Tayari's Blog: Reading List

Comment #1, by ingrid

I finished Scott Spenser's a Ship Made of Paper three months ago and I'm still thinking about it. I read No Woman No Cry by Rita Marley last week and found it quite interesting. I also read a Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway and that was wonderful. My other recommendation would be The last of her Kind by Sigrid Nunez.

Comment #2, by Jackie

I did a check to see what I had read via Amazon and the library (plus racked my brain for what I bought locally) and here are some suggestions. You will note there is no pattern here:

Kathleen Cross: Schooling Carmen
Anything Anne Tyler (Baltimore writer)
Benilde Little
David Haynes (always good for some belly laughs)
Angela Nissel: The Broke Diaries, Mixed
Jane Juska: The Round Heeled Woman (about women of a certain age and sex)
Ayelet Waldman: Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, Daughter's Keeper
Tamara Gregory: Passport Diaries
Vivian Gornick: Fierce Attachments
Martha Beck: Leaving the Saints (about recovered memory and the Mormons)

Anything Susan Straight
Joan Didion: Year of Magical Thinking
Dana Johnson: Break Any Woman Down, Crave
Jonathan Lethem: Fortress of Solitude
Bertice Berry: When Love Calls You Better Answer (dare you not to laugh out loud)

Books on tape? Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons, Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld and weighing in at 33 CDS was John Irving's Until I Find You

(Books on tape/CD are great if you have to spend a lot of time in the car; get them from the library).

Comment #3, by Michael Fischer

Second vote for Joan Didion's "Year of Magical Thinking"...

Since you're in DC, maybe some Richard McCann? He seems to have a cult follwing in The District. His latest is "Mother of Sorrows": http://www.richardmccann.net/

Comment #4, by Dakota Knight

Tayari,

If you really want to read something good, (if you haven't read it yet), check out Fledgling by Octavia Butler. I loved it.

Happy Reading!!

Comment #5, by dwayne

tayari,

we need to figure out bout the mojito. but as for the book, check out erasure by percival everett. and for poetry, im reading wind in a box by terrance hayes, i like it. but absolute guarantee, read standing at the scratch line by guy johnson. i sported your button for a minute, now i just need to read the book. after finals i promise.

dwayne

Comment #6, by tina

the year of magical thinking - joan didion
becoming abigail - chris abani
on beauty - zandie smith
the icarus girl -
segu - maryse conde
jesus land - julia scheeres
never let me go - kazuo ishiguro

Comment #7, by Jennifer

Here are my suggestions:
1. My Jim, Nancy Rawles
2. sex.lies.murder.fame, Lolita Files
3. Nowhere is a Place, Bernice McFadden
4. YellowBlack: The First 21 Years of a Poet's Life, Haki Madhubuti
5. Some People, Some Other Place, J. California Cooper
6. John Crow's Devil, Marlon James

Comment #8, by Shalema

Shalema's recommendations:

1.Mama was Down With the Movement by Alicia Clark

2.A Man Finds His Way by Freddie Lee Johnson III

3.Project Girl by Janet McDonald

4. Every Friday Night by Ritta McLaughlin

5.A Woman's Worth by Tracy Price-Thompson

6. Leaving Cecil Street by Diane Mckinney- Whetstone

7. Counting Raindrops Through a Stained Glass Window by Cherlyn Michaels

Happy Reading!!!

Comment #9, by Kirk

Things That Fall From The Sky - Kevin Brockmeier

Short stories
Some soft, some not so soft.
Safe Societal Qualms, sometimes.
Beautifully inquisitive, yearning characters.
They long in short form.
One of my favorites is "A Day In The Life of Half of Rumplestiltskin," but "The Ceiling" is great, too. And "These Hands"'s 'I have never, not once read Nabokov...'

Actually, it's unfair–they are all amazing, but differently.

Comment #10, by ore

Let's see, recently I have read and really enjoyed:

1. Half a Life by V.S. Naipul
2. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
3. Curious Pursuits (a collection of essays) by Margaret Atwood

Currently reading The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood and really enjoying it.

Comment #11, by Michael Fischer

The other day, I recommended Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking” (scroll up). Would it be possible for me to retract that recommendation?:)

It was pretty good for the first fifty or so pages, but after the first ¼ of the book, her style turns incredibly mannered and doesn't seem to fit the story she's trying to tell.

She uses these refrains and repetitions to DEATH; it's like the deeper she gets into confronting her grief, the more she hides behind overly-stylistic musings like, "I wanted more than a night of memories and sighs. I wanted to scream. I wanted him back." I mean, this kind of thing is okay if it's not on every other page! It is driving me nuts. It is driving me crazy. It is driving me away from the story. I would rather be driving than reading this book. But if I drove instead of reading this book, I would fail the class I’m reading this book for. I cannot drive. I must read this book instead of driving.

(Ducking)

Comment #12, by Jackie

To Micheal,

I agree with you about the repetition, but I felt that she was showing us how her grief felt. After all this was her life's partner, her best friend, her alter ego and that loss kept coming at her from every direction, many unexpected. If you ever have a major loss such as hers, you might find that at first you are so stunned and just a bit out of touch with the pace of the world. Every time you think you have a handle on it, some new level of loss presents itself for you to deal with. I do feel that many times as I slugged my way through her book that she was acting as if she were the first person ever to suffer a great loss, but then I had to remember that this was her personal story and telling it was an important part of her grieving process; many people are likely to feel relieved at the similarties in their own stories.

It also didn't hurt that she is an established writer and could get a book contract out of it. Business is business even when you are devastated.

Comment #13, by Michael Fischer

Good points, Jackie. I guess I just expected a memoir on grief to be more reflective, when in fact this memoir seems more like a case study of how one copes right after the traumatic event—when the event is actually too close to write about reflectively. In that case, it is very interesting and illuminating. I should adjust my expectations and push through the rest of the book; hopefully, I’ll get something out of it.

One other problem I have with the book is her sometimes snotty tone: she name drops a lot and reminds readers constantly of her jet setter lifestyle...flying 1,000 miles just to eat dinner, the fact that all of her clothes were bought along 5th Ave, etc. Of course, if that’s who she is, that’s who she is. I just think that it can be off-putting to a lot of “normal” readers who live outside of Manhattan and Hollywood, and that people can take her cold, distant view of her husband's death as an aspect of her social status.

Comment #14, by Jackie

Despite all her name dropping and jet setter ways, despite all the people she knew, even she was not exempt from loss. That was one of my observations. Now because of her fame, a lot of the way was made easier for her, but she didn't get a pass on losing a loved one suddenly and all the ways you can miss them. Sometimes while reading the book I thought maybe she was just oblivious to everyday people going through the same thing, as if she took it personally that such a thing had happened to her. She was mechanical at times making me wonder if she was outlining the book in her head as she observed how she was processing the situation. Or maybe she was making notes on what she was observing about herself while all this was going on. I know that sounds cold, but as I said before, business is business. And she got a payday.

Comment #15, by Michael Fischer

The problem I have with the "writing is a business" point—though it is certainly an inescapable fact—is that Didion wrote a memoir on grief; many people bought her book—in hardcover—to learn something about their own grief, to actually experience Didion’s grief instead of being told about it in detached, clinical prose. The more I read, the less I learn about grief and the more I learn about Ms. Didion’s endless supply of Chanel 5 and her days working at Vogue, fresh off her precious Berkeley education. I would also like to think that good, powerful writing transcends "business," that there is such a thing as selling-out.

But you’re right: it’s a business, which is why I don’t have a problem critiquing a book that earned her a fat paycheck;-)

Comment #16, by fitzwilliam

Hey guys!!
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