Book Report

 Please Don’t Sit On My Bed In Your Outside Clothes by Phoebe Robinson – The author has written a few other books, she’s funny, she’s occasionally insightful. This book was a bit uneven for me. Like she spends a loooong time talking about her decision not to have children, and maybe I’m the wrong audience for that because I’m like ‘Yeah, I get it, I made the same choice….now please don’t spend another 80 pages on this?’ But some of the other sections are better and I found myself making notes on pages where she talks about performative allyship. And laughing when she talks about her reclusive, vegan parents who never leave the house and had to be coaxed to go meet Michelle Obama. Grade: 6

 

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg – I purchased this book circa 1987, shortly after it came out, from Anderson’s Bookstore in the town I grew up. I pulled it from a bookshelf in my basement. It’s slightly yellowed with age. Before the internet, I would re-read this book often. It’s a collection of short essays, each with different advice on writing and how to be a writer. Although I probably read it a dozen times in the 80’s, it’s been oh a few decades since I’ve picked it up, so I decided to do it once more. In summary, despite some flaws, it holds up really well. Goldberg is a poet and her advice on everything from writing more colorfully to the practice and the habits that make a successful writer still all ring true. I’d say the main flaws in the book are small things: Goldberg talks a lot about herself (this gets worse in her later books, which I don’t intend to re-read) and she has been known to go on about things that various Buddhist teachers have told her over the years, some of which apply to the craft of writing more than others. Still, I’d say after 40 years this deserves to be regarded as a classic. Grade: 8

 

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong – This is a very poetic, literary novel told in the format of the protagonist’s letters to his mother. The mother, and her own mother, fled Vietnam for the US. The protagonist has never fit in, and is also a gay man. There isn’t much of a plot but it is a beautiful and sad read, especially when he describes his mother’s endless labors in nail salons, and his own doomed romance with a guy who identifies as straight. Grade: 7

 

Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir – A memoir by a woman who grew up in a very wealthy and powerful family in 1970’s Morocco. But her father led a failed coup attempt, and thus she was imprisoned by the king for more than 20 years – along with her mother, siblings (one of whom is as young as three), and two servants/friends of the family. Without a doubt, it is a captivating read especially once they get to the prison – and once they start to plan an escape. But I have to quibble with one thing. At one point, Oufkir is upset because she feels the world has forgotten her. Yet earlier in the book, she writes of the “slaves” who live in the palace, glossing over their lives and their plight. What about the world forgetting them??  (Does Morocco still have slavery? Did anyone know or care that in 1970s Morocco there were hundreds of enslaved people in the palace? Oufkir spent her first 20 years living in the lap of luxury before she was unfairly imprisoned. I mean I get it, no one is perfect, none of us fully see our own privilege. Still I have to say that contrast in this book doesn’t sit well with me). Grade: 7

 

We Do This Till We Free Us by Mariame Kuba – Do you ever read a book that pushes your thinking and challenges it? The author is an author and organizer, active in the movements for prison abolition and transformative justice. I opened the book with some trepidation, worried it would be a chronicle of one miscarriage of justice after another. And yes, without a doubt, those stories are in here, as they need to be. And yet it’s also a digestible read, full of practical ideas and philosophy and hope and new ways of looking at these issues. It falls into the “I really wish more people would read and consider this!” category. Grade: 7