website, or watch her free videos on YouTube (much shorter videos and not as extensive as the video bundles). It's much easier to watch her do the exercises rather than trying to comprehend how to do them from low quality black and white photos.
]]> 17288631 169 James Baldwin 0345806565 Kathleen 5 fiction, read-in-2016 4.41 1956
author: James Baldwin
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1956
rating: 5
read at: 2016/06/24
date added: 2016/06/24
shelves: fiction, read-in-2016
review:
Beautiful. Gut-wrenching. Heartbreaking.
]]> 26795372 Guardian US columnist Jessica Valenti has been leading the national conversation on gender and politics for over a decade. Now, in a darkly funny and bracing memoir, Valenti explores the toll that sexism takes from the every day to the existential.

Sex Object explores the painful, funny, embarrassing, and sometimes illegal moments that shaped Valenti’s adolescence and young adulthood in New York City, revealing a much shakier inner life than the confident persona she has cultivated as one of the most recognizable feminists of her generation.

In the tradition of writers like Joan Didion and Mary Karr, this literary memoir is sure to shock those already familiar with Valenti’s work and enthrall those who are just finding it.]]> 205 Jessica Valenti 0062435086 Kathleen 3 3.64 2016
author: Jessica Valenti
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2016/06/15
date added: 2016/06/15
shelves: feminist, memoir, read-in-2016
review:
This is an uncomfortable read and sadly, I identified strongly with many of the sentiments expressed here, most notably, of just feeling like a piece of meat as you make your way through this world as a woman. It felt like two distinct books, however: the first half, dealing with growing up female in a world that mercilessly objectifies females, and the second half, dealing with her pregnancy and birth of her premature daughter who is subsequently diagnosed as selectively mute. I wish the ideas and themes of the first half could have been explored more thoroughly, and I feel a whole separate book could be written about her pregnancy and daughter. A quick, powerful read however, and recommended.
]]> 21855265
AnĚýNPRĚýBest Book of the Year Selection

New York City in the 1980s was a mesmerizing, wild place. A hotbed for hip hop, underground culture, and unmatched creative energy, it spawned some of the most significant art of the 20th century. It was where Jean-Michel Basquiat became an avant-garde street artist and painter, swiftly achieving worldwide fame. During the years before his death at the age of 27, he shared his life with his lover and muse, Suzanne Mallouk.

A runaway from an unhappy home in Canada, Suzanne first met Jean-Michel in a bar on the Lower East Side in 1980. Thus began a tumultuous and passionate relationship that deeply influenced one of the most exceptional artists of our time.

In emotionally resonant prose, award-winning author Jennifer Clement tells the story of the passion that swept Suzanne and Jean-Michel into a short-lived, unforgettable affair. A poetic interpretation like no other, Widow Basquiat is an expression of the unrelenting power of addiction, obsession and love.]]> 208 Jennifer Clement 0553419919 Kathleen 3 memoir, read-in-2016 4.40 2000
author: Jennifer Clement
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 2016/06/11
date added: 2016/06/11
shelves: memoir, read-in-2016
review:
An account of Suzanne Mallouk's relationship with Jean-Michel Basquiat as told by Mallouk's friend Jennifer Clement. I didn't care for the spoken word poetry-like narratives, and found Mallouk's recollections in her own words (in italics throughout) to be the strongest aspects of the book. Famous male artists so often have a woman in the background inspiring and supporting them, a "muse," and I am glad that Clement took the time to put Mallouk's story down and make it part of the historical record, even if the format is a bit unconventional.
]]> 25330048 180 Clancy Martin 099136080X Kathleen 4 fiction, read-in-2016 3.44 2015
author: Clancy Martin
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2016/06/08
date added: 2016/06/09
shelves: fiction, read-in-2016
review:
A quick, grim read about a relapsed alcoholic having an affair under her husband's nose. Even though I had a hunch where it was all leading, I was riveted. I loved the settings of Mexico City and various places around South America.
]]> 23168840 The Arab of the Future, the #1 French best-seller, tells the unforgettable story of Riad Sattouf's childhood, spent in the shadows of 3 dictators—Muammar Gaddafi, Hafez al-Assad, and his father

In striking, virtuoso graphic style that captures both the immediacy of childhood and the fervor of political idealism, Riad Sattouf recounts his nomadic childhood growing up in rural France, Gaddafi's Libya, and Assad's Syria--but always under the roof of his father, a Syrian Pan-Arabist who drags his family along in his pursuit of grandiose dreams for the Arab nation.

