Reviews with TLC

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi is a must-read for anyone striving to better understand not only Palestine/Israel/Middle East history but the history of the world. Khalidi dives into the history of settler colonialism, war, antisemitism, anti-Arab sentiment, and the power brokers that make the deals to promote all of the above. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine traces the violence and the failed attempts at peace alongside the excuses for cruelty. He shares his own family's history in Palestine and as refugees including their attempts to negotiate for the Palestinian people over the years. Khalidi holds a large number of historical figures and powerful people accountable for their handling of Palestine using facts and documents that show how the decisions were made without giving any thought to the people who lived in Palestine at the time. It's a fascinating book that comes through mo...

My Voice Sought the Wind by Susan Abulhawa is beautifully intense and intensely beautiful in its honesty and expression. The poems often seem simple at first glance but contain quite a bit of depth, often in only a few lines. Abulhawa expresses her experiences and her observations with an openness that is touching and engaging. Within her poems lies the humanity that  lives inside all of us and reminds us all that we can find more in common than we think if we just stop to see each other. I thoroughly enjoyed My Voice Sought the Wind and was a little sad when I got to the end because there wasn't more to read. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A history of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017   by Rashid Khalidi Reviews will be posted as I finish these books. Disclosure: This blog contains affiliate links meaning if you click on those links and make a purchase, I earn a commission at no addition...

Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books by Ursula K. Le Guin is a mix of essays, book reviews, and journaling about a writers retreat. Le Guin offers some interesting points of view throughout Words Are My Matter . I was a bit hesitant about the book reviews, but she handled them more like essays than the kind of reviews typically seen on book websites. Words Are My Matter was engaging, but a few parts were less appealing than others. I enjoyed the essays more than the reviews. The journal entries about the writers retreat sparked my curiosity about the retreat enough that I researched it. Words Are My Matter managed to both feel disjointed and cohesive with the various sections compiled as they are, but overall was a satisfying read. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A history of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017   by Rashid Khalidi My Voice Sought the Wind  by Susan Abulhawa Review...

The Eagle Tree by Ned Hayes surprised me. I confess I had multiple false starts reading this novel. I'm not sure why, but it wasn't the story itself. Once I really started it, I quickly found myself immersed in the story, rooting for March, empathizing with his mother, and really, really wanting to hug the tree at the center of the story. I loved every moment March spent in the forest even when he wasn't supposed to be there and even when I feared he might get hurt. Hayes weaves together a story that explores many topics with a deft hand that feels inclusive and urgent but at the same time nuanced. The Eagle Tree is a beautiful story with characters that I wasn't quite ready to let go of at the end of the story. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books  by Ursula K. Le Guin The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A history of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017   by Rashid Khalidi M...

Petals of the Moon: A Poetry Collection by C. Churchill offers short lyrical poetry that left me feeling both melancholy and hopeful. There's a thread that runs through even the saddest of these poems that weaves feeling of positivity awaiting. Using the moon as an anchor, Churchill tells the story of life, love, loss, and renewal in these poems. Petals of the Moon feels like a journey and an immersion all at once even on the poems that feel easy to gloss over in the moment. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books  by Ursula K. Le Guin The Eagle Tree  by Ned Hayes The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A history of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi Reviews will be posted as I finish these books. Disclosure: This blog contains affiliate links meaning if you click on those links and make a purchase, I earn a commission at no additional cost to you. If you'd like to foll...

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears surprised me not in its bombshells or its revelations but in its humanity. Reading it felt like sitting across from a friend who is catching you up on their life. To be clear, Spears really appealed to a younger generation than me as I'm a bit older than her, so I didn't follow her career that closely even though I did enjoy some of her songs when I would hear them. The Woman in Me feels both like it is guarded and vulnerable, which I believe tells us something in and of itself. Spears has always had to be careful about what she shares and what she holds close. The Woman in Me is a powerful reminder of how damaging and devastating the paparazzi was in the 1990s and early 2000s. There is a strong message here about the public's insatiable desire for the salacious. I felt Spears's pain and her fear as the paparazzi surrounded her, especially when she had her children, babies at the time, with her wanting that money shot and not caring ...

