Wants to read The Memory Police
book
Rated Fang Fiction 8/10
Charming, cleverly executed, very satisfying.
Rated Flash Forward: An Illustrated Guide to Possible (and Not So Possible) Tomorrows 8/10
cleverly executed and thought-provoking.
Rated A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History 10/10
An important book; an excellent and scathing look at the fable version of US civil rights history and a reality check about the real version - a story of radical vision, long-ranging organizing, incomplete victories, brutal nationwide opposition, youth mobilization, true disruption, and, critically, hope. An extension of Theoharis’ terrific Rosa Parks biography. If I had one critique it’s that it can be a little rhetorically repetitive, but the point is so vital that it’s worth restating: the civil rights movement is not an inevitable and complete victory by a few noble heroes, it’s an unfinished mass movement. Would love to see an update someday that adds a chapter on the George Floyd protests and the “anti-woke” racist backlash.
Rated Interior Chinatown 8/10
A really fascinating book - ostensibly about an aspiring actor named Willis Wu and his Taiwanese immigrant parents, it blurs the line between the roles they perform on tv and the roles they perform in life as it explores, in semi-screenplay form, the roles Asian people have been put into in American popular culture and American life. The “interior” refers to the screenplay-style setup of the story but also the interiority of Willis’ perspective. A quick read and a rewarding one.
Finished reading Sing, Unburied, Sing
Rated Blacktop Wasteland 8/10
A classic One Last Job crime thriller about a getaway driver-turned-mechanic. Zippy, mean, compelling, cinematic, and extremely readable.
Rated Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade 10/10
Edited 44d ago
Rated The Interestings 8/10
the third book I’ve read this year in the “intense friends formed in childhood between sensitive creative people, played out over decades” genre, and a solid example - well done shifts in perspective, decisions and their impacts seen from different angles, conflicts planted early and revealing themselves over time. A very quick read.
Rated The City We Became 8/10
Inventive and energetic.
Wants to read Stranger in a Strange Land
Wants to read Manhunt
Wants to read A Reason to See You Again
Rated The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears 8/10
A brief and touching book about a lonely Ethiopian immigrant living in DC. An interesting snapshot of history, both of the Ethiopian political upheaval of the 1970s and 80s and the gentrification of DC in the late 90s.
Rated The Island of Missing Trees 8/10
A very sweet, lyrical and sad story about an expatriate family from Cyprus living in London and the past that brought them there.
Rated The Great Believers 10/10
Really beautiful - I found myself getting very emotional as it was ending, and there’s so much rich, lived-in detail throughout.
Added Reclaiming the Black Body to Want to Read