“We cannot go abroad as Americans in the 21st century and not realize that the main thing that has been terrorizing us … is our own ignorance — our blindness and subsequent discovery of all the people on whom the empire-that-was-not-an-empire had been constructed without our attention or concern.” This book is well-planned and well-paced although it covers both the histories of America’s interventions in other countries ranging back 80+ years, and the author’s personal journey of awareness. It is deeply heartfelt without being egocentric. […]
Crazy, Rich, Crazy Rich
The Fug Girls made me read this. The photos of the premiers of Crazy Rich Asians were all just so glam. I obviously had to see the movie. I mean: But I can’t see the movie if I haven’t read the book. So I obviously had to read the book. By now you probably know the main plot: woman (Rachel) goes to Singapore to meet boyfriend’s (Nick) family. Turns out he’s rich like whoa. She is blindsided by the money, the lifestyle, and the […]
“There is the same unforgettable alchemy to being dislikeable as to being universally loved.”
I found myself in a really spectacular bookstore last spring, and all I wanted to do was buy ALL THE BOOKS, and then maybe take all the books to a nearby cafe and read them and drink coffee and watch people until it was too dark to read, and then do that every day. I could not, sadly, do all of those things, so I consoled myself by buying only two books, and then reading them in the waiting room in the hospital, which was […]
Staging a space mutiny, one day at a time.
For some reason, my 2018 books have not been page-turners, and I am not sure why. I’ve picked up a lot of books that are enjoyable but not dying-to-see-what-happens good. This was one of the few exceptions, recommended to me by my avid sci-fi reader husband. The best way to go about this book is to just dive in with no expectations. It is…a bit confusing. There are whole sentences that I couldn’t really parse, but got the gist of, enough to keep reading and […]
I’m not crying, you’re crying.
This was the first book I read this year way back in January, and I had just had my daughter (she turns one this week!) and it really just gave me a lot of feelings, and I didn’t know how to write them all in a book review, so I put it off to “let it settle” and whoooooops now it’s December! Hi guys! This is a feelings book. It is grim, but it is also optimistic and lovely and hopeful. Kalanthi was 36 and […]
This book is a delight.
I picked this up because it was on everyone’s to-read lists. I thought it was probably about Cold War spies, maybe something along the lines of John le Carré. This is not a book about Cold War spies. This is the story of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who has been sentenced to house arrest in the Hotel Metropole, where he is in fact already a resident, for writing a poem. (It could have been worse–it could have been a bullet to the head.) Rostov is […]
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