Diversity

Book #26 Book: Go Tell It: How James Baldwin Became a Writer Author: Quartez Harris Source: Library loan Format: Print (picture book) Pages: 40 Duration: 03/12/25 – 03/12/25 (1 day) Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, biography, picture book, art, writing, childrens, African American, LGBT

📕10-word summary: Rare children’s biography about an African American and LGBT person. 🖌6-word review: A lyrical, beautifully illustrated picture book.

💭Lyrical quote: “The first time James Baldwin read a book, the words clung to him like glitter.”

Description:* Before James Baldwin was a celebrated novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and activist, he was a boy who fell in love with stories. Words opened up new worlds for young Jimmy, who read and wrote at every opportunity. He ultimately realized his dreams of becoming an author and giving voice to his community, and in doing so he showed the world the fullness of Black American life.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.

Thoughts: This was one of 3 books that I saw in an article reviewing 3 recommended children’s picture books about African-American people: 1) And She Was Loved: Toni Morrison’s Life in Stories, 2) Go Tell It: How James Baldwin Became a Writer, and 3) Dream a Dress, Dream a Poem: Dressmaker and Poet, Myra Viola Wilds. I was curious to see how a children’s book would (or wouldn’t) address the fact that James Baldwin was gay, and I suppose it was “age appropriate” that it wasn’t mentioned at all as part of the main story. It is covered in a back-matter section called, “More About James Baldwin,” which noted: “As a young adult, Jimmy began to reckon with his sexual identity. He was queer and felt romantic love toward both men and women, which was an aspect of identity that was rarely spoken about publicly during that time. That silence made him feel alone.” The back matter also contains short “A Note from the Author” and “A Note from the Artist” sections. This book is beautifully illustrated.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Book #22 Book: And She Was Loved: Toni Morrison’s Life in Stories Author: Andrea Davis Pinkney Source: Library loan Format: Print (picture book) Pages: 48 Duration: 03/06/25 – 03/06/25 (1 day) Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: nonfiction, biography, African American, poetry, picture book, childrens, art

📕10-word summary: Author Toni Morrison’s life beautifully honored in poetry and pictures. 🖌6-word review: Brilliant accomplishments. Understandable poetry. Glorious art.

💭Compelling quote: “You, Tony Morrison, first-of-the-first brown-skinned bosses, bringing color to an all-white literary landscape.”

🎓Some new-to-me words: griot, gutbucket

Description:* From imaginative child to visionary storyteller, Toni Morrison was a fiercely inspiring writer who helped change the world. This poetic picture book is part love letter and part biography, praising the power of this Nobel Prize winner. With its tender refrain, readers will know how much Morrison’s stories — and their own — mean to the world. She was loved — and so are they!*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.

Thoughts: This was one of 3 books that I saw in an article reviewing 3 recommended children’s picture books about African-American people: And She Was Loved: Toni Morrison’s Life in Stories, Go tell it: how James Baldwin became a writer, and Dream a dress, dream a poem: dressmaker and poet, Myra Viola Wilds. I didn’t expect this one to be poetry, but thankfully, it was very accessible poetry. I knew that Toni was a Pulitzer Prize winner (1988), but I didn’t know (or remember) that she’d also won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1993) and that President Obama honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012). This book is beautifully illustrated.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Book #19 Book: The Rules of Fortune Author: Danielle Prescod Source: Free Frist Reads download Format: Kindle Pages: 293 Duration: 02/28/25 – 03/02/25 (3 days) Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, mystery, thriller, African American, family

📕10-word summary: Family faces hard truths in wake of businessman patriarch’s death. 🖌6-word review: Good story. Good pacing. Hopeful ending.

💭Compelling quote: “Casual dress is a privilege for those given the benefit of the doubt. It is for people who will be accepted without question, and that’s not you.”

