I don’t really do memoirs so much but had heard so many good things about this book that I was convinced to try it. All the good reviews are right, and this book is great. I hadn’t heard of Trevor Noah before he took over The Daily Show, and while I still miss Jon Stewart (I mean, who doesn’t?) Noah has grown on me. After this book, I like him even more. This is not a comedian’s memoir; rather, it’s a growing-up memoir, stories about […]
Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.
This is a book about luck and love and sex and history and hate and imperialism, and, most of all, about playing the hand you’ve been dealt. Pachinko is a great big family saga. The main character, if there is one, is introduced fairly early on: Sunja, a teenager living with her mother who runs a boarding house in a fishing village in (what is now South) Korea, during Japanese occupation. A suave older man seduces her, one thing leads to the next, (this actually […]
Loneliness and magic in the Alaskan wilderness.
I love modern takes on fairy tales, so this seemed like a good bet. We’re in the Alaskan frontier in the 1920s. Homesteaders from Pennsylvania Mable and Jack have set out for a new life together–they can’t have children, and they need a new scene. Their second winter in Alaska is harsh, cold, and miserable, but during one evening of lightheartedness, they build a little girl out of snow. The next morning, there’s no snow child left, but they do see a little girl wearing the same scarf and […]
Read this book! And then give it to someone else to read.
Here’s another one going on my “give to all my friends” list! This book is really, really good. Each chapter is a vignette of one person per generation, starting with two half-sisters, Essie and Effia. One is sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. The chapters follow six of each of their descendants in Ghana and America. As you might expect, 6 generations of African and Africa-American history includes some seriously ugly chapters: colonialism, explicit and implicit racism, the transatlantic slave trade, the Fugitive Slave […]