50 Book Challenge

50 Book Challenge

This year, I decided I’d do the 50 Book Challenge. This is a wake up call for those who think they read a lot until they physically keep track of it and realize they’re not-so-impressive. I thought I read books left and right, but damn do I feel inferior now. After deciding to do this, I checked and realized I’d only read eight books to date. Pathetic. This challenge probably won’t end well…

Here’s a list of the books I’ve read this year in the unattainable hopes of succeeding at the challenge.

1. How to Win at Feminism by Reductress

A book made entirely out of sarcasm is a book I’ll enjoy. Basically, the website Reductress has written a book that makes fun of the weak form of feminism that seems to be prevailing in certain areas. I’m talking about the kind that gets abused by companies to sell products, or by celebrities to gain popularity. I think I’ve heard it referred to as “bubblegum feminism”. Reductress tears this perversion of an important movement into pieces, letting everyone know that actions speak louder than words.

2. Scandalous Women by Elizabeth Mahon

I’ve already reviewed this book, but in summary it is definitely a delightful read. Though it focuses too much on white society women who were only scandalous when judged against their lovers, Mahon includes a lot of stories about some very interesting women. Worth a read, but perhaps more to spark your own research into the topic.

3. Hausfrau by Jill Essbaum

Hausfrau is reminiscent of Anna Karenina, but just different enough to warrant a reading all its own. Set in present-day Switzerland, the protagonist feels completely isolated as an American expatriate living in a country where she knows nobody but her husband and doesn’t understand the language. She has multiple affairs while her husband works at a Swiss bank, leaving her empty and desperate for something to bring excitement and wonder to her life. Meaning. Being inside her head is a thought-provoking experience. She is a complex, multi-faceted character who feels the anxiety and boredom of her life intensely. Essbaum manages to do what many writers have tried and failed to do, in my opinion: keep the reader engaged while describing listlessness and frustration with daily life.

4. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Originally, I borrowed The Poisonwood Bible from the library by this author. It’s her best-known book and was already on my To- Read list, but I was going back to school before I could even pick it up. A friend, however, let me borrow The Bean Trees and I tore through it during my week before classes. It was a great savior from mind-numbing boredom and talking to myself. Its ideas about family and responsibility are lovely. Taylor is at a diner in the middle of escaping her dead-end town when a Native American woman places a baby in her front seat and leaves. From that moment on, Taylor is a mother to the kid, going through all the struggles of having a child without any documentation. Published in 1989, the events have, I think, only managed to become more relevant.

5. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

To sum up quickly (I wrote a review of this some weeks ago), Pachinko is a generational story about a Korean family displaced in Japan. They go through poverty, discrimination, and intense loss and somehow manage to hold themselves together. This book was just superb, and I’d highly suggest reading it. I just don’t know what more I can say about this great addition to literature at this point without sounding like a broken record.

6. Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Kaur originally found fame on Tumblr, but she is definitely talented. Her debut book of poetry has four parts, each chronicling the stages of a doomed relationship. If you’re going through a breakup or have been recovering from one, as I was when I read this, Milk and Honey feels like someone finally understands the pain of heartbreak and puts it into the words you’ve been desperately trying to find. It’s simplistic and meaningful without being emotionally manipulative, with illustrations that hit you right in the heart.

7/8. Beloved and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

These were books I’d heard so much about and was desperate to read for quite some time. She’s a prolific author, and stories like Beloved and The Bluest Eye refuse to shy away from incredibly difficult topics. These books make you uncomfortable while giving a rarely acknowledged perspective on slavery and racism in America. Morrison is another writer with a simplistic, honest style that makes the reader feel every word. These were a privilege to read, and I’ll be reading more of Morrison in the future.

Book Review: Pachinko

Book cover art

Pachinko is a game of chance. Rigged each morning so that only certain machines will win, the public comes en masse to try to win big. Very few win it all.