Riad, delicate and wide-eyed, follows in the trail of his mismatched parents; his mother, a bookish French student, is as modest as his father is flamboyant. Venturing first to the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab State and then joining the family tribe in Homs, Syria, they hold fast to the vision of the paradise that always lies just around the corner. And hold they do, though food is scarce, children kill dogs for sport, and with locks banned, the Sattoufs come home one day to discover another family occupying their apartment. The ultimate outsider, Riad, with his flowing blond hair, is called the ultimate insult� Jewish. And in no time at all, his father has come up with yet another grand plan, moving from building a new people to building his own great palace.

Brimming with life and dark humor, The Arab of the Future reveals the truth and texture of one eccentric family in an absurd Middle East, and also introduces a master cartoonist in a work destined to stand alongside Maus and Persepolis.]]> 156 Riad Sattouf 1627793445 Kathleen 4 4.09 2014
author: Riad Sattouf
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2016/06/09
date added: 2016/06/09
shelves: graphicnovels, memoir, read-in-2016
review:
I loved this! Hope part 2 is translated into English soon!
]]> 26154389
Jeffrey Lockhart’s father, Ross, is a billionaire in his sixties, with a younger wife, Artis Martineau, whose health is failing. Ross is the primary investor in a remote and secret compound where death is exquisitely controlled and bodies are preserved until a future time when biomedical advances and new technologies can return them to a life of transcendent promise. Jeff joins Ross and Artis at the compound to say “an uncertain farewell� to her as she surrenders her body.

“We are born without choosing to be. Should we have to die in the same manner? Isn’t it a human glory to refuse to accept a certain fate?�

These are the questions that haunt the novel and its memorable characters, and it is Ross Lockhart, most particularly, who feels a deep need to enter another dimension and awake to a new world. For his son, this is indefensible. Jeff, the book’s narrator, is committed to living, to experiencing “the mingled astonishments of our time, here, on earth.�

Don DeLillo’s seductive, spectacularly observed and brilliant new novel weighs the darkness of the world—terrorism, floods, fires, famine, plague—against the beauty and humanity of everyday life; love, awe, “the intimate touch of earth and sun.�

Zero K is glorious.]]> 274 Don DeLillo 1501135392 Kathleen 2 fiction, read-in-2016 3.19 2016
author: Don DeLillo
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2016/06/05
date added: 2016/06/05
shelves: fiction, read-in-2016
review:

]]> 25330171 -- Washington Post "Svenonius' new book is Censorship Now!! , and the title alone shows just how provocative the author can be. A collection of essays previously published by Vice, Jacobin , and others, it sets up numerous enemies--both real and straw--for Svenonius to knock down....It's all couched in a style that's part anarchist tirade, part postmodern critique, and part punk-rock snottiness--yet it's addictively ridiculous."
-- NPR "Censor it all. Film, TV, music, politics, books, news, art--censor all of it. That's the guiding principle of local radical punk Ian Svenonius' latest essay collection, Censorship Now!! "
-- Washington City Paper , Critics' Pick Named a Favorite Book of 2015 by Jason Diamond at Vol. 1 Brooklyn "Gonzo ecstasy for those who have come to know Svenonius's self-aware political meditations....And though the essays Svenonius writes are not themselves unclear, the process of talking about what he's written involves discussions that some might find uncomfortable. His books make more sense the more you dissect them. So keep them in your back pocket and read them, one word at a time."
-- Los Angeles Review of Books "A new collection of essays by everyone's favorite supercilious rock theorist...Svenonius has always been the smartest kid in the room....In print, Svenonius is like that curmudgeonly pal that you adore because, even while his insight quivers between humor, paranoia, and antisocial ire, he never dispels your fascination in how he gets there."
-- SF Weekly "Ian Svenonius is best known as the frontman of bands like the Make-Up and Nation of Ulysses, but he's also a brilliant cultural critic with a talent for coming up with the hottest takes you'll ever read. In this collection, Svenonius makes compelling arguments in favor of censorship and hoarding books and records, amid polemics against Apple and Ikea, the yuppification of indie rock, and the shaving of pubic hair."
-- Buzzfeed "The essays in Censorship Now!! are equally packed with modest proposals and mock-revolutionary rhetoric, but there are grains of truth in pieces like 'The Historic Role Of Sugar In Empire Building' and ' Heathers The Nerd's Fight For Niceness'--they're just buried somewhere between tongue and cheek."
-- The A.V. Club " Censorship Now!! simultaneously deals in the heated rhetoric of insurgent calls to action, the seductive broad strokes of propaganda, and the clever winking of surrealist humor. Often when I'm really convinced Svenonius has gone off a paranoid deep end, the next sentence hits back with knowingly-hilarious exaggeration or profoundly spot-on analysis, realigning my perspective and making me wonder again....It's fitting that a book whose intentions are ambiguous begins with a call to censor art and ends by letting art do the talking."
-- Pitchfork Ian F. Svenonius's new collection of sixteen essays and stories, entitled Censorship Now!! , is reorganizing people's ideas about censorship, Ikea, documentary filmmaking, the Berlin Wall, the film Heathers , the twist, the frug, the mashed potato, shaving one's body, Apple, Inc., Nordic functionalism, the supposed benevolence of the Wikipedia, hoarding, college rock, the origins of the Internet, and more. It's an underground smash which has been met with a horrified gasp in all respectable quarters and gog-eyed enthusiasm in artist garrets the world over.]]> 224 Ian F. Svenonius 1617754099 Kathleen 3 3.90 2015
author: Ian F. Svenonius
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2016/05/26
date added: 2016/05/26
shelves: read-in-2016, non-fiction, music
review:

]]> 25814361 New York Times bestselling author and stand-up comedian Jen Kirkman delivers a hilarious, candid memoir about marriage, divorce, sex, turning forty, and still not quite having life figured out.

Jen Kirkman wants to be the voice in your head that says, Hey, you’re okay. Even if you sometimes think you aren’t! And especially if other people try to tell you you’re not.

In I Know What I’m Doing—and Other Lies I Tell Myself, Jen offers up all the gory details of a life permanently in progress. She reassures you that it’s okay to not have life completely figured out, even when you reach middle age (and find your first gray pubic hair!). She talks about making unusual or unpopular life decisions (such as cultivating a “friend with benefits� or not going home for the holidays) because you don’t necessarily want for yourself what everyone else seems to think you should. It’s about renting when everyone says you should own, dating around when everyone thinks you should settle down, and traveling alone when everyone pities you for going to Paris without a man.

From marriage to divorce and sex to mental health, I Know What I’m Doing—and Other Lies I Tell Myself is about embracing the fact that life is a bit of a sh*t show and it’s definitely more than okay to stay true to yourself.]]> 240 Jen Kirkman 1476770271 Kathleen 4 3.62 2016
author: Jen Kirkman
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/05/02
date added: 2016/05/02
shelves: feminist, memoir, non-fiction, read-in-2016
review:

]]> 635635 From one of our most important scholars and civil rights activist icon, a powerful study of the women’s liberation movement and the tangled knot of oppression facing Black women.

"Angela Davis is herself a woman of undeniable courage. She should be heard." �The New York Times

Angela Davis provides a powerful history of the social and political influence of whiteness and elitism in feminism, from abolitionist days to the present, and demonstrates how the racist and classist biases of its leaders inevitably hampered any collective ambitions. While Black women were aided by some activists like Sarah and Angelina Grimke and the suffrage cause found unwavering support in Frederick Douglass, many women played on the fears of white supremacists for political gain rather than take an intersectional approach to liberation. Here, Davis not only contextualizes the legacy and pitfalls of civil and women's rights activists, but also discusses Communist women, the murder of Emmitt Till, and Margaret Sanger's racism. Davis shows readers how the inequalities between Black and white women influence the contemporary issues of rape, reproductive freedom, housework and child care in this bold and indispensable work.]]> 271 Angela Y. Davis 0394713516 Kathleen 5 feminist, read-in-2016 4.58 1981
author: Angela Y. Davis
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.58
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at: 2016/04/26
date added: 2016/04/26
shelves: feminist, read-in-2016
review:

