Different Loving

Different Loving: A Complete Exploration of the World of Sexual Dominance and Submission by Gloria G. Brame, Jon Jacobs, and William D. Brame 

1996

Weight: 1.8 lbs

I collect books.  I am not trying to hoard them and am happy to give them up and rehome them after reading.  It is rare that I will read the same book twice.  There are too many books and, as they say, too little time.  It is a real possibility that I could die before completing my current collection, and THAT keeps me up at night.  It keeps me up and reading anyway.  I am on a mission.  

I remember when it started.  I knew the name of every book and every author I had ever read.  I realized that I was collecting knowledge and that, in a way, I could know at least a little bit about everything.  My adolescent mind did not yet comprehend what it would be like to hold too much information and to not be able to access it all completely.  I did not know what it would feel like to almost know so many things but to not know enough to explain anything.  That is where I am at now, but it is a compulsion and a need at this point.  I must read.  I must surround myself with all the things I hope to know.  I always have a few hard copies nearby, a couple on my Kindle App, all my shelves full, and boxes of books waiting for shelves to become available.  But, if you ask me if I want a book of yours, the answer is always yes.  100 times yes.  The less you are like me and making a recommendation the better.

I love the smell of both, old and new books.  If you bury your face in one, the smell is strong but, before I bring them close, I cannot smell them at all.  I love the feel of a good trade paperback--malleable but strong.  I prefer matte covers to shiny ones.  The shiny ones feel cheap and remind me of self-publishing.  Self publishing can be a wonderful thing, but it is mostly just scary.  It seems like the less money the publisher puts into the book the more of a gamble it will be.  How elitist of me.

I think about the people we have lost and the books they never read.  If they had advanced warning, which ones did they scramble to read before they would never read again?  Sometimes, when you are very sick, reading is one of the only things you can do until you can't.  Will I regret all the time I have spent reading or will I regret that I did not read enough?

I make plans.  If my eyesight gets worse, there is always large print, or you can change the font size on a tablet.  If that is no longer useful, there are audio books.  Is there anything in the world that has not already been written?  It seems like there is an endless resource, an endless combination of words, and some combinations just make my brain crackle and come back to life.  I live for that something new.  I hunt for it constantly.

The Moon

The Moon by Maryam Sachs
1998
Weight: 1.4 lbs
Method of Disposal: Lending Library

No matter how badly I want to go, I will never go to space and so I dream of the moon.  I am sure that, if it was a more serious possibility, I might choose somewhere else in the solar system to travel to or maybe I would just orbit around earth and view everything I know from a distance.  It   will never happen.  I am not on track to be rich, but I am on track to be an overweight 33 year old woman who dreams. 

I guess the moon makes logical sense as a place many people dream to go when they dream of space.  We have all the imagery from NASA of the first man walking on the moon and the excitement the country felt watching him.  We have yet to put a person on Mars or any other planet and so the moon is, at least somewhat, attainable.  It will be for the wealthy soon enough anyway. 

If you can put down an $80,000 deposit and ultimately pay $9.5 million for a vacation, you may be able to be one of the first guests in the Aurora Station Space Hotel in 2022.  Your vacation will be 12 days and the hotel will orbit the Earth (not land on the moon).  That is so unattainable to me it might as well not exist. and I jealously dread seeing the guest list when it is announced.  I already feel the unfairness of it all weighing down on me (thank you gravity!).

This book includes various photos of the moon, poems about the moon, facts, thoughts throughout history, etc.  It is fun, though if there could have been an even larger budget (I assume), it would have been even better to have it be a larger book with more high definition photos.  This book has some fairly grainy small ones.  It feels like a moon smorgasbord.  Nothing flows.  It is just all there on the pages.  It is fun, but it is simple.

