I love Parks and Recreation, and I think Leslie Knope is a heroine for the ages–fierce, funny, sweet, occasionally wrongheaded, but mostly blazing with the desire to make the world, or at least the small, quirky town of Pawnee, a fairer, healthier, and more beautiful and fun place. The woman behind Leslie’s defiant curls, bright eyes and mercurial expressions, Amy Poehler, is more flawed, more mixed-up–but, judging by Yes Please, also someone you’d want to go for a hike with, followed by dancing at the […]
Ground Control to Major Tom
I got this from my sister for Christmas last year. The only profession I can recall really wanting (as much as little kid wants anything) was astronaut. Of course I didn’t actually do the things one would need to do, like join the military, to do that (and my vision would have disqualified me before anything else did). But I still talk about going to space someday. This book is different from Mary Roach’s “Packing for Mars” in a good way: it’s told from the […]
Memoir of the Warm Heart of Africa
This is the eighth of my 10 African books this year, and the first by a Malawian author–I couldn’t well leave Malawi off the list since moving here was what inspired me to read more African books in the first place! Samson Kambalu was born in in 1975 into a Christian family of eight, and spent most of his childhood moving among remote villages in Malawi. Kambalu tells his story in chronological anecdotes, mostly, including early memories of being plagued by parasites, poverty, malaria, jiggers and other hazards of a […]
The horror of losing yourself
I’ve seen Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness (2013) by Susannah Cahalan around in bookstores and it caught my interest. So I finally picked it up. This was a fast read and a fascinating true story of a 24-year-old woman who loses her mind, without warning and without explanation. Susannah Cahalan is a reporter at the New York Post when her life starts slowly unraveling. It starts with a little paranoia, acting odd, and missing deadlines. Susannah’s symptoms quickly progress to where she is […]
We Are Who We Are
You might be familiar with Janet Mock. She has been a writer for People magazine (which I unapologetically read every week), and more recently has shared her story of being a trans woman of color in a feature for Marie Claire magazine. I first learned about her where I learn about many things that aren’t necessarily covered on CNN or in the New York Times: on Twitter. I’d see her comments retweeted by other people I follow, and learned about her book when it came […]
Loving this memoir means loving the most difficult parts of one’s self
(This post originally appeared on Persephone Magazine.) When one reads a book published by Future Tense, one should expect to feel willingly uncomfortable with the author’s honesty. No matter the specific subject matter, there will be at least one moment, a feeling, a crash into clarity that makes one realize: I’ve been here too. Reading Wendy C. Ortiz’s excellent memoir, Excavation, is an experience no different. Starting with her eighth grade English class, Ortiz recounts the five-year-long relationship she had with her teacher, a man […]
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