]]> 29364503 312 Ellen Fitzpatrick 067449606X Kathleen 4 feminist, read-in-2016 3.75 2016
author: Ellen Fitzpatrick
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/04/07
date added: 2016/04/07
shelves: feminist, read-in-2016
review:
A snappy book that doesn't drag, is a breeze to read, and is especially timely right now. The chapter on Shirley Chisolm is mostly just a summary of Chisolm's own memoir "Unbought and Unbossed," which I found more rewarding to read in Chisolm's own voice, but does add information on Chisolm's run for president, which is not covered in "Unbought and Unbossed." The epilogue deals primarily with Hillary Clinton, and definitely seems like the seeds of a spin off book. Recommended.
]]> 7656155 177 Shirley Chisholm 098005902X Kathleen 5 4.52 1970
author: Shirley Chisholm
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1970
rating: 5
read at: 2016/03/25
date added: 2016/03/25
shelves: read-in-2016, feminist, memoir
review:
"One bill that I introduced should become law in every state, but unfortunately it did not succeed even in New York. It would have made it mandatory for policemen to successfully complete courses in civil rights, civil liberties, minority problems, and race relations before they are appointed to a police department." Shirley Chisholm, 1970.
]]> 25242225
Laura and Tyler are two women whose twenties have been a blur of overstayed parties, a fondness for drugs that has shifted from cautious experimentation to catholic indulgence, and hangovers that don't relent until Monday morning. They've been best friends, partners in excess, for the last ten years. But things are Laura is engaged to Jim, a classical pianist who has long since given up the carousing lifestyle. He disapproves of Tyler's reckless ways and of what he percieves to be her bad influence on Laura. Jim pulls Laura toward adulthood and responsibility, toward what society says she should be, but Tyler isn't ready to let her go. But what does Laura want for herself? And how can she choose between Tyler and Jim, between one life she loves and another she's "supposed" to love?

Raw, uproarious, and deeply affecting,Ěý Animals Ěýspeaks to an entire generation caught between late-adolescence and adulthood wondering what exactly they'll have to give up in order to grow up.ĚýĚý]]> 256 Emma Jane Unsworth 1609452895 Kathleen 1 fiction, read-in-2016 3.40 2014
author: Emma Jane Unsworth
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2014
rating: 1
read at: 2016/03/01
date added: 2016/03/01
shelves: fiction, read-in-2016
review:
This book was so tiresome. Very little substance here. None of the characters felt fully formed. I don't feel like I got to know them. I couldn't even picture them in my head. The book should have started at the end, with Tyler and Jim finally out of Laura's life, as Laura starts anew.
]]> 2954008
Historians Perdue and Green reveal the government's betrayals and the divisions within the Cherokee Nation, follow the exiles along the Trail of Tears, and chronicle the hardships found in the West. In its trauma and tragedy, the Cherokee diaspora has come to represent the irreparable injustice done to Native Americans in the name of nation building-and in their determined survival, it represents the resilience of the Native American spirit.]]> 208 Theda Perdue 0143113674 Kathleen 3 non-fiction, read-in-2016 4.00 2007
author: Theda Perdue
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2016/02/19
date added: 2016/02/19
shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2016
review:
Was hoping for more information on the Trail of Tears. Most of the book focused on the events leading up to the relocation.
]]> 25147754 “This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.�
Ěý
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,� a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
Ěý
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.]]> 4 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0147520509 Kathleen 5 Everyone needs to read this. 4.43 2015
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Kathleen
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2016/01/13
date added: 2016/01/13
shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2016, memoir
review:
Everyone needs to read this.
]]> 22557272
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 336 Paula Hawkins 1594633665 Kathleen 3 fiction, read-in-2016 3.97 2015
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Kathleen
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2016/01/07
date added: 2016/01/08
shelves: fiction, read-in-2016
review:
For a book in which I didn't like any of the characters I sure had a hard time putting it down. Drinking game idea: every time Rachel apologizes for something, drink!
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