Books Acquired Recently: Post-Holiday Edition, Part II

As I mentioned in my previous post, I ordered a bunch of books with some holiday cash that I received. More of them have arrived the past two days.

Knisley, Lucy. French Milk. 2007. New York: Touchstone, 2008.

Koch, Kenneth. Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? Teaching Great Poetry to Children. 1973. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

Nielsen, Kim E. A Disability History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2012.

Ortiz, Paul. An African American and Latinx History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2018.

Wong, Alice. Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century. New York: Vintage Books, 2020.

Books Acquired Recently: Post-Holiday Edition

I ordered a bunch of books with some holiday cash that I received, and they have begun to arrive.

Bronski, Michael. A Queer History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2011.

Crispin, Jessa. The Dead Ladies Project: Exiles, Expats, and Ex-Countries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Febos, Melissa. Abandon Me: Memoirs. 2017. New York: Bloomsbury, 2018.

Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi. Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018.

Travisano, Thomas. Love Unknown: The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop. New York: Viking, 2019.

Books Acquired Recently: Holiday Gift Edition

I received a number of books as holiday gifts. They encompass many of my usual interests: queerness, Latinidad, poetry (especially haiku), tarot, and memoir. I’m glad I still have a month of break left in which to read them!

Christmas, Jillian. The Gospel of Breaking. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020.

Epstein, Robert. Pandemic Haiku: Living Through COVID-19. West Union, WV: Middle Island Press, 2020.

Foster, Tonya M. A Swarm of Bees in High Court. Brooklyn: Belladonna*, 2015.

García, Elizabeth. Healing Memories: Puerto Rican Women’s Literature in the United States. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018.

Greer, Mary K. Mary K. Greer’s 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2006.

Machado, Carmen Maria. The Low, Low Woods. Illustrated by Dani and Tamra Bonvillain. Burbank, CA: DC Comics, 2020.

Nezhukumatathil, Aimee. World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2020.

Books Acquired Recently

Baker Swann, Julia. The Moon is Always Whole. Telford, PA: DreamSeeker Books, 2020.

Baker Swann is a Mennonite writer whom I have gotten to know via several Mennonite writing events over the past few years. I am very excited that her first poetry collection has just been published.

Smith, Zadie. Intimations: Six Essays. New York: Penguin Books, 2020.

I picked up this slim (97 pages) volume while doing some brief in-person holiday shopping at my local bookshop. I am obsessed with literature being written and published about the pandemic during the pandemic (there is definitely a book of literary criticism there if I can ever find the time and energy to write it, haha), so the first line of the book’s blurb–“Written during the early months of lockdown”–had me hooked. Smith is donating all of her royalties from the book to antiracist and pandemic relief organizations. I appreciate that she has chosen to extend the book’s activism in this way.

Books Acquired Recently

Serano, Julia. 99 Erics: A Kat Cataclysm Faux Novel. Oakland: Switch Hitter Press, 2020.

I enjoy Serano’s nonfiction and decided to buy her new novel about a bisexual protagonist when I heard about it on social media. I was able to order a signed copy directly from her website.

Vatsyayana. Kama Sutra. Translated by A.N.D. Haksar. New York: Penguin Books, 2012.

Someone I know asked for a copy of the Kama Sutra as a holiday gift. While researching different editions to decide which one to buy them, I discovered that there is a Penguin Classics deluxe edition available. I decided to buy a copy for myself because I am a sucker for Penguin paperbacks and because I thought it would be interesting to read the original text (though obviously in translation) rather than the bedside adaptations I am familiar with.

Books Acquired Recently

Elgin, Suzette Haden. Native Tongue. 1984. New York: Feminist Press, 2019.

I recently read about this feminist novel in Amanda Montell’s book Wordslut and it sounded fascinating, so I decided to order it. I read it as soon as it arrived and enjoyed it.

Hernández, Robb. Archiving an Epidemic: Art, AIDS, and the Queer Chicanx Avant-Garde. New York: New York University Press, 2019.

I’ve been meaning to buy this book since it came out last year, and finally got around to it. I am interested in it because of its emphasis on queer archiving.

Books Acquired Recently

Knisley, Lucy. An Age of License: A Travelogue. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2014.

I frequently teach Knisely’s book Relish: My Life in the Kitchen, and decided to check out some of her other work. I settled on An Age of License because I miss traveling.

Pashley, Jennifer. The Watcher. New York: Crooked Lane Books, 2020.

I love Pashley’s fiction and was very excited to hear that she has a new novel out. It takes place in upstate New York near where I live, which makes it even more enticing.

Books Acquired Recently

Renk, Kathleen Williams. Vindicated: A Novel of Mary Shelley. Brooklyn: Cuidono Press, 2020.

Renk was one of my graduate school professors, and Vindicated is her first novel. Frankenstein is one of my favorite novels, so I look forward to reading this work about its creator.

Working Class History, ed. Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance & Rebellion. Oakland: PM Press, 2020.

This book by a group that the back cover describes as “an international collective of worker-activists” is a date-by-date history of various worldwide acts of activist resistance. I think I will begin reading it on New Year’s Day and read it throughout 2021 as a form of inspiration for thinking about how I can live an activist life.

Books Acquired Recently

This is the rare Books Acquired Recently post where none of the books are queer or Mennonite 😮

Laymon, Kiese. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays. Rev. ed. New York: Scribner, 2020.

I love Laymon’s memoir Heavy, and thus have been meaning to get to this collection of essays, which was first published in 2013. When I saw that a revised version with new essays was out, I was like “it’s time,” and bought it immediately.

Londoño, Johana. Abstract Barrios: The Crises of Latinx Visibility in Cities. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020.

I got a promotional email about this book and ordered it a few weeks ago because Duke University Press is having a 50% off sale until next week. By the time the book arrived I forgot that I was waiting for it, so… maybe I buy too many books, haha. But I was very excited when it came and I look forward to reading it.

Rosenthal, Amy Krouse. Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal: Not Exactly a Memoir. 2016. New York: Dutton, 2020.

I recently read Rosenthal’s Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life and loved it, so I decided to buy this follow-up to it. One of the reasons I enjoyed Encyclopedia is that it was written when Rosenthal was about the age I am now, so it was interesting to read someone else’s thoughts about the beginning of middle age. I’m interested to see what a memoir dealing with the beginning of one’s fifties looks like so that I can start preparing myself.

Books Acquired Recently: Just in Case Edition, Part Two

As I wrote here a few days ago, “I recently panic-ordered a bunch of books that might get censored if the Orange One stays in power, which thankfully looks like won’t happen!” The last of these books have now come in.

brown, adrienne maree. Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2019.

Smith, Mychal Denzel. Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man’s Education. 2016. New York: Nation Books, 2017.

Spivack, Emily. Worn in New York: 68 Sartorial Memoirs of the City. New York: Abrams Image, 2017.