Capitalism Calls Poetry Lazy by Wyatt Welch challenged me to think a bit more than I expected, but I liked the way it challenged me. It made me think and made me feel a range of emotions. Welch uses language and form in creative and interesting ways. The play on words often made me question my assumptions. As a poet, I appreciated Welch's exploration of modern society through a poetic lens. As a reader, I found the poems kept pulling me back to explore what came next. Capitalism Calls Poetry Lazy is an interesting read that examines society, what society values, and how society expresses what it values. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: The Woman in Me  by Brittany Spears Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books  by Ursula K. Le Guin Petals of the Moon: A Poetry Collection  by C. Churchill The Eagle Tree  by Ned Hayes Reviews will be posted as I finish these books. Disclosure: This blog contains affiliate links meaning if ...

Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell vacillated between feeling engagingly insightful and annoyingly repetitive yet even the repetition felt like it served a purpose. Pity the Reader is part biography, part examination of Vonnegut's work, and part elaboration on Vonnegut's opinions and teachings. I thought I'd read some of Vonnegut's work years ago - like high school or college, but as I read through the descriptions of his work I became increasingly convinced I didn't. Somehow, that realization made Pity the Reader more intriguing to me than it was when I started. I'm very glad I read Pity the Reader , but I do believe it is a book that won't appeal to everyone. Also, I want to point out that I read the exercises included at the end but opted not to do them for a variety of reasons - mostly that I'd done some version of most of them at some other point in my life. I do think they could be very helpful and I mi...

Just a Girl by Alyssa Cole took me in an unexpected direction. I had forgotten the format the story is told in between I bought it and when it started reading it. I hesitated when I started unconvinced it could work, but it did. The story quickly pulled me in, made me care, reminded me of events from my past, and brought forth my empathy for Tiana, the main character. Cole tells the story through social media posts, direct messages, emails, etc. in a way that feels immediate and all too real. Just a Girl is a well written story that is also a stark reminder that the Internet doesn't always offer the safety or the cover we think it does. While it took me a minute to get used to the format, I did end up enjoying the story itself more than I expected to. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style   by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell Capitalism Calls Poetry Lazy  by Wyatt Welch The Woman in Me  by Brittan...

The Scenic Route: A Short Story by Christina Baker Kline vacillates between being an easy read and a hard read, not because of the writing but because the  subject matter is so heartbreaking and feels so real. Kline pulled me into the story and the pain of the characters from the beginning. The Scenic Route explores so many issues in a few pages because they are all related and they all drive the story forward leading a resolution that feels at once life-affirming and heart-wrenching just like life can sometimes be. The Scenic Route travels emotional and physical journeys of self-punishment and self-discovery in ways that bring the story home without letting anyone off the hook for their decisions, choices, and actions - good or bad. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style   by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell Capitalism Calls Poetry Lazy  by Wyatt Welch Just a Girl   by Alyssa Cole The Woman ...

Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography by Dominic Streatfeild explores the history of cocaine starting with the chewing of coca leaves by the natives of South America. Coca's history, use, misuse, and abuse is a fascinating tale of how humans can take something good and corrupt it with just a little effort. The effects of imperialism on the coca plant and its transition into cocaine and the various forms of cocaine are scary and yet somehow felt unavoidable. I was torn between what I thought I knew and what the facts and evidence show in regards to the coca plant, cocaine use, and cocaine trafficking based on Streatfeild's research. The intersection of political aspirations and cocaine is incredibly disheartening leaving one to wonder just how much those in power drove or at least ignored cocaine trafficking for political benefit. As I reached the latter part of the book, the realization kept coming to me that criminalizing cocaine and other drugs created the prices that made traf...

