“Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi

Homegoing was the best book I read this year. I’ve procrastinated on writing about it because I felt intimidated by all the emotions I felt and thoughts I thought while reading the novel. I want to share them all, but I don’t know how to express them. I wish I could just utter a sound, a single cry, that encompasses all I want to convey about how I felt while I read Homegoing. I think that would be the best way to communicate how the book made me feel.

“And in my village we have a saying about separated sisters. They are like a woman and her reflection, doomed to stay on opposite sides of the pond.”

Weekend Reads #35: An Existential Crisis

Weekend Reads is a weekly discussion on a variety of topics. At the end of the post, I’ll include what I plan to read on the weekend.

This weekend’s question:

What’s on my mind? The blueprint for life.

Really, this Weekend Reads meme is supposed to be on bookish topics but, as you see, I talk about a bunch of random shit on here, especially since I often don’t know what to talk about. Today, I’m going with what’s been on my mind since I woke up this morning:

Life.

Weekend Reads #34: Where Are You?

Weekend Reads is a weekly discussion on a variety of topics. At the end of the post, I’ll include what I plan to read on the weekend.

This weekend’s question:

Where are you, Zezee?

I’m in a cocoon. I’m wrapped up so tight, I can barely move, but I am warm and I am dry. I am in front a window that looks out on the winter wonderland that is my neighborhood that overnight has metamorphosed into one of those charming neighborhoods I only see in Christmas movies. The houses are all covered in snow and bits of it have stuck to the window panes so they seem to be frosted over. There is no distinction between street and lawn and driveway and all the long, sharp limbs of the stark trees are fuzzy with wads of cottony whiteness.

“She” by H. Rider Haggard

I don’t like her looking at me.

I so enjoyed Michael Dirda’s review of this in his book Classics for Pleasure that I thought I would love the story. I didn’t.

Quick summary:

From the back cover of the book:

On his twenty-fifth birthday, Leo Vincey opens the silver casket that his father has left to him. It contains a letter recounting the legend of a white sorceress who rules an African tribe and of his father’s quest to find this remote race.

To find out for himself if the story is true, Leo and his companions set sail for Zanzibar. There, he is brought face to face with Ayesha, She-who-must-be-obeyed: dictator, femme fatale, tyrant and beauty. She has been waiting for centuries for the true descendant of Kallikrates, her murdered lover, to arrive, and arrive he does — in an unexpected form.

Blending breathtaking adventure with a brooding sense of mystery and menace, She is a story of romance, exploration discovery and heroism that has lost none of its power to enthrall.

Book Haul #17: A mini for the New Year

It’s a mini bookhaul! Yeahie! If it wasn’t for a coupon I peeped on Barnes & Noble’s website, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. So, what have I got here?

Some champagne from work. Woohoo!!

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

The Iliad by Homer

The Odyssey by Homer

And that’s it! 🙂