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Prairie Lotus
Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park The racist and derogatory nature of the Little House on the Prairie books has been criticized by authors,...
aolundsmith
Feb 7, 20213 min read
12 views
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Memorial
Memorial by Bryan Washington If I were to compare Bryan Washington’s debut novel to parts of speech, it would be to nouns and verbs...
aolundsmith
Feb 2, 20212 min read
3 views
1 comment
Spirit Run
Spirit Run by Noé Alvarez Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been running. I started with the aim of running a half marathon and, once I...
aolundsmith
Dec 2, 20203 min read
4 views
1 comment
God's Shadow
God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World by Alan Mikhail Though God’s Shadow is the first book...
aolundsmith
Oct 31, 20202 min read
3 views
1 comment
Big Friendship
Big Friendship by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman When, in the course of one week, this book appeared all over my Goodreads page’s ad...
aolundsmith
Oct 12, 20205 min read
10 views
1 comment
Luster
Luster by Raven Leilani Review by Chelsey Kimberly I don’t read a lot of Millennial fiction, or I should say I haven’t yet. Despite...
aolundsmith
Sep 17, 202014 min read
22 views
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Lose Your Mother
Lose Your Mother by Saidiya Hartman “What place in the world could sate four hundred years of longing for a home? Was it foolish to long...
aolundsmith
Sep 2, 20202 min read
4 views
1 comment
Patsy
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn This is an oceanic novel: holding the minute and the massive, the mysterious and the mundane, moving with all...
aolundsmith
Aug 4, 20202 min read
3 views
1 comment
Belonging
Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug While a graphic memoir as opposed to a work of narrative political...
aolundsmith
Jul 30, 20202 min read
3 views
1 comment
How We Get Free
How We Get Free edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Compiled by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Combahee...
aolundsmith
Jul 23, 20203 min read
4 views
1 comment
Parable of the Sower
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler The best shorthand for how I felt about Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower is that I...
aolundsmith
Jul 11, 20203 min read
2 views
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Bitter in the Mouth
Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong I’ve been thinking a lot, in the weeks since George Floyd’s murder, about the enveloping quality of...
aolundsmith
Jun 23, 20203 min read
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The Intuitionist
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead The Intuitionist actually made me doubt what I even knew about the world at points. Set in the...
aolundsmith
Jun 8, 20202 min read
11 views
0 comments
Hurricane Season
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor A stream of dark, fricative shapes fill the page fully, almost suffocatingly, like a crushing mob of...
aolundsmith
May 17, 20202 min read
2 views
0 comments
The Knockout Queen
The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe Friendships can be every bit as intense, queer, grotesque, riddled with the aftershocks of trauma,...
aolundsmith
May 8, 20202 min read
5 views
1 comment
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy First, there is birth. With no control, one becomes a person amongst people. Some kind...
aolundsmith
Apr 29, 20203 min read
3 views
1 comment
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman I enter every book I read hoping that it will in some way change me. And most of...
aolundsmith
Apr 28, 20202 min read
60 views
1 comment
How to Be an Antiracist
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi A book with such a title promises much—certainty, guidance, a sort of moral compass— but...
aolundsmith
Apr 15, 20203 min read
5 views
2 comments
Other Voices, Other Rooms
Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote Truman Capote’s first novel begins with the arrival of young Joel Knox in the fictional...
aolundsmith
Mar 27, 20204 min read
6 views
2 comments
The Parker Inheritance
The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson As we grow older, disillusionment becomes an increasingly familiar feeling. Whether the...
aolundsmith
Mar 22, 20203 min read
8 views
1 comment
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