Harris’ Tome Corner
Well, it’s 2020, so here goes another attempt at a weekly book related blog to ramble on about what I’m reading and how I feel it all connects and engages my understanding of the zeitgeist. I’m thinking about calling it Harris’ Tome Corner, an obscure reference to a comedy podcast that I didn’t even listen to myself (thanks Lindsay!).
So, it turns out I really love books. Reading them, in particular. I even became a librarian because I loved them so much. That probably goes without saying. There’s a lot more to librarianship than books of course.
After some years of cataloging, over the last five years I have been assisting patrons with questions on the reference desk of various branches of a minor American public library system. It is definitely the most challenging and fulfilling work that I have had, providing resources of all types to the public, facilitating many important services and, helping them track down the books that they’re seeking. Or, when there’s just too many holds on a popular new title, coming up with recommendations for something along the same lines to hold them over until the bestseller’s arrival.
Working in libraries keeps my to read list robust and unmanageable. I am currently sitting on the maximum number of books I can check out from my own workplace (not to mention more titles I’ve borrowed from a neighboring system). I find it fascinating how books — fiction, non-fiction, prose, poetry, comics — all of these pieces of human knowledge and imagination connect and interact with each other in the mind of the reader.
During this year, I’m hoping to make some progress on my reading lists, in particular the books that my spouse and I have gathered over the years. As a way to polish up my writing skills and build my readers’ advisory, my goal is to write and post a blog entry a week (usually on Wednesdays). It helps to have some structure for writing, I think, I haven’t really finished much of anything since completing my graduate thesis ten years ago. Yikes!
For my first entry, I’m just going to do the thing everyone’s been doing and list out my favorites of 2019 list. Some I will be discussing in more depth in future posts.
Fiction
A People’s Future of the United States —
This was a particularly effective and topical anthology, I felt. The diverse group of authors showcased in the collection really capture in their stories the anxieties and hopes for the future of the United States during this uncertain period. Drawing from Howard Zinn’s quintessential history text, the tales collected in A People’s Future of the United States explore what the coming years of centuries could have for the marginalized voices of our country. The collection included authors I’d read before, such as Omar El Akkad and Lesley Nneka Arimah who each wrote stories that recalled what I enjoyed about their work, but I also enjoyed encountering writers I’d never heard of before, like Malka Older and A. Merc Rustad, inspiring me to check out more of their stuff.
The New Me was a very affecting novel l that I find myself thinking about even as the months have passed since I finished it. Bleakly humorous (or humorously bleak?), there is something that fascinates me about Halle Butler’s writing here, something that really captures the alternating ludicrous and horrific mood of the current period of history in the United States. Perhaps part of this is an effect of listening to The New Me as an audiobook, narrated by Butler herself in a way that felt very evocative of the character and her world, but in any case, it really resonated with me. The novel brought back vivid feelings for me from an equally depressing time of my life right around that very same age, hitting me in a really visceral way.
Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell —
This collection of distinctive and intricate stories continued to impress me with the depth of Karen Russell’s imagination and the care with which she crafts her writing, managing to fit such a wealth of characterization and world building into each piece. It seems that with each of her collections her voice becomes even stronger, and this was my favorite of her works so far. I was enchanted from the first story and as we proceed from mountain ghosts to tornado ranching, an all too plausible post-apocalyptic world to the devil haunting new mothers in gentrified Portland neighborhoods, each offer an entirely different experience tied together by perfectly evoked human emotion.
Comics
BTTM Feeders by Ezra Clayton Daniels and Ben Passmore —
BTTM FDRS is an intriguing graphic novel that tackles the horrors of gentrification in an amusingly literal way. Colorful and gooey, Ben Passmore’s wonderfully shaded art complement’s Eza Clayton Daniels incisive writing as we delve into the Bottomyards, one of Chicago’s rapidly gentrifying low-income neighborhoods. Not backing away from discussing such difficult subjects as race, gender, and colonialism in addition to weird monsters, Passmore and Daniels’ work is as thought provoking as it is fun.
Leaving Richards’ Valley by Michael DeForge —
Over 2019, I binged on the idiosyncratic, weird, and innovative works of Michael DeForge, very impressed with how versatile his artistic talents are while maintaining a consistent style. I feel he may be among the most unique cartoonists working today, and Leaving Richards’ Valley was my favorite of his comics I’ve read so far.
Non-Fiction
Under Purple Skies: The Minneapolis Anthology —
Under Purple Skies, an entry in Belt Publishing’s series of non-fiction anthologies showcasing various Midwestern cities, is a solid, diverse collection of essays and poems that capture life in Minneapolis and Saint Paul and what makes them different from any other metropolitan area. The authors included, from prominent local writers like Kao Khalia Yang to visitors like Jonathan Raban, explore many aspects of the people and history of the Twin Cities, and their place in Minnesota, the region, the US, and the world, both the good and the bad.
Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan M. Metzl —
Over 2019, I spent quite a bit of time delving into accounts of the role racism continues to have in shaping the awful state of the United States, and much of the rest of the western world today. Dying of Whiteness is a fascinating, disturbing look into how white people would sooner die themselves rather than agree to support health policies that would help people of color as well.
Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini —
It is a disturbing sign of the times that Angela Saini’s Superior: The Return of Race Science is such a topical and darkly fascinating read. Saini sketches out a readable and informative history of how scientific racism has evolved throughout the decades, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and how it continues to inform the social theories of the right wing today.
As a history graduate student a few years ago, one of the most fascinating and eye opening classes I took was on the Reconstruction Period. While knowing comparatively little of the Civil War or its aftermath before, the class impressed upon me the importance of the time on the history of the country, one that continues to resonate throughout the country today. Children of Lincoln: White Paternalism and the Limits of Black Opportunity in Minnesota, 1869–1876 offers unique and sobering insights to the subject and I think this would have been an invaluable resource for my research during the class.