5 Stars. Sometimes it feels that everyone has strong opinions about Israel and the Middle East. Given the current war, I found myself forming my own strong opinions even though I knew practically nothing about the modern history of Israel and its relations with the Palestinians and surrounding […]
4 Stars. I’ve always liked Ari Shapiro on NPR so I was excited to read his memoir when I saw it. I was listening to a very long audiobook at the time so I decided to read The Best Strangers in the World in print, but I would hazard to guess that the audio is even better. I truly enjoyed reading […]
5 Stars. I just need to say that this book was fantastic. It’s hefty, coming in at 518 pages, but there’s even more to to chew over and unpack than meets the eye. It’s written in three parts (because of course a book about wishes would be written in three parts) and each takes a slightly different approach […]
4 Stars. Rex Ogle’s mother and stepfather physically and emotionally abused him when he was a child. In his second memoir, Punching Bag, he describes unimaginable incidents that are a terrible reality for far too many children. An alcoholic stepfather who continues the cycle of abuse that he experienced as a child himself […]
4 Stars. I find this review hard to write for some reason but I just found my notes so I’m going to basically just list my bullet point thoughts. The description of the beating death of Vincent Chin gave me nightmares. It felt too graphic (And as I write this I’m hip deep in my annual monthlong horror fest, so I’m not exactly a […]
4 Stars. I’m ashamed to admit that my knowledge of Rosa Parks was limited to her refusal to move to the back of a segregated bus in the Jim Crow south. To quote Julian Bond in this book, I more or less bought the narrative that “Rosa sat down, Martin stood up, then the white folks saw the light and saved the day.” Yes, that’s an […]
4 Stars. Reading Our Time is Now in the wake of the 2020 election felt a bit like a victory dance. Anyone who isn’t outraged by voter suppression doesn’t have a good concept of what “government by the people” means. As a white woman, I’ve never experienced anything like what Ms. Abrams details in these pages. This review keeps […]
4 Stars. I miss Obama in the White House, I really do. Reading his thoughts and decision-making processes, his deliberations, his efforts to reflect many voices from many backgrounds in his policies–I just miss that stability and thoughtfulness. That said, I’ll start with my one complaint. At 703 pages (751 with the index), the […]
4 Stars. In this information age, we find ourselves bombarded with facts or “facts,” as the case may be. A fringe group believing a kooky conspiracy theory may seem fairly harmless but when large swathes of the population believe anything they read that reinforces their own beliefs, we have a huge problem. Consider these sobering statistics […]
Hmmm…. Where to start? I mostly found this book fascinating and the inaccurate history we are taught infuriating but I also had problems with the tone. I’ll start with the positives…. Loewen’s main complaint is that our American history textbooks invariably teach from the point of view of White males of European descent. The […]
Any short story collection is going to be a bit uneven but I truly enjoyed the vast majority of these. I would like to read novels based on some of these characters and I will be seeking out longer works by some of these authors. I appreciated that the writers are a culturally-diverse group and their characters reflect that. […]