Dominican Republic

“I wonder what it would be like to be free?”

Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez

October 11, 2022 by The Chancellor Leave a Comment

Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez My rating: 3 of 5 stars It wasn’t until I was in college completing classes for my Spanish degree that I learned about the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. I was disappointed in my education up to that point, that I had never learned about this tragic time in Dominican history. Since college, I have rarely heard about Trujillo and his regime mentioned. I have taught one of Julia Alvarez’s short stories in my English classes and […]

Soldier For Fortune

Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler and the Making and Breaking of the American Empire by Jonathan M. Katz

April 26, 2022 by Jake Leave a Comment

An excellent read and an infuriating read. Worth all five stars. And like Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction and Ackerman’s Reign of Terror, you’re guaranteed to be peeved on every page. I knew the United States had a colonizing history dating back, well really to its foundation through the US-Mexican War of the 1840s, but more specifically from the end of the 19th century onwards. I knew that we captured many islands in the Caribbean and Pacific respectively, even if I didn’t know the hows-and-whys. Jonathan M. Katz does […]

For Three!

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Vera Kelly Is Not A Mystery by Rosalie Knecht

Never Easy, Never Pretty: A Fan, A Team, A Championship Season by Dean Bartoli Smith

August 17, 2021 by Jake Leave a Comment

Knocked out three books this weekend, all of which I enjoyed to varying degrees… The Book of Three A cute, charming fantasy novel. Perhaps a little too derivative of LOTR (the wolf-like character might as well have been called “Gollum”) but still entertaining and occasionally refreshing when compared to the rest of the genre. I also enjoyed a compelling female character that had autonomy without having to be everyone’s Hashtag Badass Woman (in other words: I appreciate a male writer who can write a […]

It made me want to go guava picking

September 21, 2016 by alwaysanswerb Leave a Comment

3.5 stars Reading How the García Girls Lost Their Accents made me really want to re-read The House on Mango Street. Not because I remember really liking it when I read it in school, but because I think I have a little bit more maturity to appreciate it now, and because it’s also a book composed of vignettes that represents a particular Latina immigrant experience. But I don’t remember it very well, so I am curious why one gets picked to be read in schools, […]

Emmalita on A Sheep Detective Story!This sounds delightful.
finnyfinfinn on The Blanks by Grady HendrixI try to keep that whole book locked in a closet in the back of my mind.
esmemoria on “There are so many ways to tell it, and all of them are important. But each way paints a very different picture and leads down a different road.”I just read a forensic anthropologist’s book and it was slim on details and not very reflective. This sounds like...
Classic on The Blanks by Grady HendrixI maybe lost my entire mind while reading that book. I think he was tripping on acid while writing that...
finnyfinfinn on The Blanks by Grady HendrixThere can be no forgiveness for Pupkin.

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