Wants to read The Fortress of Solitude
book
Wants to read I Am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman
Rated Life on Mars: Poems 10/10
How do I even begin to tell you how wonderful <i>Life on Mars</i> is? Tracy K. Smith's poetry fills me with peace and such fullness, even when she writes about how inhuman we can be. Her poems are almost meditative — I really enjoyed slowing down and focusing on her words, their rhythm, and the overall picture of the poem before me. Part space opera, part elegy, part wartime commentary, <i>Life on Mars</i> exceedingly deserves the Pulitzer it received, won on Smith's birthday, no less.<br><br>(My full review appears at <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2012/08/life-on-mars-by-tracy-k-smith.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Finished reading The Dragonfly Gambit
Rated Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire 9/10
<div>Since the publication of this book in 2022, contributor Refaat Alareer was killed by an Israeli airstrike in December 2023. He wrote the poem you may have seen, "If I Must Die." <br><br>Contributor Mosab Aubu Toha was arrested in November 2023 while trying to cross into Egypt with his family. He was released three days later after international pressure.<br><br>Contributor Israa Jamal was still trying to leave Gaza with her family as of May 10, 2024, when yet another Israeli strike in Rafa required them to evacuate to a different area. I am unsure if they made it.<br><br>Other writers from this collection are still alive and writing about Gaza, but I couldn't find current information for all of them. I hope they are safe.<br><br>If you would like to know more about Gaza, to read Palestinian voices discussing the struggles and hopes they have for their homeland, this book is worth the read. (As of right now, Haymarket Books has the ebook version for free on their site.) It's a mix of academic writing, personal essay, poetry, and photographs that cover a wide range of subjects while still making it clear that the occupation needs to end. I admit to glazing over a bit in the AI chapter, and sometimes the academic portions were not exactly clicking with me, but that's a Me problem. Overall, very glad to have read this, and I learned a lot.<br><br>Ceasefire now. Free Palestine.</div>
Wants to read Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry
Wants to read Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel
Finished reading The Oleander Sword
Finished reading Let the Mountains Be My Grave
Rated Look! Look! Feathers 6/10
Mike Young’s short stories live in the bizarre corners of our world, just past the surface of what we see in passing, but recognizable all the same. Suburban jocks idolize their washed-up, half-insane coach. Residents of shitty apartments and motel kitchenettes drink, fight and talk about all the great plans they have. Everyone is lonely in their own special way, and everyone likes to think that their voice is unlike anyone else’s. Problem is, several stories in, sometimes those voices bleed together. <br><br>And maybe that’s the point — we’re all so different in all the same ways.<br><br>It’s not that I flat out don’t like his style — no, sometimes fragmented thinking suits the story just fine — but the style sometimes came at the expense of clarity. At times, all those details smooshed into one and I had trouble discerning who said what, and where. Again, this could be because of the time frame in which I read the book. All I’m saying is, I didn’t fall in love.<br><br>But fair play to Mike Young for being different, for carrying that indie-kid literary bag. His characters don’t sit around and yammer about the intellectual merits of their problems, and they don’t whine. Their problems simply are. Here is the situation now, here is how they deal. Occasionally they may recognize that they’ve made some poor choices, but man, there’s still a glimmer of something new around the corner.<br><br>(Full review can be found at <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2010/10/look-look-feathers-by-mike-young.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Wants to read Choupette: The Private Life of a High-Flying Fashion Cat
Abandoned Rivers of London
Edited 43d ago