How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) Poetry by Barbara Kingsolver surprised me with its combination of simplicity and breadth. Kingsolver effectively uses the personal to make more universal points in poems that immersed me in the joys and heartaches of life. I enjoyed almost every poem in How to Fly , and even those I didn't enjoy held my interest. Kingsolver demonstrates how the small, often forgotten moments often create the greatest connections and longest lasting memories. How to Fly connects the process of living with the process of learning to live in well written poems that are easy to read and engaging. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography  by Dominic Streatfeild Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style   by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell Capitalism Calls Poetry Lazy  by Wyatt Welch Reviews will be posted as I finish these books. Disclosure: This blog contains affiliate links meani...

The Tradition by Jericho Brown is an unapologetic exploration of tradition and the breaking of tradition in human lives.  The Tradition is as good as the other books of Brown's poetry I've read. His word choices feel intentionally designed to immerse the reader in his poems in ways that can elicit tears, smiles, squirms, fears, and joy sometimes within the same poem. Brown's use of language, observations on society, and life experience to illustrate both connection and disconnection spoke to both my heart and my mind. The Tradition speaks to the experience of being human in a world that doesn't always value humanity. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography  by Dominic Streatfeild Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style   by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell How to Fly (In Tend Thousand Easy Lessons): Poetry  by Barbara Kingsolver Reviews will be posted as I finish these books. Disclosure: This blog...

We Want Our Bodies Back: Poems by Jessica Care Moore is filled with poems that reminded me that every body is beautiful even when that beauty is obscured, denied, or unseen. Moore details the joys and the abuses the body encounters throughout life with an unassailable emphasis on the bodies of women, the bodies of people of color, and particularly women of color. We Want Our Bodies Back is sometimes a plea, sometimes a demand, sometimes a celebration in this collection of poetry that balances strength, beauty, and vulnerability in its calls for justice and acceptance and sometimes just to be seen. Moore reminds us that every unique body has things in common with every other body. We Want Our Bodies Back is a strong, beautiful statement of rebellion in a world where people's bodies are overpoliced, overlooked, and overexposed. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography  by Dominic Streatfeild Pity the Reader: On Wr...

  A Gift of Shadows by Stephanie Stamm continues the story of Lucky and her friends from The Gift of Wings . Stamm weaves mythology into a story that is at once exciting, enlightening, emotional, and engaging. A Gift of Shadows illustrates how the truth lies in how power and knowledge are used rather than power being clearly good or bad. Stamm gently challenged my resistance to the changes Lucky was going through and had me alternately cheering her on and chastising her. New characters come into play further challenging Lucky's perception of who to trust and what her role is in the battle between good and evil.  A Gift of Shadows pits good against evil while subtly demonstrating that what appears good isn't always good and what appears evil isn't always evil. I finished reading A Gift of Shadows and immediately felt an urge to read book three... Hopefully, it'll be coming soon... Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Cocaine: An U...

Above the River: The Complete Poems by James Wright is a collection of poems that span life's ups and downs. Wright makes the mundane poetic with some beautiful turns of phrase. Above the River includes poems that are immersive and approachable as well as poems that feel just beyond reach in a way that made me reach for them. Wright's poems often feel incredibly personal and other times just as impersonal. At times, it was hard to discern the truly personal from Wright's observations of other people's lives. A group of translations in the middle of the book were interesting but still my least favorite part of the book. Some of the prose pieces in the latter part of the book left me wanting more and others were a struggle to get through. I was initially drawn to Wright's work because of Wright's connection to the Ohio River because I grew up on the Kentucky side of the Ohio not too far from the river, and was thrilled to see poems about the region as well as re...

Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer by Julia Cameron works off the same principles as The Artist's Way . I opted not to do the exercises as prescribed because I do my own version of self-care to handle my writing life. I think this is the important thing to take away from this book. YOU have to find your own path. This was Cameron's path and she finds it satisfying. Yours might look very different. When I tried Morning Pages years ago when I read The Artist's Way , I found they stifled my creativity. I have a few problems with this book. The first is there is an underlying message throughout that if you don't do it Cameron's way, you can't be successful. Another is the underlying implication that everyone who has ever tried her method is successful. There's also her insistence that all successful creativity should be credited to a higher power and all failure is the fault of the artist. While Write For Life overall didn't work for me, I did...

