Perfect Tunes

 

I had high hopes.

I read it in a single day on two flights.

I was disappointed.

Sometimes, it's that simple.

Emily Gould is a relatable writer who builds strong characters I can relate to. She started with a great premise: a single mom struggles what to reveal to her daughter about the girl's father, who was a musician with whom her mother had a brief relationship. He died and became something of a music legend.

It could have been a story about moms and daughters. It could have been a story about hereditary depression. It could have been a story about the way the world idolizes the dead. Instead, it tried to be all of those things and fell short.

Not much else to say. I didn't HATE it, but I didn't particularly like it either. At least I didn't spend a week before I figured that out.

How the Word is Passed

 

"How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?"

Read this book. Just order it, go check it out, download it on your magical book-reading device, whatever. But, read. this. book.

I had read quite a bit about Clint Smith's book before I checked it out, but I was honestly worried it would read too much like a text book. I could not have been more wrong. Smith's writing is eloquent and beautiful and in stark contrast at times to the horrific stories that he reveals (he describes his grandma's voice as sounding like the front porch of a home where everyone you love is inside. Are you kidding me??) 

This book should replace what all of us learned in school about slavery. It should be required reading.

In Smith's book, he sets out to reveal the real history about slavery in America, most specifically in places where it has somehow faded into the background. The story is told through visits to places like Monticello, the Angola Prison in Louisiana, and the House of Slaves in Senegal. What we find through his writing is that most of what we've all been taught is the surface history of slavery in this country. We've largely ignored, for example, that much of what Wall Street is built on was once slave markets and burial grounds. 

I have talked to so many people about this book and I keep giving away key lessons and key parts. I want YOU to read it, though. To see how even the people trying to tell the full story of slavery have managed to manipulate it for their own purpose. I want you to read about the conversations Smith has with white women at Monticello about their thoughts on Thomas Jefferson. I want you to picture black men working the fields in Louisiana - not in the 1800s, but now - in a state prison where their labor is still a commodity. 

I want you to know what the tour guide means when she tells people on her tour of slavery sites in New York City "Don't believe anything if it makes you too comfortable." 

I want you to read it so we can talk about it - with each other and with everyone else. 

The Mercies

 

Ooh, this book had some PROMISE! And, in some ways, it delivered. I could have done without much of the middle, but the beginning and the end were wild and fascinating and that probably makes the whole thing worth it.

This book is based on a true event that happened in the 1600s in Norway. A storm wiped out most of the men in a small fishing village, leaving the women to fend for themselves. What happens when they do is a testament to the power of women, the struggle to overcome and - wait for it - accusations of witchcraft!

Just as the women in the village begin to recover and take on the tasks previously only done by men, a man comes along to "govern" them who happens to have a history burning witches in Scotland. His agenda and the agenda of those who brought him there quickly upends the lives of these women and the community.

The books is powerful. It gets VERY graphic. And, despite being set in the 1600s, it's really readable. It got a little sloggy in the middle, but the ending will stay with me for a very long time.