Books Acquired Recently: MLA Edition

This past week I attended the Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, which was held in Seattle this year. One of my favorite aspects of going to MLA is browsing the book fair, which usually has a good mix of academic and commercial publishers represented. Almost all of the publishers have sales and some give away books, so I acquired sixteen books for only $179.50 total. The Bacchilega and Brown, de Foïard-Brown and Nelson, Diaz, Quinoñez, and Vuong were free. The Erdrich, Greenwell, Smith, and Tariq were only $5.00 apiece. I would have bought more but I intentionally did not leave much room in my suitcase for my acquisitions so that I would not spend too much.

Ahmed, Sara. What’s the Use? On the Uses of Use. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019.

Bacchilega, Cristina, and Marie Alohalani Brown, eds. The Penguin Book of Mermaids. New York: Penguin Books, 2019.

Berlant, Lauren, ed. Reading Sedgwick. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019.

de Foïard-Brown, Jacques, and Marilyn Nelson. The Baobab Room. N.p.: Little Bound Books, 2019.

Nelson gave a reading on Saturday night at which she handed out ten free, signed copies of this book. Luckily, I was sitting in the front row and was thus able to get one.

Diaz, Natalie. Postcolonial Love Poem. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2020.

This book does not come out until March but the publisher was giving away signed advance reader’s copies.

Erdrich, Heid E., ed. New Poets of Native Nations. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2018.

Ghaziani, Amin, and Matt Brim, eds. Imagining Queer Methods. New York: New York University Press, 2019.

Incidentally, Brim and I presented on the same panel, Black Queer Contributions.

Greenwell, Garth. Cleanness. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.

This is the first book I have acquired with a 2020 publication date! It technically doesn’t come out until later this month.

Quinoñez, Ernesto. Taína. New York: Vintage Books, 2019.

Ruiz, Sandra. Ricanness: Enduring Time in Anticolonial Performance. New York: New York University Press, 2019.

Sanchez, Melissa E. Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition. New York: New York University Press, 2019.

Smith, Carmen Giménez. Be Recorder: Poems. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2019.

Stockton, Kathryn Bond. Avidly Reads Making Out. New York: New York University Press, 2019.

Tariq, Malcolm. Heed the Hollow: Poems. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2019.

Thurm, Eric. Avidly Reads Board Games. New York: New York University Press, 2019.

Vuong, Ocean. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. New York: Penguin Press, 2019.

 

Books Acquired Recently

Awkward-Rich, Cameron. Dispatch: Poems. New York: Persea Books, 2019.

I met Awkward-Rich at MLA last year and since then have become a fan of his work. His new poetry collection just came out and I ordered it right away.

Harris, Middleton A., ed. The Black Book. 1974. New York: Random House, 2009.

This book is famous because Toni Morrison was the Random House editor who worked on the original edition, and while doing so she read the newspaper clipping that became the inspiration for her 1987 novel Beloved, one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. I have always been interested in reading Harris’s book because of this genesis story. I recently got a promotional email about a new hardcover printing and ordered an exam copy for consideration in my African American Literature course.

Books Acquired Recently: Holiday Gifts Edition

Another holiday season has come and gone, and once again I received a decent number of books as gifts. I also received some cash that I am going to spend at the MLA book fair in Seattle next week. With one exception, the books are either queer or Mennonite, my two main reading areas, and Rodríguez and Sánchez Korrol’s book relates to my recent research on my Puerto Rican heritage.

Dueck, Dora. All That Belongs. Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2019.

Rodríguez, Clara E., and Virginia Sánchez Korrol, eds. Historical Perspectives on Puerto Rican Survival in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996.

Sachdeva, Anjali. All the Names They Used for God: Stories. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2019.

Swartz, Phyllis Miller. Yoder School: A Memoir. Telford, PA: DreamSeeker Books, 2019.

Tobia, Jacob. Sissy: A Coming-of-gender Story. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2019.

Warren, Nagueyalti. Alice Walker’s Metaphysics: Literature of Spirit. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.

Books Acquired Recently: Queer Latinx Edition

Anzaldúa, Gloria. The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader. Ed. AnaLouise Keating. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.

I’ve been reading Anzaldúa’s Interviews/Entrevistas, which is amazing, so I want to explore more of her work. I am often skeptical of authors’ “Readers” because I would rather read work in its original context, but Anzaldúa’s Reader includes a lot of work that was not published during her lifetime.