The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer is an interesting and inspiring workbook that reiterates that self-compassion is a way of life not a goal to be met. Neff and Germer gently remind the reader that to be self-compassionate is to constantly notice where one needs self-compassion many times in the book. The exercises in this workbook pushed me to think about events in my life and accept my feelings about those events with compassion instead of judgment but also to approach my judgment with compassion. As I worked through the exercises, old issues I'd thought long resolved resurfaced and reminded me that suppressing isn't the same as dealing with things. Facing these with self-compassion rather than judgment was a helpful exercise. That said, I also found it hard to relate to some of the exercises and felt like I just worked through them without much depth because they felt...

Zikora by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an immersive short story filled with emotional moments that are as messy as the human experience. Filled with love, loss, and family issues, Zikora wraps a frayed ribbon around the ties that connect human beings. I felt Zikora's pain and disappointment as well as her passion and kindness. I longed for her to find her voice and her footing even as her insecurities and waffling decisions brought consequences beyond her control. Adichie created complicated characters that were alternately hard to love and hard to hate making them all the more human including Zikora herself. Zikora reminds us all that we are products of the lives we lead and the lessons we learned from those lives. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer  by Julia Cameron Above the River: The Complete Poems  by James Wright The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook  by Kristin Neff and Christopher Ge...

The September Letters by Maeve Binchy engaged me from the beginning. I kept waiting for what was going to be revealed, and I wasn't disappointed when it finally was. The September Letters delves into the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell others about our lives. Youth, growth, and the changes life brings over the years is shared in the course of a few pages as strangers share their stories by exchanging letters once a year after meeting by chance in an airport. Binchy exposes how easy it is to put forth a story we want others to believe and how easy it is to believe a story we want to be true while also demonstrating the importance of accepting reality. The September Letters is the story of shared stories, assumptions, living life, and connecting with others. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer  by Julia Cameron Above the River: The Complete Poems  by James Wright The Mindful Se...

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood is an intriguing and engaging tale that continues the story of Gilead started in The Handmaid's Tale . The story, while offering some insight into the future of Gilead, challenged me to question assumptions I made while reading, and especially watching the series, The Handmaid's Tale . It's easy to assume bad people are all bad and good people are all good, but Atwood is a master at reminding readers that looking only at the surface doesn't allow one to find the full truth. The Testaments explains how the Aunts from The Handmaid's Tale could be convinced - coerced - into taking on the role of Aunts. Atwood also delves into the stories of the daughters of the Handmaid from T he Handmaid's Tale . The Testaments is testimony that shares the point of view from three characters, Aunt Lydia (yes, that Aunt Lydia), Agnes (Hannah), and Nicole (Daisy/Jade) with seemingly different viewpoints who find common ground and are instrumental ...

The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions by Christopher K. Germer, PhD focuses on mindfulness in a way that gently glides into self-compassion. Germer weaves his personal and professional experience using mindfulness to get to self-compassion with research into self-compassion in a way that is easy to read and makes both mindfulness and self-compassion feel approachable. He includes exercises and meditations to demonstrate the effectiveness of mindfulness on self-compassion. I really like that Germer explains that self-compassion isn't a self-help goal but a continuous journey that sometimes brings up pain while helping one to heal in a way that encourages and inspires one to pursue embracing self-compassion.  The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion helped me with my own journey to strengthen my mindfulness and my self-compassion. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: Write for Life: Creative Tool...

Meditation: How to embrace mindfulness, inner peace, and happiness in life by by Rafik Osker is a short, easy to read primer on meditation. I downloaded this ebook during a free promotion several years ago and just got around to reading it. I think it would probably be a good book for a beginning meditator, but was a little too basic for me. All that said, it appears this book is no longer available. Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including: The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions  by Christopher Germer Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer  by Julia Cameron Above the River: The Complete Poems  by James Wright The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook  by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer The Testaments  by Margaret Atwood Reviews will be posted as I finish these books. (Technically, I'm a few books behind on writing reviews right now, so I have already finished reading seve...