We all need a little inspiration from time to time, and this is one conversation I return to whenever I need a spiritual tune-up. I hope it helps you as much as it’s helped me.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
My first introduction to Nadia Bolz-Weber was through her book Shameless: A Sexual Reformation. Now, because I was raised in the church, I am almost immediately skeptical of books or lectures or even tweets by people who claim to be speaking for [as representatives of] [in the place of] God. I was subjected to a lot of harmful and hateful ideology at an age where I was too young and too innocent to reject it.
I was subjected to a lot of harmful and hateful ideology at an age where I was too young and too innocent to reject it.
I still consider myself to be a person of faith, but I don’t go to church. I don’t attend services virtually. I do not have a spiritual community of like-minded people. I cannot hold space for the holiness of God’s love and the hatred of dogmatic theological teachings under the same roof. The dissonance is too strong. The wound is still too fresh. Every note rings hollow in a place where you are told about love and never shown it.
I cannot hold space for the holiness of God’s love and the hatred of dogmatic theological teachings under the same roof. The dissonance is too strong. The wound is still too fresh.
So in walks Nadia Bolz-Weber. Looking at her, she is the reason we have the identifier “biker chick”. She is tattooed and foul-mouthed and feminist and angry. She’s also a Lutheran minister and was the founding pastor of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. She’s equally as likely to pray for you as she is to tell you to fuck off if she hears you spouting biblical untruths.
Needless to say, I had a feeling I could trust her. She would not fill my head with bullshit about what God supposedly thinks about me. I might finally hear the Truth. I was more than ready for it.
She would not fill my head with bullshit about what God supposedly thinks about me. I might finally hear the Truth.
I read Shameless in (nearly) a single sitting. Reading it helped me to vomit up so much of the filth I was forced to swallow about my body, my gender, and my sexuality. Inside, you’ll find a new sexual ethic based on individual care and attention (biblically-backed). Some readers will thrill and others will cower at what they find between the pages of Shameless, though if I’m being honest, I doubt that Nadia cares one whit what her detractors have to say.
Be warned before you begin: this book is not for the faint of heart or those who are overly-attached to dogma. It has to be approached with an open heart, mind, soul, and notebook (you will be writing things down, so keep a pen handy).
Note: As I started writing, I intended for this to be only one post long. However, being as there are several quotes from the book I’d like to share and explore, I decided to break it into two.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Dear Readers, I intended for Moving Memoirs to be possibly a ten post series, highlighting my all-time favorites in the genre.
Once I started my list, however, I realized that it’s going to be a much bigger project. I am still adding titles as I remember them (and comb through my Goodreads) and I’m currently at 34 individual titles.
That said, I really hoped you all liked the first installment where I talked about Wildbecause there’s going to be a lot more where that came from.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Every poem in this firebrand of a collection is worthy of its own celebration; taken together, they are a paean to the body and its wonders, an elegy for time lost and time regained in a lover’s arms. The Undressing will do just what it promises: undress you and remake you in your own image —purer, lighter, and free.
Favorite Quotes
It’s really difficult to pull favorite quotes from a collection this breathtaking, but nonetheless I’ve done so. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
“There are stories we tell ourselves, she says. There are stories we tell others. Then there’s the sum of our hours death will render legible.”
“The initiating word embarks, fixed between sighted wings, and said, says, saying, none are the bird, each just moments of the flying.”
“Bodies have circled bodies from the beginning, she says, but the voices of lovers are Creation’s most recent flowers, mere buds of fire nodding on their stalks.”
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
“There’s no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What destroys what. What causes what to flourish or die or take another course.”
— Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed
Wild is without a doubt my favorite memoir. I love its grittiness, its recklessness. I love that it doesn’t give simple explanations for complex truths.
Sometimes people die. Sometimes our marriages end in divorce. Sometimes it’s our fault. Sometimes the road not taken is the road that would lead you home. Sometimes home is the open road. Sometimes home is nowhere. Sometimes it’s a place deep inside you: dark and irrevocable and mysterious.
Sometimes home is the open road. Sometimes home is nowhere. Sometimes it’s a place deep inside you: dark and irrevocable and mysterious.
Cheryl Strayed writes unapologetically about the worst (and arguably the best) time in her life. After losing her mother less than a month after her lung cancer diagnosis, she becomes unmoored. Her mother was her anchor. Her marriage ends and her life as it exists doesn’t give her the space she needs to grieve.
