Rekindle
Great Book Finds, and One That Got Away
“There is a saying in book collecting: You only regret the books you don’t buy.”
How She Did It: On Penelope Fitzgerald, Writing, and Women at Work
Fitzgerald was ground down, I imagine, consumed by how to take care of her family. This didn’t make her any less the thinker, writer, reader, that she was.
What I Learned from Maxine Hong Kingston
I told Kingston how much her book meant to me as a half-Chinese woman, as a writer. It showed me my own life was worthy of examination, even exaltation.
Where the Stars Are Strange: J. R. R. Tolkien and Me
“The best books show us who we were when we first read them, who we are now, and who we may yet become.”
Your joyful inner burning
I was shocked at how cold it was, as the shadow of the moon fell across the sun today. My whole body started to contract and collapse, as the solar energy dimmed. I found myself, without even thinking, offering a prayer from my heart to the sun. I told the sun I was sorry for […]
On Reading Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72” in 2017
“There are those who fail to realize how deeply Thompson cared about his country. He was a product of it.”
How to Read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Americanah’
“I am three days aged in Lagos and cry as my fingers turn the first page.”
Raymond Briggs and Me; or, The Banality of Evil for Children
Briggs didn’t create the monster lurking under the bed, he just told us it was there.
Reading Underwater: Reckoning With Myself as a Woman of Color Amid a White Literary World
“My reading trajectory hadn’t equipped me with how I saw myself.”