The End of Alice

The End of Alice by A.M. Homes
1997
Weight: 10.4 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

This was my favorite book and favorite author in college.  I remember that, when I read this book for the first time, I was eating broccoli and cheddar soup and that I could not even stomach seeing, imagining, or smelling that type of soup for several years afterwards.  This book is beautifully disgusting and haunting.  Not many people want to get inside the head of a pedophile--I know because I tried to convince countless people to buy it when I worked at the bookstore.  Not only would they say no, but they would begin to treat me as if I were a creep that maybe should not be trusted.

A.M. Homes is a dark wizard/genius.  I would never give this book up if I did not have another copy.  The young woman eating a young boy's scabs weighs heavily in my memory.  I think of the pedophile turning on the reader after a prison rape scene and accusing the reader of being titillated, of only describing the scene because the reader wants it.  This book is striking, different from anything you have ever read, and it hits deep.  If you are brave, read it. 

The Sexual Politics of Meat

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory  Carol J. Adams
1990
Weight: 1.2 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating

What a deliciously Agnes Scott type book.  The merging of feminism and vegetarianism.  I ate it up and still love it to this day.  I know I will not read it again.  I have read it several times.  I often think about parts of it when talking to people about animals, "meat," the power of words.  Sometimes I keep it to myself and sometimes I don't.  I know people don't always respond as positively or enthusiastically as I do.  I wish you could get someone who was not a vegetarian or feminist to read it, but that will not usually end in success.

Brer Rabbit and Jump, Frog, Jump

Walt Disney Presents The Story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby 1971
Jump, Frog, Jump! by Robert Kalan pictures by Byron Barton 1981
Weight: 3 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

These two are books that my grandparents read to me.  They were not the ones I had them read to me again and again.  I am not yet ready to pass on "Kittens," which I grew up believing was entitled "Kitty Cats are Like That" or "Puppies."  Those two books I will be taking with me to the new house.  I wonder how many moves they have been through!

I was reading these two one more time before I let them go and found this relic from my teenage-dom:

That made me happy :)  I may just take Mulder on the move too!

I Was Amelia Earhart

I Was Amelia Earhart by Jane Mendelsohn
1997
Weight: 6.4 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

My grandmother gave me a large stack of books including this one.  The stack included an Ann Coulter book, books on being Baptist, a book written by a nun, and a Christmas book by Jimmy Carter (though when she gave them to me she said she did not know how she came to have the Carter book.  Spitting his name with disdain.)  I read the book by the nun.  I am slogging through the book by Carter (I like him just fine but not so keen on the book).  I detest Ann Coulter.  I just finished the Amelia Earhart book and was pleasantly surprised. 

It only had three stars on Amazon, and the blurb did not really appeal to me, though I am a bit interested in Earhart as a strong woman.  I enjoyed it though.  It read quickly and it was a unique take on what happened to Earhart.  The book itself was well-made.  I am not claiming it was a game changer, but it was a fun and interesting little fantasy.

Gone Feral

Gone Feral: Tracking My Dad Through the Wild by Novella Carpenter
2014
Weight: 13.6 oz
Method of Disposal: Lending Library in Tucker

I just finished reading this book I came across at a Dollar Tree.  My friend had just recently posted on Facebook that you could actually get good books there, and I had to go with Harriet to buy table clothes and assorted party goods for a volunteer appreciation event at the shelter anyway so I took a peek.  I had this idea in my head that it was all Christian romance and other similar subjects I have zero desire to delve into.  My friend was right though.  There were actually some pretty neat authors there.  Of course, there was also some of the other.

 

Gone Feral was an interesting read.  I gave it 3/5 stars.  Some of the other reviews said the writing was bad--I don't think that is true.  One said most people have experienced all the things Novella has and that she seems to think she is unique but isn't.  I have to say, that certainly cannot be true.  I can say that my life thus far has not resembled hers in the slightest.  I am 32 years old and have never raised a goat.  I fostered one pet rabbit.  I was not raised in an ecofriendly, sustainable household in the mountains.  My father was not abusive to my mother and does not seem to have any mental illness that I know of.  I have not built an urban farm.  I know that the sentiments about growing up and having children have been experienced by many people, but isn't the point of some books to connect and shed light on the human experience.  I don't think that makes it a bad book.

