I actually wrapped up three books in the month of May, which is much more than I’ve read in the past year or so. The first was A Psalm for the Wild Built. A friend said this book was “like reading warm soup,” and for the most part she is right. I read this book for a book club and it was good for that purpose. The main critique seems to be that there are a lot of “big” topics brought up, but they are never really resolved. I get that critique, and also the counterpoint that that is how life is. This book was also my first introduction to “solar punk.” I don’t know, I enjoyed reading this book and could find a lot to say about it, especially the eco-sustainability infrastructure elements, but for now I am just going to let the warm soup comment stand.
Secondly, I finally finished Baho! which was my reading around the world book for Burundi. This book is the first Burundian novel to be translated into English, so, that’s pretty cool. Like most post colonial lit, there was some graphic violence, in this case related to the Burundian civil war in the 90s and 2000s. Unlike some post colonial lit though, which seems to often end ambiguity (valid though tbh), this one ended with a key character making a choice for mercy and the overall message was uplifting.
Finally, I returned to a Sarah Dessen novel: The Rest of the Story. I really enjoyed this one and it’s good to be back to reading Sarah Dessen. Like Emma Saylor, I’ve often found that stories that happened before my life do affect my life. Pretty generic statement, but, well, it’s true and a thing you tend to discover when you’re coming of age.
Getting started on From Third World to First for Singapore and still working through Tales of the South Pacific. I’m also working through a bio on Jack Welch which I’m a little disappointed in. The tone is more “Reddit thread” than biography, but I’ll finish it all the same.
Rough post light on analysis, but glad to be back at reading and writing with some dependability :).
Reading with Ally 