🎓Some new-to-me words: senescence, bicker, boater hat, quiddities, bouclé, B-roll, kente, diapason, rubicund, inosculated

Description:* On their Martha’s Vineyard estate, the Carter family prepares to celebrate. But when the billionaire patriarch dies right before his 70th birthday, the media is quick to question the future of the multi-industry conglomerate that makes the Carters living legends. Amid the succession crisis, his daughter, Kennedy, is questioning her father’s past. Kennedy is an aspiring filmmaker, and the documentary she’d planned to present at her father’s party begins an inquest into the life of a man she never really knew. As a twisted history emerges, the fault lines in the family grow. Torn between morality and the promise of maintaining wealth, Kennedy must decide what’s most important—the Carter legacy or exposing the shocking truth of how it was built.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.

Thoughts: I liked how each chapter was from one character’s perspective, and essentially rotated through the members of the family at the center of this story. A scene about “a request form to ensure the chef and housekeeping staff were aware of everything from who liked to sleep with socks on, to who liked their bacon extra crispy,” reminded me of a spreadsheet that my work team created once for an off-site retreat that involved several nights during which some of us would have to share a hotel room: “We’ve started a spreadsheet to note preferences such as “needs white noise,” “likes it cold,” “snorer,” “not a morning person,” etc. Well, it quickly devolved with added columns, such as: “potty-trained,” “litterbox-trained,” “nude sleeper,” “never-nude sleeper,” “needs arm rub to fall asleep,” “needs bedtime story + song,” “needs bedtime story only,” “AM radio,” and “cuddler.” And the memory made me chuckle. I enjoyed reading about “the Black experience” attending Princeton, and a couple of times thought of a book I read last year, The Last Negroes at Harvard,” to which there was an allusion in this book, in fact. There are some good thoughts in this story about capitalism vs. humanitarianism.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Book #17 Book: Turbulence Author: David Szalay Format: Print Pages: 145 Duration: 02/24/25 – 02/25/25 (2 days) Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: fiction, short stories, travel, flying, interconnectedness

📕10-word summary: The ripple effect on each other of 12 mostly strangers. 🖌6-word review: Quick paced. Nice surprises. Wonderfully interconnected.

💭Compelling quote: “What she hated about even mild turbulence was the way it ended the illusion of security.”

🎓Some new-to-me words: muezzins, fug, tiffin, escutcheon

Description: A woman strikes up a conversation with the man sitting next to her on a plane after some turbulence. He returns home to tragic news that has also impacted another stranger, a shaken pilot on his way to another continent who seeks comfort from a journalist he meets that night. The journalist’s life shifts subtly as well, before she heads to the airport on an assignment that will shift more lives in turn. In this novel, Szalay’s diverse protagonists circumnavigate the planet on twelve flights, from London to Madrid, from Dakar to Sao Paulo, to Toronto, to Delhi, to Doha, en route to see lovers or estranged siblings, aging parents, baby grandchildren, or nobody at all. Along the way, they experience the full range of human emotions from loneliness to love and, knowingly or otherwise, change each other in one brief, electrifying interaction after the next.* *From goodreads.com’s synopsis.

Thoughts: During a recent after-lunch stroll with my friend Jen, through Barnes & Noble looking at books, sharing what we’ve read, and trading recommendations, she recommended this author to me. This book of his was readily available at my library, and I loved the premise. As it turns out, though, Jen recommended John Scalzi — and has never read anything by this author! But now that she’s read my review of this book, she’s adding it to her to-read list. Too funny! I loved how each of this book’s chapters was around a flight, whose chapter title comprised the flight’s departure and arrival airport codes, and after the first chapter, how each featured someone who was somehow connected to the person in the previous chapter. There were a couple of nice surprises; for example, when you didn’t know how someone at the beginning of a chapter was connected to anyone in the previous chapter, and it was revealed in such a way that all of sudden you figured it out or it became obvious. I also liked when a character seemed unlikable or unsavory in one chapter, but you found out why they might be that way in the subsequent chapter. (It reminded me of Stephen Covey’s 5th habit: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood®.) If I’m remembering correctly, only the first story involved literal and figurative turbulence, the others having just the figurative sense of it — turbulence in the character’s lives. Also, I thought the ending was brilliant. I will probably put this forth as my Mostly Social Book Club book when it’s my turn again to chose one.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Book #15 Book: The Answer Is No Author: Fredrik Backman Format: Kindle Pages: 68 Duration: 02/19/25 – 02/19/25 (1 day) Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, short stories, humor, novella

📕10-word summary: Man who doesn’t like people very much overdoses on them. 🖌6-word review: Smart satire. Overdone hyperbole at times.

