Some books I read in 2018 and what I think of them now:
Janet Mock: Redefining Realness (2014) – I was kind of rough on this book in the post I wrote about it back in January, but now it shines. Janet Mock is like a transgender Maya Angelou. It is the only book, so far, that I have completed from My 2018 Book List! At least now I know what to read for 2019.
Joann Fletcher: The Search for Nefertiti (2004) – Fletcher is an Egyptologist from a family of undertakers. And she knows her wigs. She goes deep into the archaeology, but the best part is about Amarna, the capital that Akhenaton and Nefertiti built. My post on Nefertiti was based mainly on this book.
Patricia Hruby Powell: Josephine (2014) – about the life of Josephine Baker. Even though I knew how it would end, I still cried! Pretty good for a children’s book.
Tagore: Gitanjali (1910) – a book of poems that sometimes reads like scripture. Most seem to be addressed to the Hindu god Brahman, but could apply almost as well to the Christian god Jehovah. This book won him the Nobel Prize.
Bhagavad Gita (circa -400) – Hindu answers to the mysteries of life. Some people are blown away by this book. I was not. But then I doubt I understood it that much. I read it in the loosey-goosey Stephen Mitchell translation. Bears rereading.
Michael Eric Dyson: What Truth Sounds Like (2018) – a glorified Slate article. Only the last chapter, “Wakanda Forever”, was any good.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: Reconstructing the Gospel (2018) – how White Evangelical Protestantism has been warped by slavery, racism, and capitalism. All Christian religion in the US has been affected, but not as badly.
Joyce A. Tyldesley: Cleopatra (2008) – what we know about Cleopatra based on the evidence. Tyldesley places her mainly in Egyptian history, not Roman history. My post on Cleopatra was based mainly on this book.
Victor Davis Hanson: Mexifornia (2004) – I could only take 42 pages of this racist rant. I expected better of him as a historian of Ancient Greece. He could not even get the date of 9/11 right! And says that northern Europeans were the first people to settle North America. Huh?
Bob Woodward: Fear (2018) – the Trump White House as Crazytown. Positioned as a prequel to a book on Russiagate.
Barbara Cartland: Imperial Splendour (1979) – A cross between “War and Peace” and a fairy tale.
Ken Grimwood: Replay (1986) – if you could go back in time and relive your life, it would not turn out as well as you would expect. Partly because you would be concerned about the wrong things, like getting rich or trying to change history.
James Baldwin: If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) – I am rereading this now and falling in love with it all over again. It comes out next week as a film directed by Barry Jenkins, he who gave us “Moonlight” (2016). James Baldwin + Barry Jenkins should be amazing. We shall see.
Timeline:
- before 1950: 2
- 1950s:
- 1960s:
- 1970s: 2
- 1980s: 1
- 1990s:
- 2000s: 3
- 2010s: 5
– Abagond, 2018.
Source: Images mainly from Goodreads.
See also:
- books
- Josephine Baker
- Maya Angelou
- Hinduism
- Jehovah
- White Evangelical Protestants
- Russsiagate update
- 9/11
- Reading War and Peace
528
books i read twlight and heartlend haha
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May I recommend Fifteen Dogs — a novel by Canadian writer André Alexis. “Published by Coach House Books in 2015, the novel was the winner of the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2015 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, as well as the 2017 edition of Canada Reads.”
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Michael Eric Dyson’s What Truth Sounds Like is on my Audible wishlist. If Beal Street Could Talk has been sitting on my shelf for years. I guess i will pull it out soon.
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I could only take 42 pages of this racist rant. I expected better of him as a historian of Ancient Greece. He could not even get the date of 9/11 right! And says that northern Europeans were the first people to settle North America. Huh?
LMAO!!!
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I would be interested in reading Reconstructing The Gospel. Because those evangelicals are a warped bunch.
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It is remarkable that a book of semi-religious poems won Rabindranath Tagore the Nobel Prize all the way back in 1910. He probably deserved it anyhow.
Today, with millions of Indians working abroad, as well as those at home with access to the internet, there is a lot of gang voting by them in favor of their compatriots in competitions of every description which allow electronic votes via phone or PC.
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