Having no clear path forward, she forges one herself. This may sound corny, but sometimes you have to have a clean break to let the light in. She decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, alone. 1,100 miles from the Mojave Desert to the Bridge of the Gods into Washington State. She had never hiked before. We can probably alter the idiom “Go big or go home in Cheryl’s case to “Go big to go home,” home being the place where you can finally breathe free.
This may sound corny, but sometimes you have to have a clean break to let the light in.
Wild was Oprah’s first pick for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 and spent 52 weeks on the NPR Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller List. In 2014, through her production company Pacific Standard, Reese Witherspoon produced the film adaptation of Wild with Jean-Marc Vallée as the director and Nick Horby, the novelist, as the screenwriter. Her mother was played by Academy Award-winning actress Laura Dern. Both Witherspoon and Dern received Oscar nominations for their roles in the film.
Since Cheryl Strayed is one of the most quotable writers on the planet, I feel like it’s only appropriate to end with a (longer) quote of hers that’s imprinted itself indelibly on my soul.
“What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I’d done something I shouldn’t have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I’d done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn’t do anything differently than I had done? What if I’d actually wanted to fuck every one of those men? What if heroin taught me something? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn’t have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?”
— Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed
God, those last two sentences just speak to me: What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was? Our culture has such an unhealthy obsession with redemption narratives, redemption arcs. Like we’re all a bunch of derelicts needing to be scolded into submission. Submission is just a word that means you’ve relinquished your power to someone else. And no one else can guard your power like you can. Own it.
Submission is just a word that means you’ve relinquished your power to someone else. And no one else can guard your power like you can. Own it.
I’m such a liar, saying I was going to end on that quote. Oh well. This is my blog and I’ll do what I like. Wild is available to purchase wherever books are sold.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Why I Love Him: Although he’s deceased by the start of the first book, Mr. Everdeen (who was never given a first name by author Suzanne Collins) is an incredibly strong presence throughout the entire series.
He is the father of Katniss and Primrose Everdeen. A coal miner from the Seam, Mr. Everdeen was killed in a mining accident that left Katniss as the head of the household. Following his death, Mrs. Everdeen was rendered catatonic by grief and an impenetrable sadness.
To keep her family from starving, Katniss uses skills she gleaned from her father to hunt and gather in the woods, and signs up for tesserae (grain ration) to supplement what she can’t acquire from the woods.
Throughout the series, we learn that most of Katniss’s philosophies on life, not to mention her affinity with a bow and arrow, were acquired from her father. Her fierce devotion to her sister Prim, her protective nature, and her courage are also qualities she got from him. So, it is not too far of a stretch to say that Katniss’s original decision to volunteer as tribute in Prim’s place at the Reaping was a direct result of the ethos given to her by her father.
The love of a father was instrumental in taking down a despotic Capitol.
May the odds be ever in your favor, Mr. Everdeen.
Russell Hornsby as Maverick “Big Mav” Carter in the 2018 film adaptation of The Hate U Give
Why I Love Him: Maverick “Big Mav” Carter is the definition of fatherly devotion. His children include Starr (the main character and protagonist of THUG), Seven, and Sekani.
Maverick has experienced more trauma than any one person should have to endure. Despite that, as patriarch of the Carter family and a leader in the Garden Heights community, he is able to transcend that trauma and create a beautiful legacy for his family. He makes sacrifices so his children have more opportunities for advancement than he himself was given. He teaches them about their cultural heritage, about Black history, and how to survive in a world that makes harmful assignations against them because of their skin color.
“When the Khalils get arrested for selling drugs, they either spend most of their life in prison, another billion-dollar industry, or they have a hard time getting a real job and probably start selling drugs again. That’s the hate they’re giving us, baby, a system designed against us. That’s Thug Life.
— Maverick “Big Mav” Carter, The Hate U Give
The above quote is from a conversation Maverick has with his daughter, Starr, in chapter ten of the book. In it, he quickly summarizes for Starr the reason why so many Black communities are kept disenfranchised: a prison industrial complex that disproportionately incarcerates Black people and incentivizes a system that perpetuates white supremacy at the expense of Black people and their communities.
For more on the prison industrial complex, check out this lecture by Dr. Angela Y. Davis, a longtime activist, author, academic, and revolutionary.
#3: Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark
Sean Bean as Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark in HBO’s Game of Thrones, the television series based on George R.R. Martin’s high fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire
“When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.”
— Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark, Hand of the King, Warden of the North, and Lord of Winterfell, A Game of Thrones
Ah, poor Ned. Poor headless Ned. A virtuous man if ever one lived. Gritty yet gracious. Stern yet solid. Courageous yet kind. Husband of Lady Catelyn Stark and father to Robb, Jon, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Rickon. Loyal to the core. Willing to get his hands dirty but unwilling to engage in dirty Westerosi politics. His idealism and his sense of fidelity are what lead him to travel south with King Robert in the first place, and are both inextricably tied up in his downfall.
