Tag: History

Books

Book 911: The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison

Geoff W

Book cover of "The Bluest Eye" with Amazon Affiliate linkToni Morrison is one of those authors who have always been on my list, mostly due to the controversy around their books (stupid book banners), but I’ve never gotten around to reading them. Both The Bluest Eye and Beloved were on my The Classics Club list I created back in 2012 and I picked up physical copies sometime after that.

When Morrison passed in 2019, I told myself I would read her works and it took me this long to get to them thanks to always being distracted and just not making an effort. Both are relatively short so ended up on my Rando Book Selector spreadsheet using randomly generated titles from roughly 60 books to slowly chip away at my TBR pile and The Bluest Eye came up as I was planning for a recent vacation and here we are.

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Books

Book 840: Saint-Exupéry – Stacy Schiff

Geoff W

Book cover of This one has been in my TBR pile for over a decade. Seriously, it’s been there since 2010 when I heard Schiff speak at the first Boston Book Festival. The one I really wanted to purchase at the time was her biography of Cleopatra, but couldn’t afford it.

I ended up waiting to read it until I could get a digital copy (don’t want to mess up that signature) and the last dozen or so times the library had one I either didn’t have the time or was feeling meh about reading a biography. This time however, after building up so many advance posts I figured I had the time and wanted to read some nonfiction so here we are.

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Books

Book 835: Legendborn (Legendborn Cycle #1) – Tracy Deonn

Geoff W

Book cover of "Legendborn" with Amazon Affiliate linkI was on hold at the library for months to get this one! I vaguely remember it being released, but didn’t realize it’s connection to UNC Chapel Hill (my undergrad) until I saw the cover and Deonn in one of the alumni newsletters and then of course immediately had to read it, but was stifled by the long hold times :’-(

I wasn’t only drawn to it because of the UNC connection, but also because of the modern retelling of Arthurian legends. I knew this was going to be a fascinating take on them with a Black protagonist, southern history, secret societies, and the first public university in the country, how couldn’t it be!

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ARC, Books

Book 819: Kill Switch – Adam Jentleson

Geoff W

Book cover of I heard about this book on NPR’s Fresh Air, and didn’t know quite a few of the facts they shared so immediately reached out to the publisher.*

Jentleson was very open that he had a bias, being a former aide to Democratic majority leader Harry Reid, but I felt he presented all the facts and stories without too much bias. Honestly, I was impressed with how balanced Jentleson was able to talk about everything and ultimately explain Democrats were forced to play the game the southern white supremacist senators have created just to get things done. And it’s irrefutable the line he’s drawn from the slave holders to the January 6th insurrection.

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Books

Book 803: Sixpence House – Paul Collins

Geoff W

Book cover of "Sixpence House" with Amazon Affiliate linkThis has been on my Kindle since February 2013 and really it should’ve stayed there. UGH.

I distinctly remember purchasing it because it was about books and specifically takes place in Hay-on-Wye (Wikipedia), the book lovers Mecca on the boarder of Wales and England where one of the largest book festivals in the world takes place and there are over two dozen bookshops for the fewer than 2,000 full time residents. How could you go wrong, right?

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