Review—Difficult Women by Roxane Gay

It’s no secret that I admire Roxane Gay for her ability to write (An Untamed State broke me, and Bad Feminist was at turns funny, raw, and made me be so reflective it hurt to think). Her new collection of short stories out today, Difficult Women, shares the story of women—women too strong for life, who keep secrets, who give too much of themselves or choose to keep enough of themselves sacred and untouchable. It tells the story of women as we are—not how other people wish we would be.

Teachers, Authors, People

Today, some crazy sh*t happened on Twitter. Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You, tweeted a request that teachers not “assign students to email an author and ask questions” because “It’s not fair to us or them.” Much inappropriateness ensued, with “outraged” people tweeting things like, “Oh good, another author to not bother reading” and other such nonsense about “duty,” discouraging kids, and her being selfish for not responding.

Moral “Simplicity” and the Complexity of Reading

Most of the time, I read interviews with authors and don’t write anything in response. However, when I read the interview Susan Lerner did with Jonathan Franzen, his take on the “hard lives” of people and their reading habits set me off. So, here we go:

Review—Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

I’m not the biggest fan of nonfiction, partly because it’s what I have to teach in my classes. Also because, a lot of the time, I find nonfiction depressing.

But I loved Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. I felt, as I was reading the essays, that I was in Roxane Gay’s brain, and that she was talking to me like she would a friend, and sometimes schooling me like she would a student in terrible need of a reality check.

My Year In Books—The Measure of 2014

It’s no secret I love books. I love reading them. I love looking at them before I’ve read them, wondering about their secrets. I love looking at them after I’ve read them, because I know they are a physical representation of a story that I’ve lived in some way, and that now lives within me.

A Month of No New Books—I Made It!

Well, here we are. The final day. Today, I am wearing the costume of a book-lover with exceptional restraint, because tomorrow, I am allowed to buy more books. But will I? I already have too many and not enough time in which to read them!

A Month of No New Books—Day Three

So, I decided October would be my month of buying no new books. In part I decided this because I need to budget for Christmas presents, and also because, well, I have too many books to read already. So far, not buying new books has sucked (is there some rush we get from buying books? Or is that just me?), and it’s only the third day of the month. However, I thought it would be fun to start a blog “series” about all the books I want to buy but have to wait for.

The Top Ten Book “Thing”

I received numerous tags on Facebook for this “list ten books that have stayed with me in some way” thing that’s going around, and I finally gave in and made a list, which I posted on my personal Facebook page and am reproducing here.