The thing I like about being part of two separate book clubs is that you get to read a variety of books that you’d never even heard or consider reading before. The thing I don’t like about belonging to two book clubs is that I spend a chunk of time reading books that I end up having no interest in or disliking. Ultimately, though, it’s not too annoying, because it’s good for me to read books I don’t choose. I’ll be interested in hearing what […]
A heartbreaking work of beautiful writing
Have you ever read a book right after it was published and realized that this book was meant to be read right now, right at this time, and that it speaks powerfully about what is unfolding around the world? I don’t think it’s an accident that Mohsin Hamid is writing about refugees fleeing their native country which has crumbled, or that he speaks to the family ties that we forge and break from this kind of global uncertainty. I was surprised by this short novel, […]
A novel, if predictable science-fiction adventure
For one of my teaching gigs, I’m at an Islamic college in my nearest big city, and it’s been a rewarding and enlightening experience already. My boss has asked if I wanted someday to teach a Muslim-American literature course, and I obviously said yes, I would. That day, when I got home, I did a ton of Googling and Goodreads digging. I’m fairly widely read, but I wanted to see what scholars and publishers counted as Muslim-American, so that I could be fair in my […]
It’s already happening here…so why am I reading about it?
After A chose 1984 for Book Club in March, F decided to continue our dystopian theme by picking Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here, which has gained national prominence and attention in the last year. I’ve heard that it was an accurate depiction of what is currently happening here in the United States, and I was curious about reading a book that seemed to line up so closely to current events, especially since this tome was written in the 1930s. In the age of Trump, […]
A master class in feminism for everyone.
If you’ve never read We Should All Be Feminists, stop reading this review, pick up that book, and come back when you’re ready. This is your master class in feminism, and the first book will build the steps that will help you really enact livable feminism in your life. Back? Awesome! Now you’re ready to carry on the work and take it another step further. Adichie, who’s become a voice of contemporary feminism, was asked to write suggestions on how to raise a feminist daughter. […]
Cannonballing with a book that was formative and remains shockingly relevant
It feels deeply appropriate to Cannonball with a book that I read for the first time four years ago, a book that set off my dissertation in motion and is now in process of becoming my (hopefully) next published article. Cheers! I first read this book in Spring of 2013 and was horrified/piqued by the content. I was so piqued that I wrote my first dissertation chapter on it. I’ve spent the last year and a half trying to get an article published, and the […]
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