Brass – 3/5 Stars So on the one hand this book falls a little into the generic kind of circa 1990s second generation immigrant American novel that was big for a good while. I recently read Charming Billy by Alice McDermott, which does this very thing. And then on the other hand, this book is a solidly written novel. Or rather, it is a novel, but it a challenging kind of narrative. For one, the story is good and interesting, but also a little typical […]
Let’s tell the truth to people. When people ask, ‘How are you?’ have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully. You must know, however, that people will start avaoiding you because, they, too, have knees that pain them and heads that hurt and they don’t want to know about yours.
This wasn’t planned but I bet somewhere deep in my subconscious I knew I was going to do this. The last time I moved I recall listening to about three Maya Angelou books in a row on audiobook while sorting, cleaning, and getting through my move. I just moved this weekend and listened to this one. She reads her books and her voice is so encouraging and pleasant, and she has such a bright outlook on even the darkest of subjects. This book is kind […]
The more things change …
Maya Angelou’s first autobiographical installment, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is widely considered to be the best of her series of autobiographies. Nominated for a National Book Award in 1970, this work has been a staple of high school reading lists, and banned book lists, for several decades. It is a beautifully written recollection of Angelou’s childhood, from the time she and her older brother were sent alone by train to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother (Angelou was 5) until Angelou, […]
Maya Angelou memoir on political awakening
This is the fourth of seven memoirs written by Maya Angelou, and it covers the period from 1957 and 1962, shortly before her departure from California with her young son Guy in tow. Maya ends up in New York City, where she enters the society of black musicians, actors, artists, writers, political activists, and discovers new depths within herself as she joins the Harlem Writers Guild along such luminaries as James Baldwin, writes for and performs on stage, becomes northern coordinator for Martin Luther King’s […]