What it is: Blues People by Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) details the history of blues, jazz, and other African-derived musical genres. He describes how culture and music affect each other, and the history of race relations in the United States via the interaction between African-influenced and European-influenced music. What I liked about it: Baraka does an excellent job of…
What it is: I Am No One You Know by Joyce Carol Oates is a collection of nineteen short stories surrounding the lives of women and girls encountering a whole range of human experiences from love to grief to danger. She reveals new understanding of humanity through mystery and intrigue. What I liked about it: If you’ve never…
What it is: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is a graphic memoir that examines Bechdel’s childhood, especially her relationship with her father and her discovery and exploration of her sexuality. Almost everything in the graphic memoir, from people in Bechdel’s life to to the literature she reads, seems to parallel elements of her personality, making…
What it is: The Cleft by Doris Lessing is a novel about a Roman man who tells the story about the beginning of humanity, which consists of only women. They live communally and conceive babies through moonlight. Suddenly a baby boy is born, and eventually their society changes to establish, embrace, and struggle with gender roles. The…
What it is: Cry No More by Linda Howard is a mystery/romance novel centered on Milla Edge, a woman whose six-week-old baby was violently torn from her in a Mexican open-air market. She dedicatedly spends the next ten years trying to find her son, Justin, which is both dangerous and difficult due to the smugglers’ conniving tricks…
What it is: The Talk-Funny Girl by Roland Merullo is a novel about Marjorie, a 17-year-old girl living in rural New Hampshire, and the challenges she faces growing up in a more or less abusive home where her parents keep her isolated and even use their own strange dialect of English. After getting a job as…
What it is: Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh is an inside look at gang life in the Chicago housing projects, particularly the activity of the Black Kings at the Robert Taylor Homes during the early 1990s. Venkatesh spent years in and around the complex, collecting data and anecdotes for his graduate work in sociology. He…
What it is: The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell is a behind-the-scenes account the astonishingly awful cult classic The Room. It tells everything a fan of the movie would want to know, from anecdotes from filming to how it ultimately rose to fame. Much of the novel is devoted to debunking the myths behind the…
New year, new reading list. This year, after reading a post at Cynk’s blog, I’m taking on the Read Harder Challenge. I’ve committed to completing 24 book-related challenges. Gamification of personal goals is a huge motivator for me, and even though I didn’t meet my Goodreads goal of 30 books in 2014, I’m setting that same goal…
Victim to Charm 