I rated it 3 stars because it was interesting and the writing was decent.  The book did seem to be lacking direction, and it did not feel like the author knew exactly what she was trying to write.  It seemed almost like she was writing and hoping for it to be cathartic.  I believe it is ultimately a biography of her father.  If you read three books this year, I would not choose this one.  If you read three hundred, then you should check it out.

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
by Sherman Alexie
2017
Weight:2 lbs
Method of Disposal: Lending Library

Sherman Alexie is another one of those authors that I love and trust enough to just buy anything he publishes whenever I come across it.  I was introduced to him by an Agnes Scott professor named Dr. Guthrie, and I have been fascinated by him ever since.  I was out with my mom and Harriet recently when I found this one on the New Arrivals table at Barnes and Noble.  I did not have the $22.40 + tax to spare, but I could not talk myself out of it.  I am not suppose to be getting more books.  I am suppose to be letting go of all the books.  My wife will tell you that I am not doing a good job and that they are still stacked up high all around the basement.

I am glad I did not talk myself out of buying it.  I am almost reluctant to let it go, but I want someone else to enjoy it, and I know I will not have time to re-read it anytime soon.  It is a beautiful book about grieving, identity, parents, family, Sherman, loss, gains, race, genocide, power, weakness...it is about Sherman and his mother and his sisters and his father and his mother's rapist and his sister's rapist and his wife and his friend...Shall I go on?  It is a mix of fiction interwoven with nonfiction.  Poems with stories with powwow chants.

It is well worth a read.  Enjoy it!

Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating

Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating by Moira Weigel
2016
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Leaving at post office in Tucker

I heard an interview with Moira Weigel on Real Simple's Adulthood Made Easy podcast and was instantly interested in reading it.  I will really miss that podcast!  I really enjoyed this book and discovered random little tidbits I had no idea about--like TGIF restaurants initially starting as singles clubs.  AND that they were inspired by gay bars.  That was exciting and fun trivia.  I appreciated that this book was not just heteronormative and did include some information about queered dating.  It tried to dip its toes into the differences in dating between white and black people, but I felt like that was one portion that was just too little too late.  It felt like it was just peppered in and without a lot of substance.  I wish there had been more of it but, if there was only going to be a seasoning, maybe she should have left it out.  I don't know.  There were very important differences that made "dating" more dangerous for the black community.  It seems like in many eras the line between dating, sex work, trading sex, going steady wasn't always clear, at least to other people looking in at those relationships. 

I left this book at the post office and hope someone else gets some enjoyment out of it too!

The United States of Poetry

The United States of Poetry
Joshua Blum Bob Holman Mark Pellington
1996
Weight: 2.4 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving Somewhere

I bought this book in the 90s and just now read it in 2016, but I am glad I saved it all this time.  I also think it is better it is released now rather than later.  It seems like there is less poetry out there.  I do, however, find it amusing that I am now married to someone who had a total mental collapse when she realized I was reading a book of poetry next to her.  She has some deep-seated disdain for poetry we need to overcome, apparently.

I picked up this book and read it last weekend, after we had to euthanize our beloved Chihuahua-Potato, Bayah.  I thought she would live for at least two decades and never imagined we would lose her in the 8-12 year old range.  She was rescued with her baby, Aires, from a puppy mill and brought to PAWS Atlanta around 4.5 years ago.  Harriet and her then boyfriend, Connor, took Bayah in as a foster.  She was seemingly young and feisty.

She was adopted out and about a year later she came back looking terrible.  She was overweight, had hair loss, and her teeth were completely rotten.  Harriet had moved back to England, and there was no room at the shelter.  Having started falling in love with the now single Harriet, I could not let anything happen to her foster pup and so I took Bayah home as my own foster.  I fell in love with her too.  And hard.  I tried to adopt her out, but when she came back a week later (she wasn't housebroken) I was so relieved to scoop her back up.  I finalized her adoption that day--April 18, 2013.  I was able to be her family for a little over three years.  That's it.