Why I Love Him: Ned Stark lives by a code of honor going back hundreds of years. This code is based on familial piety, stewardship, and justice. Our way is the old way. The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. He passes this code onto his children, whom he guides with a firmness grounded in love.
It’s pitiable that his best character traits are the very reason he is unable to overcome the machinations of Queen Cersei (The Original Evil Wine Mom) and her spoiled brat of a tyrant, Joffrey. I guess one could say that it is better to die with dignity than live with regret. Rest In Peace, Ned. We’ll never forget you.
#4: Don Vito Corleone (referred to as Godfather by everyone)
Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone in the 1972 film adaptation of The Godfather
Why I Love Him: Sure, ol’ Vito is a ruthless killer. Sure, he emotionally damages all of his children in different yet equally debilitating ways. Sure, he mumbles a lot and is very demanding. None of these facts make me love him any less.
Vito is the personification of the American Dream. He was an orphan, a penniless immigrant who came to America’s shores with nothing. And he created an empire. Despite his penchant for killing his enemies in business, he is very loving toward his family and his colleagues who don’t cross him.
“I don’t trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them.”
Why I Love Him: First of all, hats off to Horton. We stan a king in this house. Horton the Elephant is probably the finest example of a devoted single father in all of literature. He’s tricked into keeping an egg warm while the mother, a derelict bird named Mayzie, decides she wants her freedom and absconds to Palm Beach, ostensibly for the remainder of her life.
“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent!”
— Horton the Elephant, Horton Hatches the Egg
When the going gets tough, a lot of folks get going. Not Horton. Even though he was a victim of deception, he takes up his mantle as surrogate father with pride and panache.
“Even though he was a victim of deception, he [Horton] takes up his mantle as surrogate father with pride and panache.”
When the egg hatches to reveal a creature with features of both an elephant and a bird, we the readers see that nurture beats nature every time, even when it comes to breaking the laws of biology and genetics.
Who are your favorite fictional fathers? Let me know!
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
There is nothing like a good memoir. Whether it’s a trashy tell-all from a Real Housewife of Wherever or a story of someone who beat seemingly insurmountable odds to come through victorious on the other side, there’s just something really powerful about someone telling their own story.
That said, I’m starting a new series of posts here on The Voracious Bibliophile called Moving Memoirs. I’ve already got a list started of some of my favorites so you can expect the first installment soon. Have a great weekend.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
“Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street.” — Red
Yes, I know this is supposed to be a blog about books. But it’s also about whatever I want to talk about. And if we’re getting technical, our Reverend Mother Taylor Alison Swift has contributed at least as much (if not more) to American song craft as Bob Dylan, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016 by the Swedish Academy. I rest my case.
I am LIVING for this era of Taylor Swift. In 2020, she brought us not one but two full-length studio albums (folklore and evermore). With folklore, Taylor made history, becoming the first woman in the history of the Grammy Awards to take home THREE Album of the Year Awards, for Fearless, 1989, and now folklore. (Note: I’m not linking to the original versions of Fearless and 1989 because Taylor has asked her fans not to support the versions of her music released under the Big Machine Label Group. For more about how to make those pesky older versions disappear, please check out this awesome article in Variety.
“This path is reckless.” — Treacherous
And yesterday, Taylor announced that the next album she’ll be releasing will be a re-recording of 2012’s iconic Red, which brought us masterpieces like “Red”, “All Too Well”, and “I Knew You Were Trouble” (which in hindsight sounds like the strongest hint about the upcoming 1989-era on the entire record). The large and fiercely devoted community of Swifties is blowing up social media with theories, speculations, and forensic analyses about Taylor’s Easter eggs, which if you follow the trails, led to Red (Taylor’s Version) the WHOLE TIME!
The large and fiercely devoted community of Swifties is blowing up social media with theories, speculations, and forensic analyses about Taylor’s Easter eggs, which if you follow the trails, led to Red (Taylor’s Version) the WHOLE TIME!
“And the saddest fear comes creeping in. That you never loved me or her, or anyone, or anything…” — I Knew You Were Trouble
The fact that she made the announcement on Scooter Braun’s birthday makes the whole thing glimmer with the iridescence of her haters’ tears, imbuing the whole affair with a sense of righteous indignation and utter pettiness that I aspire to. Drag him, Taylor! November 19th cannot get here fast enough.