It’s an apt metaphor for the family Min Jin Lee has created with her beautifully-crafted book, Pachinko. The story of a Korean family who moves to Japan, it primarily follows Sunja as she navigates being a poor Korean, a single mother, and an even poorer Korean expatriate. The book switches narration often between characters, but Sunja serves almost as a touchstone for the reader. She is a young Korean girl who becomes pregnant by a man who is already married. When a missionary proposes to her in exchange for saving his life, she moves to Japan with him to work in a church. Unfortunately, Japan is not the most welcoming place to those it has colonized. Sunja and her husband face endless bigotry as they try to make a living, as do Sunja’s two sons and, eventually, their sons.

This is a novel about female strength. Not in an overt way, but like its female characters, it quietly pushes and successfully shares its ideas. Sunja’s mother has a motto: “a woman’s lot is to suffer”. Continually, the women in Pachinko are the ones holding everything together and keeping the family in its varying forms afloat. When her brother-in-law forbids it, Sunja and his wife create and run a successful business that keeps the family from starving. When the family must seek shelter during World War II, the women work for their keep on a farm safe from the bombs, ensuring the continuation of their bloodline.

Continuously, these women work for the bare minimum, but do so for the benefit of their entire family. They are truly the backbone of what is outwardly a matriarchy, providing when the men fail to do so and quietly being the reason the men end up succeeding. They do all of this in a country that, quite honestly, hates them. Sunja’s sons deal with bullying and discrimination at school, leading to an exploration of identity. Noa, for example, spends most of his childhood wishing he was Japanese and feeling conflicted about his Korean ancestry.

Pachkino tells the story of one family, but it is a portrayal of a part of history that is not shared with the West. Many Korean families that were told that Japan would bring them prosperity only to be severely disappointed. Min Jin Lee has made a fantastic, moving, and important book.

Update: For the past year, Pachinko has been my go-to whenever someone has asked for a book recommendation. I’ve yet to hear someone say they’ve been anything but thrilled with it.

Author Min Jin Lee

Book Subscription Boxes: Book of the Month

Can I just say, I’ve rarely seen such a gorgeous book? I got my first book subscription box book, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, and it’s glorious. The front cover has these lovely green and blue pastels with reds and oranges in the center illustration. That’s a high quality hardback, right there. And it has BOTM printed on the front cover in a very subtle, classy symbol. The same is on the spine, and on the back is printed “I Heart BOTM” with “February 2017” in smaller letters bellow it. It just feels crisp and new.

Once you take off the dust cover, you have a hardback with the Book of the Month colors, and, again, BOTM printed in the bottom right corner. Honestly, it looks so nice. “February 2017” is reprinted, as well. Basically, this book is everything you love about hardbacks with some special nuances thrown in for nostalgia sake. I’m definitely keeping this book, and it’ll always be fun to look at it and remember where it came from. It’s almost like a bit of my own history.

Book of the Month is a really simple service. Through a link of an affiliate, I was able to get my first book for just $5.00. You may remember me saying this already, but I’m honestly just so excited to have received such a beautiful copy of a book for so little.

A significant difference between Book of the Month and other subscription boxes is that it’s just the book. Honestly, I’m very relieved not to get the little doo-dads and trinkets that come with a lot of other boxes, mostly because I’m simply not interested in them. They’ll sit on my desk and gather dust until I throw them out. Book of the Month just sends the book and a personalized bookmark with a message from one of the selectors. I know what I’m about, and all I want are books.

Image from: http://modernmrsdarcy.com/book-month-club-review/

I’m pretty sure part of the reason they can send such beautiful books for such a low price is specifically because they don’t mess around with nick knacks. I fully appreciate this. I’m a pretty simple person with simple tastes, and Book of the Month really reflected that. I paid for lovely book, got it, and am 100 pages into reading a quality work of literature.

The selectors are definitely dependable–Pachinko is a wonderful book. The storytelling is great, and there’s an excellent balance between dialogue and description—not an easy task for a writer. The family aspect of the book is key, and though the characters aren’t incredibly complex, they are refreshingly good.

I enjoyed this book box with all my nerdy, bibliophilic heart!

 

Books I’ll Be Reading Again

As I talk to other people who love books and get more involved in the book community, I notice that there are a lot of books that I’ve read and failed to appreciate. You know the feeling, when you read a book six years ago and you’re pretty sure there’s a reason everyone loved it, but you failed to catch the hype. Maybe you were too young (I often was) or maybe you were just distracted. Regardless, I want to give these books another chance to influence me.