She was my little hot potato and my co-pilot. She was the dog I could take with me everywhere.  She was relaxed and loving and not at all worried about adult strangers.  Children were slightly alarming, but she would not hurt them, and I always made sure they were sweet with her too.  She fit perfectly in my arms.  She would not lay down or rest until she found a comfy bed to rest on but, if you put her in a bed, she would not budge again until you made her or until you took out some food.  She loved to eat more than anything else in the world and on her last night we gave her chocolate and chicken jerky, which she scarfed down as ferociously as ever.

She developed a head tilt and was diagnosed with vestibular disease, but three weeks went by, and she did not get better.  We got a third opinion.  We were told she had a brain tumor and our time with her was short and, even with the warning, there was not enough time spent together.  There never could be.  That's the thing about death.  No matter how much life allows you to prepare for it you cannot prepare for it.  It feels sudden or unexpected even when it is not.  If it doesn't feel that way then you have likely suffered terribly and for awhile.

That last night was the first time she flinched when someone went to hold her or when her canine best friend, Savannah, got near her.  She was in pain.  The tumor was putting pressure on her eye.  She had gone blind in that eye just a few weeks before. The only option was surgery, and she was not a candidate for surgery at her age and in her condition.  She left us before we left her, and our hearts broke into a million Bayah-sized pieces as we drove away from that hospital and home to a house that felt empty even though it was full of dogs.  I funnel my affections into her best friend and my other dogs, but nothing touches that place within me where the memory of her lives.  It is heavy and damp, soaked through with my sadness.  I know that as time goes on it will fill with positive memories and funny anecdotes, but right now I just miss my beloved little Chihuahua and the tongue that always hung out of her mouth as she sauntered along.  The low, sweet bark she let out when she got really excited and the warmth of her small body resting next to me.  I will love you forever, Bayah. 

Joe Jones

Joe Jones by Anne Lamott
1985
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal:Leaving at Oakview Manor in Savannah, Georgia

I have lived in Georgia thirty years and never been to Savannah until now.  I am super excited to check out this city that so many people talk about.  I've heard the claims.  It is beautiful, crime-ridden, scary, gothic, boring, amazing.  I have heard it all, but so far so good.

The house we are staying in has books in the kitchen, the bed rooms, the living rooms.  I plan to leave mine in with theirs in hopes that travelers find it and read it while they are here.  I have always had a soft spot for Anne Lamott ever since my friend Sarah introduced me to her when I was 16.  She will be a little different that the books laying around here, probably more character driven and a little less dark, twisted.  Joe Jones focuses on a group of people who gather around a local cafe in the South.

O.K. I am being rushed out the door!  More later if I am sober enough to type ;) We are celebrating a friends 50th.

Bark

Bark by Lorrie Moore

2014

Weight: 8 oz

Method of Disposal: Leaving on an airplane leaving Iowa

I have never been afraid of flying, but recently, on my last few trips, I have found the takeoff unnerving.  I have admitted this to my partner and thus made the bad feeling worse.  Like acknowledging it made it okay for me to feel it and so I felt it more than ever.  I read during takeoff and landing to keep my mind off of the turbulence, the height, the speed, and my complete lack of control over the situation.  This lack of control use to be why I liked flying.  I read fiercely and do not like being distracted from it for too long.

I was disappointed this time to find that the book I had brought was one I had already read.  I do not often read books twice.  Mostly because I have too many lying about that I have never picked up.  I feel like I will never get through them all if I start reading books more than once.  I read one story after the other, finally remembering them halfway through, and then figuring I should just power on and finish them, but all along feeling disappointed they were not brand new.

