Geography of the Heart

Geography of the Heart by Fenton Johnson
1997
Weight: 13 oz
Method of Disposal: Gave to a friend

I picked this one up at a used bookstore recently on a whim, and I am so glad I did.  It was a very moving and meaningful book about a young couple, one who was HIV positive and one that was negative, during a time when we were still lacking the information we now have now on the virus.  The author gave us what felt like a very honest and intimate look into his and his partner's lives together and, honestly, taught me something about love and mortality.  I would absolutely recommend it if you have not read it.

What Happened

What Happened by Hillary Clinton
2017
Weight: 3.4 lbs
Method of Disposal: Gave to a Friend

This book was a hard one.  It was painful to relive the 2016 election and everything that led up to it and after it, but that is what reading this book asks you to do ultimately.  I wish I had read it when I first got it instead of waiting.  Reading it just reminded me constantly of how much better the world might be today if more people voted, if Russia had not got involved, if the electoral college did not over rule the popular vote, if Comey had not ambushed Clinton, if there had not been a massive anti-Hillary campaign spanning back to the 1990's.  This woman has been drug through the mud, the shit, the vomit.  She's been wrung out and hung out, and yet she never stops fighting.  All that fight and all that experience could have led us in a very different direction that the course we are on now.  Please, God, let us make it to the next presidential election.  Don't let it be too late and please oh please don't let it be rigged.  I cannot cry or worry anymore, and I know I am not the only one. It must be impossibly hard to go from thinking you will be the first woman president of the United States to watching a sexually assaulting, exploitative, sociopath move into the White House instead.  I cannot imagine a dream dying that hard.  I am just so relieved she is doing what she does best--fighting through the shit and holding herself up as an example to all women.