When I found out that Bryan Cranston would be publishing a book in 2016, I was on the lookout. I am a late in the game Cranston fan, but there’s something about the roles he’s chosen, and the way he conducts himself in public that spoke to me, and I thought, I’d really like to know what he has to say. Since I had particularly enjoyed his reading of The Things They Carried I decided to go with the audio version. Here’s the thing about […]
How do we reconcile the imperfections of feminism with all the good it can do?
If I could have Roxane Gay follow me around for the rest of my life contextualizing my experiences as processed through her personal brain filter, I would have no more wishes for my genie, even if he insisted that I had two wishes left. I would tell him to fuck off, I’m all set: I’ve got Roxane Gay. I’m going to re-read this one. Probably twice or thrice. She is my new best friend. She is the smartest person I know (I don’t know her). […]
Like a truth revealed to the self-assured, I wasn’t ready for this.
I am a white male in my 30s. Written as a letter to his 15 year old son, this is a memoir of being black in America by a 39 year old man with a life wholly different from mine. I point this out not to argue that this book has nothing to offer me, but to acknowledge that I am coming to this book with a different set of tools – a different language, even. The context I use to make sense of the […]
There is some strange alchemy associated with gratitude.
This one hit me hard, and I have to admit I’m still processing a lot of it. Drink is part memoir, part investigative journalism, written by Ann Dowsett Johnston, a former editor at “Maclean’s” magazine (Canada’s “Newsweek,” if I may), the story of one woman’s family history and journey of alcoholism, and also an examination of the dangers of (mostly Western) society’s portrayal of the ideal woman and her relationship with alcohol, with is generally supposed to be empowering, equality-driven and rewarding, but has been […]