Rhena Writes

Tag: book-review

  • No. I do not remember my favorite childhood book.

    Daily writing prompt
    Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?
    View all responses

    I do remember reading books. And I do remember specific books. I do remember the smooth crisp pages of, for example, Goodnight Moon. I remember sitting on the edge of the bathtub within a hand’s reach of a roll of toilet paper as I cried through certain pages of Where the Red Fern Grows (if you know, you know). And it was at a rental beach house where I similarly cried over Bridge to Terabethia. I can remember the school librarian’s particular way of turning the pages on picture books and the resonance in my dad’s chest as he read to me on the green chair in the living room. I know that it was The Trumpet of the Swan that one of my grade school teachers was reading to us when we got to go outside to listen to the story on one of the first suitable days of spring. But, for the love of me, I cannot remember the plot of the book at all. I know that I pictured the bathroom in the house I grew up in next to in the part of Stuart Little when Stuart retrieves his mother’s wedding ring.

    I’m fairly certain that it was reading Stuart Little that set me off on reading The Rescuers and The Borrowers. There’s just something about tiny creatures repurposing small household items for their own purposes. I’m sure it was that particular appeal of tiny objects that made The Toy Shop Mystery and The Doll House Mystery also enchanting.

    Apparently, EB White was quite popular because I definitely remember reading Charlotte’s Web. Although I think that I really only remember the details of the plot now because I’ve read it aloud to my children as an adult.

    But I don’t remember one in particular book as my favorite. It’s all just as well. It’s the way I truly do not have a favorite child.

    As is made apparent in yesterday’s blog post, (which was in response to the prompt to name three books which had an impact on me) I’m more widely read now that I’m an adult.

    Over the past week, I also wrote about jobs that I’ve had (Would a job by any other name smell just as sweet?) and how I unplug (from said jobs or from the internet?).

    The other three posts from this past week are quite short, but writing them spurred some breakthroughs for me about myself, life, mental health, and how to think about certain struggles.

    The first makes the case for centering myself, loving myself, and being my own best friend.

    The second is about the joy that arises when I trust my future self.

    Lastly, I thought about fear which, as an anxious person, is quite a feat in and of itself. But in the writing, I discovered a personal hack for cutting fear off at the knees in Starve Fear, Feed Joy.

    A one minute audio blog of a native English speaker, spontaneous, unplanned, and bare bones.

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    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. Even though I post daily, I only send out a once a week summary email like this one to subscribers. Thank you!

  • Three …er… Seven Books

    Daily writing prompt
    List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?
    View all responses

    I’m sitting here trying to narrow it down to three books. Because after all, what book that I’ve read hasn’t had an impact on me one way or the other? Isn’t that the point of reading? To be changed by it?

    I’m also sitting here thinking about choosing three books that will make me look cool, or smart, or “in the know”.

    And then I’m thinking about the three books I’m currently reading on paper, e-reading, and listening to.

    They are, in paper, Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson. I always appreciate books that take apart the so-called accepted conventions of the academic world.

    On my e-reader: Where They Last Saw Her by Marcie Rendon. I’ve just started this, but Marcie Rendon is one of my favorite authors. Each time I’ve started a new book in her Cash Blackbear series, I feel as though I’m getting caught up with an old friend.

    And, finally, I’m listening to Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence. I’m just getting into this book. I’ve also been working more seriously on my language learning right now and this book is the perfect companion to this kind of work — providing motivation for putting in the time and effort to something that doesn’t necessarily feel immediately useful.

    Because certainly in this moment, those are the ones that have the greatest impact on me. Or perhaps it’s the last three that I completed?

    Which were, on my e-reader, the Dreamblood duo logy by NK Jemison. (This includes The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun.) I wrote about this book in a previous post about dreaming. I definitely will be re-reading these in hard copy form. I find reading books I can engage more deeply with the text than on an e-reader.

    In hardback book form: Where Rivers Part by Kao Kalia Yang. It’s a stunning memoir written in her mother’s voice. It made me a better parent and mother.

    This is from a few months back, but Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals really made an impact on me. Specifically, it helped me make sense of what it meant to be sick with breast cancer.

    OK. This is more than three books, but books happen to be something I’m excited about. Check out my early posts with more Book Recommendations. If I wrote about them, they impacted me in some way.

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    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. Even though I post daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!

  • Book Rec: On Thriving by Brandi Sellers Jackson

    Over the past year, I’ve been on a lot of difference medications, more than I think I’ve ever been on at one time in my life. I’ve spend part of three of the last four mornings trying to deal with my latest prescription: getting it filled, getting it paid for (yes, I have private insurance but apparently they don’t cover everything), and getting the instructions for taking it. Turns out, one of the drugs requires an EKG before starting and follow up ones after you’ve been on it for a while so now I’m trying to figure out how to get a copy of my last EKG to the prescribing doctor.

    But Oh Lord! the only thing more painful than trying to untwist the knots that comprise our health care system is writing about it. So I won’t. Instead, I’ll write about the prescriptions that I’ve received from bibliotherapist Emely Rumble (aka Literapy). How grateful I am that her lists of suggested readings don’t require an EKG or hours on the phone trying to get them filled!

