Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
“White men get a choice. They get to choose they job, choose they house. They get to make black babies, then disappear into thin air like wasn’t never there to begin with, like these black women they slept with or raped done laid on top of themselves and got pregnant. White men get to choose for black men too. Used to sell ’em; now they just send ’em to prison like they did my daddy, so that they can’t be with they kids.” Homegoing by […]
The Sword of Kaigen by M. L. Wang
After reading Blood over Bright Haven (and honestly, being very impressed by the writing and plot) I figured, why not, let me read another of M.L. Wang’s stand alone novels. So here is Sword of Kaigen. I went into this book blind. Like, completely blind. And honestly, that was a mistake. To start with, calling this a standalone novel isn’t true. This is a spinoff novel. Apparently. this is a prequel to her first series, the Theonite series. And let me just say, this book […]
The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien
To begin with I’m shocked how much I liked this. If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, and especially if you’re friends with an extra intense fan, you almost certainly know about this book. Within what you know, probably infamy? As in, this is an infamously dull book that even hardcore fans typically don’t recommend. The style is dry, the language plodding, and the family trees extensive. But, if you’ve ever asked yourself in earnest, “so who tf is Gandalf really and why does […]
Bloody Mary by Nick Winn
Silver Sprocket publishers had a sale. I looked up titles, found a few I wanted, and signed up for their monthly subscription for books. One of the books that came out of that mish-mash was called Bloody Mary by Nick Winn. It is a smidgen longer than a usual Zine, but it is more zine than what I consider a full-on graphic novel. The first issue I had with it was that there are several moments where I felt like I started in the middle […]
Dom Casmurro by Machado De Assis
According to the blurb on the back of this Penguin paperback, de Assis was Brazil’s greatest novelist. (To give you an idea of the timeline here, this was one of his last novels, and was written in 1899.) Never heard of the guy. To be fair, though, most of my background in Latin American authors was triggered by my high school Spanish classes, which would exclude this author. The world of Portuguese language literature is far smaller than that of Spanish language literature. Anyway! Dom […]
The Broker by John Grisham
It’s my first Grisham! Yay! I read this because the majority of the action takes place in Bologna, Italy, a city with which I am enamored. Joel Backman, aka “The Broker”, is a convicted felon. During the last hours of a disastrous presidency, the head of the CIA convinces the Arthur Morgan, the outgoing president, to issue a last-minute pardon for Joel Backman. Backman has been rotting in solitary confinement for six years, with fourteen years remaining on his sentence. The president gives in and […]
