What I'm Currently Reading!!
A brief glimpse into my literary life, which is very chaotic right now. My TBR is even more of a clusterfuck.
Good evening everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying their Tuesday evening (or Wednesday morning, depending on where you are in the worldβ¦)!!
Iβm up a bit later than anticipated and feeling mildly creative and like I need to put something out into the world (and I also want to keep with my schedule of releasing something every Tuesday, no matter how brief or how late it may be), so today I will be sharing some of the books I am currently reading! A thanks to my girl @/msloababy on Twitter for indirectly giving me this idea!
Currently reading:
From left:
Giovanniβs Room, by the incomparable James Baldwin, a sort of coming-of-age short story that has since become a staple of black and LGBT+ literature. David is a young American man living in Paris, and β after a clandestine gay experience in his youth sandwiched by heterosexual encounters β he falls in love with Giovanni, an Italian bartender at a French bar. There are some stories in which you can just sense both the triumphs and the deep, lingering sadness of author and protagonist alike, and this story is one of them. I look forward to seeing these characters fall into each other and themselves, and how it plays out at the end of the novel. **I also want to share here that I just finished reading Baldwinβs other career-defining work, If Beale Street Could Talk, which is a harrowing tale resplendent with gorgeous prose detailing the incredible love story between Tish and Fonny. Itβs 1970-something in New York, and the young black couple is deliriously in love, facing wrongful incarceration in a βpost racialβ era, and are soon-to-be parents. The book details Tish, Fonny, and their familiesβ navigation through the effects of systemic racism as Fonny is wrongfully accused and subsequently convicted of rape, and it is one of James Baldwinβs finest works, as well as a revered and defining piece of black literature. I was blown away by Baldwinβs usage of both complex poetry and bold, blatant truths about love, racism, and society at large and how it all relates. Baldwin is a wordsmith, a visionary, and someone who Iβve always perceived as being deeply aware of the gravity and beauty of being alive. May his memory forever live on and be a blessing.
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, a work of fiction from the early 20th century centering on Lily Bart, a well-born yet isolated and impoverished woman, and her rise and fall from the high ranks of upper-crust New York society during the latter half of the 1800s. I have just started reading this book so I donβt have *much* to say, except for the fact that I saw this book in a Reddit comment section under a post where a woman not much older than me was asking other ladies how to decenter men from her mental space and her life in general, because she had not yet managed to do so even in this era of mainstream β almost militant β whatever-wave feminism. I look forward to getting the message and seeing how it all plays out in this seemingly hidden literary classic.
The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. Oh, how I love this book β this is the first time I am reading this incredible work in its entirety. I first got exposed to Fromm and his ideologies (namely, Freudian- and Jungian-adjacent and adversarial) in a 100-level Psychology-Religion hybrid course during undergrad, and immediately got my hands on a copy of the full text after reading excerpts during class. I have fallen in love (how apt!) with Frommβs apt depictions of the different types of love, how they are expressed at various points throughout our lives, and how love is at its most accurate and potent when it is both conceptualized and practiced as an act of giving more than one of receiving. This book is one of the many works that is guiding me on my path to understanding love and the world around me.
A Column of Fire by Ken Follett. This is the third book in Follettβs critically acclaimed Kingsbridge Series, an epic historical saga sweeping thousands of years and vastly different eras in European history, all centered around the fictional (yet historically accurate) Kingsbridge Cathedral. The first book, Pillars of the Earth, was dedicated to the construction of the cathedral itself as well as the surrounding township. Its sequel, World Without End, saw the cathedral and surrounding village into the center of the Middle Ages and the emergence of the deadly Black Plague. Now, A Column of Fire is taking me on the cathedralβs journey and evolution (or possible devolution) through the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the emergence of Queen Elizabethβs shaky rise to power. I honestly never thought I would be able to read 2000+ pages of complex historical fiction in a matter of weeks, but Follett is talented enough to make it seem like a breeze.
Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reillyβ¦sigh. Ms. Reilly, and Iβm gonna touch your hand when I say this, I might DNF even though Iβm more than 75% done with this book. This is a dual POV book, giving us the perspectives of Maori-Russian-Catalonian gay siblings (yes, really) Greta and Valdin. Thereβs no real discernible plot other than both siblings struggling in love β particularly Greta being the lesbian version of all of the women on HBOβs Girls and Valdin fucking off to Argentina, perhaps to stalk his estranged ex boyfriend and perhaps not. Itβs too liberal (even my most left wing mutuals and readers will agree, trust me), itβs too modern, itβs too nonsensical to be intriguing, and itβs too annoying to even be the endearing kind of annoying often found in modern literature or contemporary cult classics like the show Fleabag (funnily enough, the Goodreads reviews on this book stated that it was littered with a touch too much of βFleabagianβ humor that made every character one-note and indistinguishable from each other). I hope Reilly steps it up, and I believe in her β this is her debut, after all. Weβll see.
Iβm gonna close with one of my favorite quotes ever, and of course it just so happens to be from James Baldwin. God, he really just gets it.
Okay, Iβm going to bed now folks, and I want to A) publish this before midnight and B) have a solid hour to finish season one of True Blood. Bye!
sorry for any typos and grammatical errors and mixed tenses btw. itβs late and iβm sleepy and sore from my hiit workout yesterday. <3