october
october ‘22
people from my neighborhood x hiromi kawkami
Genre: Fiction/Short Stories
Length: 📖121
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I needed a cleanser. This month was filled with heavy reads. Great reads, but serious and thought provoking. I needed to enjoy something light-hearted and whimsical to cap the month off.
This surrealist fiction in incredibly short form fit the bill, giving insight to a neighborhood full of an interesting ensemble of residents. There is a dog called Blackie and a man called Baldie.
There is a woman running a small bar named Love, she reappears in the story of a man driving three ghosts around in his cab.
There is a hell for people who are mean to chickens featuring a menacing Giant Chicken.
There are children who bury - literally - diaries, clothes with bad memories, broken glass, love letters, the works.
There is an illness, Pigeonitis, causing the infected to get bulging round eyes, squawk like a pigeon, protruding chests, and a pigeon like gait.
There is a young girl who turns a fake 10,000 yen into a fake 50 million yen
There is a natural disaster where gravity zeros out in the neighborhood, similar to an earthquake or blizzard.
stamped from the beginning x ibram x. kendi
Genre: Non-Fiction
Length: 📖592/🎧19
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I said earlier this month that Kleptopia was one of the more challenging and dense books I had read in some time. Stamped from the Beginning takes the cake.
It is the most researched and thorough book on racism I have ever read, analyzing the influence of racism, racist ideas, and racist policies in the United States starting in the 1300’s and ending in the early 2010’s. In this large range of time, Ibram X. Kendi combines chronological storytelling and 5 key figures (Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. DuBois and Angela Davis) to successfully organize and deliver his analysis of government, films, books, music, and influential people through racism and anti-racist movements and ideas. One thing the book does particularly well is speak from intersectionality throughout all conversations.
The timeline begins with the transition of ‘Slavs’ to ‘slaves’, slavery in Britain and America, the Salem witch trials, the effort to force freed slaves out of America, the failure of reconstruction, the abuse of Black women to create the practice of gynecology, and ending with Obama’s election, Dylan Roof, and Trayvon Martin. The depth of the topics is covered in a straightforward and direct tone, taking no short cuts and saving no emotions.
There is really so much to share, so much covered in this book. I feel my usual recap and commentary won’t do justice, instead I highly encourage you to get your hands on a copy, and learn from it over as much time as you need.
my brilliant friend x elena ferrante
Genre: Fiction
Length: 📖331
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
This coming of age story follows the intense friendship of two Italian girls, Elena and Lila, through their childhood into adolescence. Together, their relationship goes through the tumult of puberty, competitiveness, academics, dreams, and boys.
Both girls are smart (brilliant, even 😉), but Elena is allowed to continue her education, and Lila is unable to. Still they stick together as passionate learners, pushing each other in their separate studies. The novel lists an impressive compilation of books, reminiscent of Gilmore Girls; Three Men in a Boat, War and Peace, The Betrothed, Don Quixote, and Little Women, just to name a few.
Set in Naples, Mount Vesuvius in all it’s grandiose, fills the background scenery. It is a vista for windows of houses, walks around the neighborhood, and drives in a Fiat 1100. Vesuvius also comes off as a symbol for the girls’ relationship, bubbling tension below a surface destined for eruption.
My Brilliant Friend is the first in a series of four books, but I am not sure if I will end up reading the others. I have a long and growing list of books to get through (397!) so although I liked it, I don’t know if it is a priority compared to others.
bluebeard’s egg x margaret atwood
Genre: Short Stories
Length: 📖339
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I found this this book after seeing a passage from it on Pinterest. I read it, read it again, pinned it, and added it to my e-reader shelf.
“There are some stories which my mother does not tell when there are men present: never at dinner, never at parties. She tells them to women only, usually in the kitchen, when they or we are helping with the dishes or shelling peas, or taking the tops and tails off the string beans, or husking corn. She tells them in a lowered voice, without moving her hands around in the air, and they contain no sound effects. These are stories of romantic betrayals, unwanted pregnancies, illnesses of various horrible kinds, marital infidelities, mental breakdowns, tragic suicides, unpleasant lingering deaths. They are not rich in detail or embroidered with incident: they are stark and factual. The women, their own hands moving among the dirty dishes or the husks of vegetables, nod solemnly.”
Almost all of the stories in Bluebeard’s Egg are from the perspective of a female, revealing her inner thoughts and reflections. Most are about the woman’s opinion of the men around her, fathers, husbands, brothers, and the likes. It’s a deeply feminist text (the author being Margaret Atwood, it should come as no surprise), full of the kind of writing of interesting, engaging female characters that really only can be done by a woman.
There is a certain softness or tenderness to them; children singing “Mockingbird Hill,” a young girl reading Wuthering Heights. But Atwood also demonstrates their strength, one woman walks along a rare seasonal underwater ridge to an island and another woman’s parents are preparing to pass away. The men often seem aloof, lack understanding, or are generally inattentive to the depth of the women.
One story reminded me of Ernest Hemingway’s short story, Hills Like White Elephants, which alludes to a couple being pregnant without ever outright saying it. In Atwood’s Spring Song of the Frogs, there are allusions to a woman having an eating disorder with an unassuming male partner, but it is never said outright either. Her writing is true literature, wrapped in layers of meaning and primed for an AP course.
kelptopia x tom burgis
Genre: Non-Fiction
Length: 📖339
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Is this book a new genre? Financial Thriller? Non-Fiction Global Crime Drama? Men Playing Games With Real Money?
Before starting to read Kleptopia, I was under the impression it was going to be a collection of various independent situations of dirty business and politics. In the end, the format was very different that I expected, but enjoyed the read it was!