The fact that she made the announcement on Scooter Braun’s birthday makes the whole thing glimmer with the iridescence of her haters’ tears, imbuing the whole affair with a sense of righteous indignation and utter pettiness that I aspire to.
“Loving him was red.” — Red
What are you most excited to hear in Red (Taylor’s Version)? Personally, I am dying to hear the re-recorded version of “All Too Well”, but the fact that the album will feature all 30 of the originally-intended tracks is almost too much for my heart to stand.
In the meantime, I would not be a bit surprised if Taylor drops another album with all-new material in the interim before Red (Taylor’s Version) releases in November. She’s set a whole new standard when it comes to providing one’s fans with fresh material. It’s getting to the point where I’m going to have to make “New Taylor Swift Music and Merchandise” a line item in my monthly budget. Oh well. She can take my money. She already has my heart.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
On Wednesday, I got the first shot of my COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer, of course. I’m not going to lie, with as much hysteria, confusion, and proliferation of false information surrounding the vaccine, I was a little nervous about getting it.
I believe the science. I have always believed the science. But I also know it is impossible to live in a world with so many unknowns and be certain about anything.
I thought about it a lot before I made my decision. My final impetus was my dad going to get his first shot on Tuesday. So on Wednesday, I called and made my appointment, and they had an opening for 5:30 that day.
When I got to Walgreens, I had to pee really bad. Their bathrooms were out of order and I didn’t want to miss my appointment, so I held it. There’s something about having to hold yourself that makes anxiety worse. I can’t really explain it, but anyone with generalized anxiety disorder like myself can affirm the truth of that statement.
Then my brain went into overdrive. I actually thought to myself, What if holding urine in my bladder can actually make the vaccine ineffective or cause some weird side effect? Is this something I can ask Google or WebMD about?
Luckily, my phone gets terrible service so I was unable to use the Internet to perpetuate my growing paranoia. So what do I do to pass the time? Judge other people, of course. If the pandemic has given us one thing, it has helped to shed all guilt involved in basking in one’s own self-righteousness.
I love judging other people. And if you want to judge me for that, tell your minister or your higher power or a stranger at the grocery store, because while I am myself self-righteous, I do not condone other people being self-righteous about my self-righteousness. Does that make sense?
I love judging other people.
Back to Walgreens. As I’m waiting to get shot (poor choice of words?), I look around at all the other people in Walgreens and allow myself to loathe the ones I see who are unmasked. Now, I know the CDC has said that people who are fully vaccinated don’t have to wear masks anymore. However, no one is monitoring this. You just have to take people at their word when they say they’ve been vaccinated and want to breathe near (or even on) you. And I don’t know if you know this or not, but people are liars. They lie.
“I’m fully vaccinated.” – A Liar
After what felt like an eternity of condemning my fellow community members for their selfishness, I was finally called back for my shot. The gentleman who penetrated…umm…vaccinated me was very nice and assured me that I would not in fact die. He was wearing a mask but he had kind eyes, and at least half of all human evil can be detected through eyes, so I felt momentarily reassured.
When the Moment of Truth finally came, I braced myself for an Experience. Now, I wasn’t sure if it would be akin to taking a nightmarish ride down a river of chocolate with Gene Wilder and some snakes, or more like when Dorothy realized she always had the power to go back to Kansas and became nearly catatonic with joy and irritation that Glinda the Good Witch didn’t bother telling her that before she was nearly murdered.
Now, I wasn’t sure if it would be akin to taking a nightmarish ride down a river of chocolate with Gene Wilder and some snakes, or more like when Dorothy realized she always had the power to go back to Kansas and became nearly catatonic with joy and irritation that Glinda the Good Witch didn’t bother telling her that before she was nearly murdered.
Friends and readers, it was painless. While I had expected Excalibur or Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, in truth I barely even felt it. In fact, when it was over I was unsure if anything had happened at all. And now I’m looking forward to my second shot.
Long story short: go get vaccinated!
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
I come from the broad birds and the day demons, the ash from a childhood burn, tin cans of dried pens, newspaper, seashells, a phoenix fixed in a souvenir bottle. Every bit saved as if discard were memory itself.
Cheryl Strayed says that quotes are like “mini instruction manuals for the soul”. I love that. It’s always rang true for me. If I’m feeling morose, despondent, angry, or even hopeless, coming across the right quote at the right time can make all the difference.
I keep a series of Google documents filled with quotes from not only the books I read, but the films I watch, articles I read in newspapers and magazines, and even profound things I hear people I know in real life say when I’m with them.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
The Voracious Bibliophile 