At least it was Lorrie Moore.  I love her.  I still laughed out loud a couple of times.  I still questioned the moments I could relate to her sad, reserved characters but was also bemused by the humanity of it all.  This book was a gift I got for Christmas this year.  I did not think I was ready to give it up, but after reading it again, I feel like I am ready to share it with someone else.  But what really happens to a book left on a plane?  Do they throw it out before the next flight?  Does a stranger find it?  I hope someone is able to enjoy it—an employee or a passenger.

 I know I should not buy any more books.  That’s the deal, right?   But I am going to have to since this is a rare opportunity to go to one of the best bookstores in the nation.  Prarie Lights in Iowa City.  I have been waiting for this moment for awhile now.

On an unrelated note, hello and glad to see you.  I am taking a little break from life and excited to be able to blog with you again.  I hope you are doing well and your health is good.

Snow Day

The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick 2000
The Magic Paintbrush by Lawrence Yep 2000
Weight: 14 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving Somewhere

I am feeling very lucky and a little guilty.  I have been in my nice warm house all day, and the power has not gone out yet.  I am very thankful for this.  I have not been back to the animal shelter since 11pm last night.  Four of us went to clean up the pets, let them out, and make sure the one generator we have was working.  Today, a small crew of dedicated staff went to the shelter to care for the animals.  I was pleased to enjoy my day off and also feeling a little useless.  Mixed feelings.  I have no idea what tomorrow brings.

Meanwhile, in the UK the weather is even more atrocious.  Harriet's power went out a couple times, and we were creating backup plans to ensure we would still be able to check in with each other periodically.  Wishing everyone could be safe and warm tonight.

80 mph Gales

About 4 hours away in Wales

I wish I could say that I had been productive today, but I absolutely have not been.  I have been snuggling with all the critters, my own and my fosters, and reading books.  I should be cleaning, working, writing letters, but I am so sleepy and my body just seems to want to rest so I have been reading.  I finished these two books today.  I remember being worried that The Last Book in the Universe would just be a rip-off of Fahrenheit 451.  Not at all.  It might have made me cry at one point. I am already scanning my shelves for my next read.

It Chooses You

It Chooses You by Miranda July with photographs by Brigitte Sire 2011
No One Belongs Here More Than You. Stories by Miranda July 2007
Weight: 2 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating

I have packed a small box of books for the move that are kept separate from the rest.  They are the ones I may never get rid of.  It is fair that I keep one box, right?  In that box there is another copy of It Chooses You that was autographed by Miranda July.  "You" is crossed out and "Laura" is written above it.  My dear friend, Liz, bought it for me and mailed in to me in a care package.  I was so delighted and moved to get it in the mail, unexpectedly.  Of course, I was also super jealous that she had the chance to meet Miranda July.  Like adolescent jealousy.  I have been smitten with Miranda July since my other dear friend, Sarah, introduced me to her cds when I was still in high school.  Her work was a large part of my entirely awkward senior thesis in College.  I even recorded my own tapes of me telling my own short stories in July fashion.  I cannot believe I was not institutionalized.  

Another copy of No One Belongs Here More Than You is also in the box.  My creative writing adviser, Dermont, gave it to me as a graduation gift and wrote a wonderful note to me inside of it.  I might be more smitten with Dermont than I am July and so it is one of my most prized possessions. 

Both of the copies I am now passing on came to me from Sarah and were the ones I read before I got the other copies.  I am infinitely grateful to her for introducing me to July and for continuing to nourish it through gift giving.  I am sure these two will find good home--with titles like that who could resist?  I want to believe that both titles say something about who I am in this moment and that is why I decided to get rid of them tonight.  Really, July is just a really good cheerleader via naming things and a really unique writer/artist/filmmaker to boot.

Indecent

Indecent: How I Make it and Fake it as a Girl for Hire  by Sarah Katherine Lewis
2006
Weight: 12.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving Somewhere

I loved this book.  It felt so good to be reading something I loved again.  I feel like I have spent far too long just reading books that are okay or worse.  It is funny because I picked it up and put it back on the shelf countless times before I actually read it.  I do have a fascination with the sex industry, which is why I bought it, but I also have a reasonable bad taste in my mouth for books about it.  So often I have picked up a book to learn it was written by someone "undercover" or someone who stripped for a year with the intention of writing a book or someone who has no writing skills what-so-ever or whatever.  The shock value is there so the story can be lacking.  I thought this book would be more of the same.

