Tag: blogging

Quote for the Day: July 31st, 2021

Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America by Laila Lalami

If they cling to a mode of dress, a language, or habit that seems too conspicuous to the majority, they might be told that they are not assimilating, or not assimilating enough. They live their lives in the particular but find it reflected back to them in the generic whether in the speeches of ambitious politicians or in the plot lines of Hollywood movies.

Laila Lalami

Why Would You Ask Me That?

I’ve spent the past eight years working in some capacity as a Professional Book Person, and one question I always hate getting asked is: What is your favorite book? My eyes are rolling just thinking about it. I always want to respond by saying something along the lines of: Really, Gretchen, why did you decide to wake up this morning and choose violence? It’s a really invasive question to just throw in someone’s face.

After all, there are infinite reasons why one person loves a book while another person hates it. It’s subjective. It’s about taste. It’s about someone’s cultural background and how it’s shaped their life experiences. It’s about their class status, money, and power. It’s about the way(s) in which people conceptualize God, their spirituality, and the After. It’s about the intersection of identities that determines the amount of social capital a person wields. It’s about race, language, and citizenship status. It’s the difference between who is considered an immigrant and who’s considered an expatriate. It’s about (dis)ability and access to basic social services. It’s about where everyone fits in the big soupy melting pot of humanity. Plus, there’s the whole issue surrounding which works get canonized and which works fall (are pushed) into obscurity, and how the reason for that most often corresponds to the ways the author’s identity(ies) are either marginalized or elevated.

I said all that as a preface to my own (subjective) list, which is always changing, because *I* am always changing. Without further ado, here it is:

  • The Hunger Games (trilogy) by Suzanne Collins
  • The Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante
  • The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  • The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
  • Boy Erased: A Memoir by Garrard Conley
  • Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
  • Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker
  • Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  • The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  • Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
  • Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
  • When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
  • The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
  • Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
  • Truth & Beauty: [A Friendship] by Ann Patchett
  • Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar
  • Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems by Danez Smith
  • Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
  • All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
  • Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change by Maggie Smith

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.

All Aboard the ARC: Anthony and the Gargoyle by Jo Ellen Bogart and Maja Kastelic

***Note: I received a free digital review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. Anthony and the Gargoyle tells the story of Anthony, a little boy who lives with his parents in a house full of photographs. These pictures tell the story of his life and his parents’ lives before him. In the background of some of them, you can see Parisian landmarks beside the smiling happy couple.

In one of the photographs, Anthony can be seen holding a pet rock. One day, this rock breaks open and from it springs a gargoyle that teaches Anthony an important lesson: sometimes loving something means being willing to let it go. He also learns along the way that love doesn’t end at separation—it can break any boundary and traverse any distance.

Perfect for fans of Aaron Becker’s Journey trilogy and Molly Idle’s Flora and Her Feathered Friends series, Anthony and the Gargoyle is sure to delight readers of all ages. It is due to be released on October 5th, 2021, and is now available to preorder 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.

All Aboard the ARC: Garlic and the Vampire by Bree Paulsen

***Note: I received a free digital review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***

Garlic and the Vampire is in my opinion one of the best graphic novels written for younger readers to come out in the past decade. It tells the story of Garlic, who lives in a community of anthropomorphic vegetables created and cared for by Witch Agnes, a benevolent sorceress who teaches her vegetables the value of hard work and giving back to one’s community.

When we first meet Garlic, she is shy, passive, and timid. When a vampire is discovered to be living in the castle near their community, Garlic is decided to be the only one who can safely determine whether or not he is a threat to the humans who live in the village. She reluctantly decides to go despite her fears, knowing it’s the right thing to do.

Along the way she becomes braver, learning to rely on her own inner strength. When she finally confronts the count she learns that just because someone is different doesn’t always mean they’re to be feared, and that the best way to find out about someone else is to talk to them.

Garlic and the Vampire is due to be released on September 28th of this year and is now available to preorder 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.

All Aboard the ARC: Machete: Poems by Tomás Q. Morín

***Note: I received a free digital review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***

I’m going to be honest with you. When I first started reading Morín’s forthcoming collection Machete, I didn’t think I was going to like it—and then it snuck up on me. Pretty soon, I couldn’t stop drinking in words, even when they were sharper than a mouth full of knives. Machete is one of those collections poised to become era-defining, and I think if we somehow make it past climate change and the threat of nuclear proliferation we’ll remember it as one of the essential works of the pandemic. With its tonal shifts, manic ebullience, and hyper focus on finding the sublime in the quotidian, it is the perfect read for a world that has been forced to stand still even while it’s on fire. I can’t wait to put it in people’s hands.

Machete: Poems is due to be released on October 12th of this year and is now available to preorder 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.