What I’m Reading This Year, Part Two

Friday, I shared the first half of my Reading Women challenge list for 2020. This is the second half - it includes the book I’ve struggled to finish (Frida) as well as two current events books that play into the Me Too movement and document two very different perspectives on chaining the culture around sexual assault, both well worth the read.

13. A book by an Arab Woman

Celestial Bodies (not started)

14. A Book Set in Japan or by a Japanese Author

Pachinko (not started)

15. A Biography

Frida

I’m totally slogging through this one. I keep putting it down, choosing something else, finishing it, and coming back to it. Frida Kahlo is interesting but I’m just not into this book. It’s slow. I chose this because we had a trip planned to Mexico City and I love to read before traveling to contextualize the sights. I find that deepens the experience. I don’t know if part of my resistance to this book stems from my disappointment about that trip being cancelled..perhaps it’s not the book itself. I want to learn more about Frida as an icon of feminism and an artist, but this may be the book that I have to force myself to finish, which I usually don’t do. I’m not going to let one book stand in the way of finishing this challenge. You can just hear me talking myself into it.

16. A Book Featuring a Woman with a Disability

El Deafo (not started)

17. A book Over 500 Pages

The Flight Portfolio (not started)

18. A book Under 100 Pages

Yayoi Kusama: From Here to Infinity (not started)

19. A Book that's Frequently Recommended to You

She Said

This is the incredible story of the Harvey Weinstein story, told by the journalists who broke the case. Fantastic book, and a great way to experience the news stories in long form. Really long form…it’s long but gripping so I didn’t really notice.

20. A Feel-Good or Happy Book

A Wrinkle in Time (not started - can you believe I’ve never read this?)

21. A Book about Food

On Spice

This was interesting - it covers spices and their history, cultural uses, myths, and uses. I just finished it, and I’d like to make a couple of the recipes at the back to round out my experience of the book.

22. A Book by Either a Favorite or New-to-You Publisher

A Place for US (not started)

I don’t really pay attention to publishers, something else I realized as I was preparing this list. So I had a hard time with this, because I don’t ever choose a book by a publisher or frankly notice who the publisher is.

23. A Book by an LGBTQ+ Author

Patsy (not started)

Planning to read this in June, since it’s Pride Month.

24. A book from the 2019 Reading Women Award Shortlists or Honorable Mentions

Know My Name (in progress)

Wow - Chanel Miller is a badass. She was the unnamed victim of Brock Turner - you remember the case. She is so much more than that, and I hate identifying her as the victim, but just to give you an idea of what the book is about I need to. She is also a talented writer and artist (I love to follow her on instagram for her drawings and writing and you should too).

The thought that keeps repeating for me as I read is that our criminal justice system is oppressive in so many ways for so many people, growing out of hundreds of years of inequality for women and BIPOC. This book isn’t about racial inequality in criminal justice, but I’m in the middle of it right now, and it’s hard not to draw lines from the design of the system and the harm it does to women to the design of the system and the harm it does to blacks, and how all of that ties back to our history of using government structures to marginalize women and BIPOC. It is so heavy to listen to her tell how the system itself furthers trauma to female victims and protects the perpetrators, much like it is sorrowful to witness repeated stories of police brutality toward black Americans and the subsequent protection of the perpetrators.

We need dramatic reforms to protect all people, including women and people of color, and to hold accountable those who are guilty of harm, even when they are white men.

BONUS:

25. A Book by Toni Morrison

26. A Book by Isabel Allende

I don't know if I'll get to these, but I would love to read both authors (again). It’s been a long time for both, and I rarely re-read anything.