This lovely selection of Dorothy Parker’s short stories is a snapshot into the mundane everyday life in the early mid 20th Century. A timely read as we all refocus on our own mundane lives and disruption to our social connections. Parker takes the small aspects of lives, ones often taken for granted and celebrates them
Author: solantratrainingasoul
Ruby, By Cynthia Bond is the OneBook at my college this year. If you aren’t familiar with the concept let me explain. OneBook is a project where communities, Universities, colleges, and even cities, select one book to be read by members that year. Readers get the benefit of knowing others are reading along, it provides
Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo “Hope has always been my opium, The thing I couldn’t wean myself off.” I found this book on a “what to read next” recommendation list. The award winning book is set in Nigeria against the backdrop of political unrest, coup and military rule. It is told from the perspective
A good story can be told many ways and this book came to me first as a movie preview in the local independent movie theater. I love independent movie theaters with their combination of cult kitsch and intellectual superiority. I love being in old architecture, just being there soaking up the gilded plaster, heavy drapery
How to do Nothing is a manifesto on living in the present. Odell grounds the book and her message in the local bio diverse area of the San Francisco Bay giving detailed description of the plant, bird life, histories, human and community evolution and watershed features of the area. She asks us to look at these details in our own locations by connecting their importance to our own sense of place and time in the world. Odell outlines and argues effectively against the attention economy that many of us already castigate, pointing out that railing against the media cycle and particularly social media is less effective than simply turning one’s attention to doing something else. For Odell that has manifested in a fascination with bird watching; for me it has been the pursuit of
‘An American Marriage’ After the excitement of finding Cynthia Bond’s Ruby, I suspended my judgmental aversion of Oprah’s book club picks and on a whim decided to give another Oprah Book Club 2.0 selections a try. I ordered the book from the public library as soon as Oprah announced it (Sometime in February I think.)
In the wee dark hours sleeplessly far from dawn, my fifteen year old self was penetrated irrevocably by Like Water for Chocolate. My parents slept upstairs as I sat wearily tiptoeing into the teenage years of my ongoing insomnia. A midnight movie had ended, and I contemplated to lazily returning upstairs when the first scenes
Summer came so soon. I have been caught in the complexities of my own life and have barely read. All spring I have been attempting to read this book but have been hindered so here is one I plan to complete. It is the One book for my college this semester. I actually voted for it from a selection of four based only on brief descriptions and have already given a copy
I don’t get to listen to much of my music anymore. My days are accompanied by the sounds of a five-year old’s obsession. Occasionally he interrupts my silent thoughts to show me something he finds amusing. Rarely, he shares with me a song, sung sheepishly along with the video it is on. When we drive,
After the heavy reading of Winter, I decided on a whim to spend the $5.97 cover price for A Wrinkle in Time. I had not previously read this book. I was reminded of an Oprah interview in which she spoke about the movie project when I saw the trailer for it. Like other Oprah selections,
Winter Reading 2023 