Silvera, Adam. More Happy Than Not. New York: Soho Teen, 2015.

I recently ran across an essay about this book and decided to buy it because it is about a queer Puerto Rican from New York City, a narrative that fits my own.

Books Acquired Recently

Corral, Eduardo C. Slow Lightning. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.

I was browsing at the Colgate University bookstore the other day as something to do while my partner was at a doctor’s appointment when I came across this poetry collection. I haven’t read any of Corral’s work before but have heard good things about it from my colleagues, so I decided to buy his book.

Espada, Martín. Vivas to Those Who Have Failed. 2016. New York: W.W. Norton, 2017.

I love Espada’s work and decided to buy this poetry collection because I have been writing about Walt Whitman lately and I know that Espada is also a big Whitman fan, as can be seen via the choice of the title for his book. I am about half way through it, and while it is mostly not about Whitman, it is quite enjoyable thus far.

Varghese, Ricky, ed. Raw: PrEP, Pedagogy, and the Politics of Barebacking. Regina, SK: University of Regina Press, 2019.

Tim Dean’s 2009 book Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking is one of the best scholarly texts I’ve ever read. I bought it at the 2011 MLA convention and it has played a significant role about my thinking on sexual risk ever since. I was thus tremendously excited to hear about Varghese’s collection, which is a collection of essays examining the legacy of Dean’s book on its tenth anniversary.

 

Books Acquired Recently: All Mennonite Edition

Dueck, Nathan. A Very Special Episode. Hamilton, ON: Buckrider Books, 2019.

Dueck is a Mennonite poet whom I know and his third collection of poetry just came out. I bought it right away and look forward to reading it.

Stoltzfus, Donna J. Captive. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2018.

Stolzfus’s family and mine have been friends since the 1960s. This book for adolescents is about German POWs who worked for Mennonites in Pennsylvania during World War II.

Books Acquired Recently

Blanco, Richard. How to Love a Country: Poems. Boston: Beacon Press, 2019.

I was browsing the poetry section at my local Barnes & Noble today (perhaps surprisingly, they had a rather impressive selection of new stuff along with the “classics”) and came across Blanco’s new collection. I read a few poems and enjoyed them, so decided to buy it. I’ve never read any of his poetry before even though I teach his memoir in one of my writing classes.

Irby, Samantha. Meaty: Essays. New York: Vintage Books, 2018.

This is a revised edition of Irby’s first book, which I also found while browsing at B&N. I love Irby’s second book, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, so buying this one was an easy choice.

Negrón-Muntaner, Frances. Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2004.

This book is somewhat old, but sadly not that much has been written about Puerto Rican work in the arts since then, so I feel that it is necessary to read it because part of my current project includes a discussion of Puerto Rican literature.

Books Acquired Recently: All Queer Edition

Johnson, E. Patrick. Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019.

I love the pieces of Johnson’s work that I have previously read–he may be the most important currently active black queer academic–and ordered this book as soon as it came out.

Menon, Alok V. Femme in Public. N.p.: Alok V. Menon, 2017.

I recently read about this chapbook in madison moore’s excellent book Fabulous, and ordered it right away. It is a mixture of poetry and photographs. You can order it here.

Books Acquired Recently: Poetry Edition

Jones, Patricia Spears. A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems. Buffalo: White Pine Press, 2015.

I recently read an interview with Jones in The Writer’s Chronicle, and her work sounded interesting enough that I decided to buy some of it. I am enjoying it so far.

Myles, Eileen. I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975-2014. 2015. New York: Ecco, 2016.

I’ve read some about Myles and she sounds interesting, but I have never read any of her work. I have been feeling the need for more poetry lately, so I decided to finally break down and buy one of her books.

Books Acquired Recently

Anzaldúa, Gloria E. Interviews/Entrevistas. Ed. AnaLouise Keating. New York: Routledge, 2000.

More and more of what I am interested in reading these days cites Anzaldúa, so I have been starting to explore more of her work myself. I am especially eager to read this book because I have also been investigating the role of life writing (a category which I argue includes interviews) as theory.

moore, madison. Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.

I recently ran across a citation of this book and it sounded interesting, so I decided to buy it and read it for myself.