It is entirely possible that some, if not all, of these are simply not for me. That’s fine, but they have stuck out in my head as books that I, personally, didn’t put enough effort into enjoying and deserve another go.

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre is one of those novels that is internet-popular for how important and meaningful its quotes are. And yet, somehow, when I read it in eighth grade, it failed to make an impression on me. I know for a fact that I read it cover to cover, but I also know that I took long pauses in between, saw reading the book as a chore, and generally was in a terrible mood for all of that year. This might have influenced my opinion on the book, and I want to give it another try in different circumstances.

2. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

This is a book I know I enjoyed at the time, but have zero memory of the plot (besides that famous ending). I read it back in high school for class, so it was a segmented reading process. We’d read fifty pages for class, have a discussion, and then read fifty more. It can be hard to maintain enthusiasm like that, especially for a book written by the man who invented the cliff hanger.

3. The Princess Bride by William Goldman

I absolutely love this movie, but read the book in sixth grade and have no memory of what happened. Judging from the movie, there was a lot of subtle humor that I missed or wasn’t able to appreciate at the time. It is an immensely beloved book by so many, and as someone who strongly believes in reading the book first, I’m pretty angry that the movie has stuck with me far more than the book.

Book Review: Scandalous Women

While at Heathrow Airport in London, waiting to board my flight back to the States after several fantastic months travelling and studying in Europe, I found myself in the worst situation known to any reader.

I had nothing to read.

Thankfully, there was a shop with books only a few feet away, my plane was delayed, and I had a few British pounds I needed to spend before returning to the land of the dollar. Into the shop I went.

Amongst all the bestsellers and YouTuber books was a section about history. As I’d just spent three months going to historical sites, I was drawn to this section in particular. On the shelf was a book that caught my eye: Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History’s Most Notorious Women. Bingo.

Elizabeth Kerri Mahon’s short, historical book is very enjoyable. Firstly, it’s about some pretty badass women, which I will always enjoy in any capacity. Joan of Ark, Cleopatra, Calamity Jane, and Ida B. Wells are only a small selection of the historical figures covered.

Second, it tells the truth about these ladies. Cleopatra gets the reveal she deserves. After centuries of old men turning her into a sex symbol, she gets the credit she is due as a statesman and leader of her country. The woman was willing to do anything to keep Egypt independent, and she was able to succeed for quite a significant period of time. And then she was erased from history by men who were threatened by her. Ask anyone who Cleopatra is, and they’ll reply that she was the lover of Mark Antony. Ask them about her skills as a leader, and you’ll often come up with nothing.

Can you tell I’m now a big fan of Cleopatra?

Finally, the book is short. The stories are nicely condensed, which is good considering the stories start to really blend together by the end.

The ratio of white women to women of color in the book is a little staggering. The section that features the most women of color, “Amorous Artists”, takes quite a while to reach. Even the section called “Warrior Queens” has only Cleopatra listed, when in fact there are countless queens around the world whose stories could have been referenced.

The issue with this lack of diversity is not only that there are people whose stories are missing, but also that the stories we get begin to sound similar. Most of the women were born into poverty, found love and fortune, then lost it and ended up alone and desolate. There are only so many stories I can hear about the same situation in one single book. Asian and African women are completely missing. I attribute that to a lack of intense research, as a quick Google search will pull up plenty of scandalous, pioneering women who stand out from both of those continents. I feel like the book missed an opportunity to talk about women who aren’t quite as well-known in the West, but notorious in other geographic regions. I would be insanely interested in reading something like that (suggestions).

Scandalous Women is an interesting work. It covers so many periods and countries (in the West, mostly). The book is great on many accounts, but I did begin to feel the stories were repeating themselves. Beyond the stories themselves, the writing style wasn’t that sophisticated (I’m a firm believer that slang doesn’t belong in anything written in third person, especially in a historical book).

Still, I would definitely read another book by Elizabeth Mahon. She takes an interesting look at history that historians are only now bringing to light. These are women that actually had immense power and influence, but have often been pushed aside for the male figures, or to extol their sex appeal. Mahn provides a refreshing change.