I’m an introvert, and if there’s one thing I hate it’s interacting with people I don’t know. So when I finished reading Born a Crime while on an airplane, and found myself fighting the urge to wake up the woman next to me and tell her how great it was, I knew this book must be pretty special. Born a Crime is the story of Trevor Noah’s childhood growing up in South Africa. Trevor’s father is white, and his mother black. Since he was born […]
How to Fight Loneliness
Digging to America is the story of two Baltimore families who meet each other in an airport, pre-9/11, when they come to pick up their infant daughters they have adopted from South Korea. It’s similar to other Tyler novels, in that it’s an intimate examination of family dynamics, but it’s different than all the others, too–it’s bigger, as it also examines what it means to be an American. I know that makes it sound terrible and tiresome, but trust me, it is anything but. It’s […]
We Were the One Thing in the Universe God Didn’t Have His Eyes On
I had no idea until about 2 minutes ago that “it was a dark and stormy night” is considered a cliched, unoriginal way of starting a story. I associate it so closely with A Wrinkle in Time–one of the most magical books from my childhood–that to me it’s the perfect way to start a book, and it’s too bad there aren’t more that start this way. I can’t read A Wrinkle in Time without thinking back to my own childhood. I don’t remember for sure, […]
Because It’s There
I’ll never forget the first time I read Into Thin Air. It was about 10 years ago, and I held my breath for most of the second half. Even today, after reading it probably four or five times, it’s an incredibly exciting experience that is exactly what reading is supposed to be about–taking you places you’ll never be able to go yourself. This time, after finishing it, I decided to read The Climb for the first time. Both books are about the same thing: the […]