It wasn't.  Lewis had me hooked when she talked about playing the game Whore as a child and when she worried that she was too chubby for sex work.  So often, I have thought about it and thought I am too fat, too unattractive, too old, too whatever.  I felt an instant connection.  Then she began talking about the confidence it gave her and I was enthralled.  I wished I had done it.  She went from one job to the next with a desire to learn and a strong work ethic.  As the book and her life went on, she seemed to grow increasingly angry and violent minded.  I questioned if I would have ever been strong enough for it.  I did not feel lied to.  I felt comfortable in the place where I could look at sex work as sex work.  She did not class it as a magical kingdom where feminists romp naked and feel wonderful about themselves while raking in the money, but she did not make it out to be the evil of the world that must be purged either.  She talked about things like confidence and fear, feminism and fuckery, with what seemed like a sincerity I could trust.

I did get to the end of the book and feel like somewhat of a customer though.  Was I being the oh-so-dreaded relater?  I would be lying if I acted like I never got turned on while reading it, which is bizarre because there was not a lot to be turned on about.  The book was full of nasty smelling jizz, sticky environments, and deplorable people.  She kept the reader at arms length.  She showed us a lot about the sex industry, but she never let us get close to her outside of her work.  We do not know what she does for fun, anything about her friends who don't do sex work, that she has a brother until the acknowledgements, what she spends her money on, and why should we?  We have come to learn about sex work, after all.  She are reminded throughout the book that she will not give out too much information in order to be safe.  She tells us each time she starts a new job.

Any who, I loved it and I thank her for being bold enough to do it, write about it, and share it with the world.  I think I will seek out this sex and bacon book I am seeing all the reviewers of Indecent rave about.

p.s. Sarah Katherine Lewis, you are right.  Hemmingway does suck.

Lullaby

Lullaby (2002) and Nana (2003) by Chuck Palahniuk
Weight: 2 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating

My fascination with Chuck Palahniuk died long ago , but there once was a time, when I was about 16, when I was obsessed.  I ordered Luna at the bookstore, not realizing it was a Spanish edition and was disappointed, but also excited, when it came in.  Apparently, the confusion was not just my problem.  I just looked it up on Amazon and there was a picture of air filters instead of the book.

This is kinda sad.  At every bookstore I ever worked at the Spanish section was ridiculously small and lackluster.  If you didn't want to read about God then you probably didn't need to read at all.  You would really think that, in the United States in particular, we would get it together.  If for no other reason than having yet another population to sell shit to.  When social unity does not matter then money does, right?

Amazing Young Adult Fiction

Holes  Louis Sachar 2000
Maniac Magee  Jerry Spinelli 1990
Weight: 12 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving at Joe's in EAV

Maniac Magee was one of my favorite books growing up, and I do not think it was only because it was also one of my brother's favorites at the time, though that is why I read it to begin with.  It is about a homeless teenager who becomes a legend.  He is amazing and also mysterious.  He has no home, but he has many talents and one of them is finding the good in people and making friends in spite of societal pressures.  This book deals with what family is and how it is not always just the people you are born to, race relations, and what "home" entails.  It has been a very long time since I have read this book so I cannot tell you how well done it is, but I do remember being quite moved as a child.  Maniac Magee was someone you wish you knew, someone you would like to be like, and he is an outlier.

Holes was written almost a decade later and was turned into a movie.  It is about a boy who is forced to dig holes, among other demeaning things, in an all boys detention center.  This is another book that is written about an outcast who is also a hero and someone to look up to, despite his troubled past. 

Have I mentioned that I love Young Adult fiction?  I am happy to think of these books being on summer reading lists and hopeful that they will encourage kids to enjoy reading.