    I got to enjoy a lunchtime talk by Emely Rumble in The Sanctuary (just another reminder of all of the amazing benefits of being a member of this virtual community for women of color) last year and her excitement about books and connecting people to just the right reading was infectious (see what I did there?). Emely has her own book titled Bibliotherapy in the Bronx coming out in the spring. I was inspired by her comments about how she had to push for the title of her book. I’ve read that some publishers don’t like to have place names in titles because… well, I think it’s just because publishers are going to have their elitist ideas about a lot of things and assume readers and buyers are the same way. As someone who loves to read about what it’s like to grow up and live in specific neighborhoods and as someone who can relate to a feeling of pride about the place you come from, I’m drawn to her title. I’ll for sure be getting a copy in April. In the meantime, she has loads of resources on her website for people interested in bibliotherapy, including book prescriptions.

    I found my current read On Thriving by Brandi Sellerz-Jackson on one of Emely’s lists. The subtitle is “Harnessing Joy Through Life’s Great Labors.” My first thought when I see the word “labor” is that I want to stay far away from it. I mean, labor is work and, honestly, I’m not looking for more work. Sellers-Jackson’s four great labors are relationship, mental health, grief, and being othered. I realized that these are labors that I’m already going through by the very nature of being human. And who couldn’t use a little guidance on “harnessing joy” through all of that? Certainly not me. And Sellers-Jackson proves to be a gifted guide. Her stories are not only beautifully told, but deeply personal in a way that cracked open my own vulnerabilities as I was reading.

    A couple of quotes that struck me:

    “[Self intimacy] is knowing and deciphering our voice as our own apart from others and those around us, finding it at its youthful genesis and unearthing it even when it is buried deep within the silt.” (P.17.)

    “[We] will find ways to be the most intelligent person in the room, not because we necessarily want to be, but because if we are, we can protect ourselves from those who possess the potential to cause harm.” (23.)

    Phew! These were just two sentences of many dozens that made me pause for a moment to realize, “she just unlocked some truths that I’ve known but never been able to acknowledge or express for myself.”Bibliotherapy indeed!

  • The Gift of Books

    Two weeks ago, I had 57 unread books on my shelves. Here’s what I’ve learned since then: it cost me 60 bucks and two newspapers for my eleven year old wrap them each individually, number them, and create corresponding “tickets” on scraps of paper within a specified time frame.

    I saw this system of randomizing your reading many years ago on Instagram or some other social media. At the time, I probably scoffed at it. “What a waste of paper! Just pick a book and read it!” But the idea hung around somewhere in my brain until I was 57 books behind on a bad book buying habit with an 11 year old eager to earn some cash and with a passion for gift wrapping whilst watching “Only Murders in the Building” with her mom.

    Here’s how it works. All the unread books (or at least the ones that aren’t in boxes in the basement) are wrapped up in paper. She then labelled each with a number, which is then also put on a small piece of paper. I keep all the numbered papers in a small box. When I’m ready to start a new book, I pick a number and read the book. This saves me from fussing around when I’m trying to decide which book to read next. And I’m a notorious fusser. Besides, making decisions is exhausting and I’d much rather spend that decision making energy on something more meaningful, like which murder mystery series to watch with my daughter next.

    “But why do you wrap all of them in newspaper?” my husband asked. Maybe you too have the same totally reasonable question.

    Two reasons. One, if the books are just sitting out, unwrapped, make no bones about it, I’m going to get distracted by them. I’ll go to retrieve my randomly chosen book and “Ohhhhh… look at this one with the pretty cover and pages and words….” and before you know it, I’m three chapters in before I realize that this is NOT THE SYSTEM I DEVELOPED! And then I have to go back to the chosen book. A few weeks or months later when pretty cover book is randomly chosen, I will have already read a few chapters and it will be very confusing. The second reason the books are wrapped is so that they can be unwrapped. Who doesn’t like unwrapping a book? It’s like a little gift to myself each time I pick a new one.

    So far I’ve picked two books. The first ended up being The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. It’s a stunning book. My most measures, I’ve had a varied education in terms of what was “assigned” reading in the different schools I’ve attended. I continue to be shocked and kinda pissed off when I keep finding books that weren’t assigned in school. I mean, I’ve taken at least a few literature classes across various levels and I honestly cannot remember being assigned any James Baldwin. It’s a travesty.

    The second book I picked was volume 124 of the literary magazine Bamboo Ridge. I’m currently about a quarter way through it and it’s lovely. I’m so glad that I ordered it (and another handful of Bamboo Ridge volumes) some months ago in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep. My present in-need-of-personal-and-local-stories-and-poems self thanks my past insomnia self. For many reasons (although mostly that indigenous Hawaiians have asked tourists not to) I will not be visiting Hawaii any time soon. But the writing in this journal is so much better than visiting a place where I would only ever get to experience it as an outsider, a tourist, someone extracting and not giving. I feel like I’m experiencing real Hawaii (and real life) as I’m reading it.