💭Compelling quote: “Therefore, to avoid your neighbors, you have to make yourself uninteresting, but not too uninteresting, because that makes you interesting.”

Description:* Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and Pad Thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.

Thoughts: Until this book of his, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with this author. I read A Man Called Ove in 2017 and with so many metaphors and similes (several of them in one paragraph at times), the writing became distracting enough for me to abandon the book. Then in 2023, our Mostly Social Book Club read Anxious People, and I absolutely loved it! I’m happy to say I really enjoyed — albeit just short of loving — this book. I thought that at times, although it sounds redundant, the hyperbole was over-the-top — to approach being just plain silly. I’m also turned off when (professional) reviewers describe a book, like many did about this one, as “hilarious” or “laugh-out-loud funny,” because humor is so personal and subjective. With all that said, it was a short, fun read, and I’d definitely recommend it. I chose this book as my November 2024 First Reads offering, which provides free early access to an editor’s pick from Amazon Prime.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Book #14 Book: All the Lovers in the Night Author: Stuart Turton Format: Audiobook Pages: 224 Duration: 02/18/25 – 02/19/25 (2 days) Rating: ★★★★☆ Genres: fiction, Japan, Japanese literature, literary fiction, Asian literature, Romance

📕10-word summary: A glimpse into a mid-thirties freelance copy editor’s inner life. 🖌6-word review: Sometimes great, sometimes excruciating protagonist’s dialogue.

💭Compelling quote: “As long as you’re living on this planet, you have to be serious about something, but it’s better to be serious about a limited number of things.”

Description:* Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyuko stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward, and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life and decides to do something about it. As the long overdue change occurs, however, painful episodes from Fuyuko’s past surface and her behavior slips further and further beyond the pale.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis.

Thoughts: I saw this book in my BookBub email, and it sounded interesting, perhaps because the protagonist was a copy editor. I went back-and-forth between not liking and liking this book, and ended up on the “like” side, as per my 4-star rating. Several times, I had to tell myself that I was frustrated with the main character because she was an introvert when she sometimes either took forever to answer somebody’s questions, or just didn’t answer them at all. I found all three of the main people she interacted with during the story — Hijiri, Mitsutsuka, and Noriko — quite interesting. I also liked how this book did not have a “Hollywood ending.”

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.

Book #10 Book: The Storyteller’s Secret Author: Sejal badani Format: Print Pages: 390 Duration: 02/02/25 – 02/06/25 (5 days) Rating: ★★★★★ Genres: historical fiction, India, romance, cultural

📕10-word summary: Deep personal loss leads to self-healing and uncovering family tragedy. 🖌6-word review: “A rich, thoughtfully woven generational tale.”

💭A favorite quote: “Her stories were her only passport to places she had never been. Without them, she would be forever trapped in this village.”

🎓Some new-to-me words: Dalit, ghatiya, salwar kameezes, mangalasutra, puja, lassi

Description:* Nothing prepares Jaya, a New York journalist, for the heartbreak of her third miscarriage and the slow unraveling of her marriage in its wake. Desperate to assuage her deep anguish, she decides to go to India to uncover answers to her family’s past. Intoxicated by the sights, smells, and sounds she experiences, Jaya becomes an eager student of the culture. But it is Ravi—her grandmother’s former servant and trusted confidant—who reveals the resilience, struggles, secret love, and tragic fall of Jaya’s pioneering grandmother during the British occupation. *From goodreads.com’s synopsis.

Thoughts: I read about this book on BookBub and found it in the library, with no waiting list for it. I love, love, loved this book. It’s the kind of book that while reading, I’m thinking, “How do writer’s come up with this stuff? It may very well end up being the best book I read in 2025, and it’s only January. And it might very well become my next Mostly Social Book Club book recommendation.

See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.