Written on the Body

Written on the Body  by Jeanette Winterson

1992

Weight: 8 oz

Method of Disposal: Leaving in Joe’s in EAV

 

 

I read Written on the Body for the first time when I was sixteen, and I fell in love.  I thought it was beautiful, and it started a long-term love affair with Jeanette Winterson that exists to this day.  I have since recommended it to countless people.  Strangers who came into the bookstore I worked at, heterosexual women who were in love with Nicholas Sparks, lesbian women looking for some fiction, and young men looking for something different than what they had been reading.  I have suggested it to friends and, recently, bought it for my girlfriend.  It was this most recent purchase that led me to read it again.

I remembered it as a moving and lyrical love story and had completely blocked out that the first half of the book is about a lesbian woman’s conquests of married heterosexual women.   I did not remember being regaled by sexual escapades with one woman and then the next and then the next.  Once I had finished the book, that section seemed like it had drawn on far too long.  A portion of it would have and did add to the second half of the book, but it was not all needed.  The lyricism could be beautiful, but it could also be trite and pull you out of the story.  So often, there were one-liners or even entire paragraphs that would make a great quote for a love letter, a tattoo, or a status update on Facebook (I said it), but they did not nest well in the full text of the book. 

It was difficult for me to reread this book and come to the realization that it is no longer one of my favorites, and that I was no longer impressed by it.  I thought about 16 year old Laura and 27 year old Laura and felt foolish for not realizing sooner that so much had changed within me that would influence my understanding and feelings towards the novel. 

I resisted getting rid of this book the entire time I have been writing on this blog but, I suppose, I am glad I reread it and now know that I can hand it off to the next person who is in the right place at the right time.  The realization of not being tied to this book is strangely sad though, and I almost feel like I am going through a literary crisis of sorts.  I am losing something I felt was essential to my reading self.  I know that sounds dramatic but, sometimes, you get bonded to a book and the “loss” of it is almost as moving as the initial love of it.

Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records 2007
Weight: 10.4 oz
Method of Disposal: Recycling

Long before my brother was married and had two beautiful daughters...Long before I found myself in this adult body, going to work everyday, and trying to make it matter...Long before all of that, we would read the Guinness Book of World Records together.  We were enthralled with the world's largest man and disgusted by the world's longest worm.  I remember some very intense fingernails.  I thought about all of that when I brought this book home, and I am thinking of all that and more now. 

My brother introduced me to so much growing up, not all good, but he was the oldest and it was his job.  I am the youngest and so I remember minor details.  It is my job.  I cannot wait to see him and his family this holiday season, but I dread the day he gets deployed again.

To my brother, thank you for everything you are and all that you do.  I love you forever and for always.

Stop the Next War Now

Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism

Edited by CODEPINK Cofounders
2005
Weight: 3.2 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving in a booksharing box in Decatur, GA

This is a hard book to create. How do you tackle something so huge and something that seems to have no end in sight? The wars, the conflicts, the battles just keep coming. There were plenty of essays in here that I did not find helpful at all and some that made me blush because of their simplicity, but it is not like I have the answer either. There were some pieces that helped me reorganize my thoughts and gave me new tools to use in my everyday life. I am one that does not really remember a time when the United States was not at war. It seems like there has always been something. But this is not just about the US. All over the world, we are choosing to solve our problems by killing, degrading, and disenfranchising people.

This book was able to balance the horror with hope, but I was still left feeling overwhelmed. Less from the information in the book and more from reading it while living in this world, while watching documentaries on North Korea, while listening to the news in Georgia, while...
I did get the opportunity to learn about huge protests I never even realized were happening despite the fact that I was active, alive, and listening during the Bush administration. Did the shock of it all cause me to miss things? Was it all so overwhelming and hard to believe? I still have trouble looking back on Bush, seeing his influence even now.

Does anyone have any recommendations about books that are similar? This one did have a wide range of authors. People coming from so many different positions and with different identities. I did really appreciate that, but I want more.