This is one of the more challenging and dense books I have read lately. There is a revolving door of characters, interconnected stories, and acronyms galore to remember. It’s a lot to keep track of, though it does help that the structure is in chronological order (begins with the 2008 financial crisis and ending in 2020), with occasional flashbacks within a chapter. At times it read like a bit, as outlandish or absurd as Stefon describing a night club during SNL’s Weekend Update.
Tom Burgis introduces the idea of kelptocratic governments; there can be Kleptocracy Dictatorships and there can be Kleptocracy Democracies. Kleptocracies emphasize the privatization of power, a truly global trend heightened by, you guessed it, globalization. Post-Covid, Burgis sees a new five families; the Nats (saviors of besieged nations), the Brits (fading imperial power), the Sprooks (spooks and crooks, “the true globalists”), the Petros (oil countries), and the Party (China)
I was pleasantly surprised to read, brief as it was, a mention of the campaign from formerly colonized nations to get back the historic goods and riches that were looted from them by the west and now populate looter’s museums. It is the dark origin of modern day wealth theft for power. The timing of reading this book was uncanny as John Oliver had covered this very topic in a Last Week Tonight episode the first week of October.
Kleptopia was published in 2020, reading it now at the end of 2022, Burgis’ writing at times feels like a warning sign or premonition of where we are two years later.
“It was December 9, 2016. Americans had elected Trump, Brits had chosen Brexit, Russia had stolen a chunk of eastern Europe and no one had done much about it.”
No one did do much about it. So now America is divided and in distress, Britain remains unstable, and Russia invaded Ukraine.
the world is on fire but we’re still buying shoes x alec leach
Genre: Non-Fiction
Length: 📖137
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Alec Leach, a former Highsnobiety editor and menswear satorialist, wrote this sustainability non-fiction/manifesto centered on the idea that “If shopping is the problem, then sustainability isn’t the answer.”
I’d like to note that for a sustainability manifesto, it was incredibly well organized. The first part covers the emotional and psychological reasons why we shop the way we do. It covers the issues of our societal behavior and relationship with shopping, before moving into part two, which introduces how we can do better as consumers. The book, an independently published work, is very well designed with great use of highlighted quotes, graphics, and charts.
At times, I imagine this book would leave a reader who doesn’t follow the fashion industry feeling like an outsider. Doused with hyper-specific name drops and references, it could come off as if its trying hard to be cool. It is important to consider that itself is the point of streetwear, which is Leach’s industry background.
He breaks down the illusion of the “Made in _” label on clothing, which was refreshing to see discussed in a sustainability book. I feel it is a neglected conversation around fashion goods manufacturing; whether someone is in the industry or not, I doubt most people understand the extent of which the labels are only fractional truths.
Society has a dependent shopping relationship. It’s sad, it’s true, and we are running out of time to change course for the planet - and ourselves. Leach’s book is a great and welcomed addition to the conversation.
the girls who went away x ann fessler
Genre: Non-Fiction
Length: 📖354/🎧13
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
I have known only a few people who were adopted, and read only a handful of books from adults who were adopted as children (last month I read Lemn Sissay’s My Name is Why). But never have I heard from the viewpoint of a woman who gave her child up for adoption. This is what I love about books - the ability to introduce new narratives to old conversations, to give voice to those who are spoken about but never included in the conversation.
Focused on young unmarried mothers from post-World War II and pre-Roe v. Wade in the United States, the book is their stories of the abandonment, loneliness, and isolation of being pregnant and forced to give up their children for adoption. It takes the reader through stories and facts from the birthing centers they were sent to, the homes they were kicked out of, and reuniting with their children later in life. Early in the book Ann Fessler put’s it so brilliantly:
“how did we ever decide we could just give children away without thinking it would hurt the mothers.”
Fessler does a great job supplementing facts and information, placed between personal stories from the women themselves, to better understand the cultural environment of a time when there were not choices available for unplanned pregnancies. Over and over again I see the dangers of assuming adoption is a one-size-fits-all solution, and how centers for young mothers, as well as adoption and foster homes, fail the people they are meant to support.
The book (I listened to an audiobook) was way too long, at the halfway mark I was ready to move on. It’s a lot of sadness, and the stories get repetitive, as the point of the book is to share that many women during this time experienced similar mistreatment. I think a better format for this would have been a podcast, with an episode dedicated to each woman’s story. Ultimately, the length is why I settled on a ⭐⭐⭐ rating.
baron wenckheim’s homecoming x lászló krasznahorkai
Genre: Fiction
Length: 📖558
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
László Krasznahorkai is a master of run on sentences, defying all rules of grammar. In the first chapter, it takes 13 pages just to finish the first sentence. One cannot enter into reading Krasznahorkai’s work without knowing that they are getting themselves into a dizzying combination of words strung together through imaginative uses of punctuation. It is a feature to his work; hiding inside run on sentences are beautiful thoughts and reflections.
Interlaced in long winded passages there is real suspense, and really enticing stories. A professor of moss hiding from his daughter, a biker bar gang, a man returned home from Argentina with debt looking for his childhood sweetheart, regular existential crises, and a whole backlog of residents and refugees in a small east Hungary boarder town.
There is a fascinating pulse between the characters who meet as individuals, and the characters who are only ever represented as social groups; there was really only one true outcome all along, the kind of rich storytelling that would work well on a stage. Krasznahorkai is genuinely very funny in a distinctly dark humor that is consistent, if not mounting, throughout the book. A great example is this snippet:
“an idiotic, perfidious, selfish, indelicate man who in general never should have been permitted to speak”
