Book Worm

I love books.

I don't get a chance to read as much as I'd like to anymore, but there are ten books I could read again and again.

Thursday Ten Spot

My Ten Most Favorite Books

• Rabbit's Lucky Number Pearson Lee (surprise, surprise!)

Set in Brooklyn 1986, a young girl is raped by a family member and then forced to keep the ugly secret. 20 something years later, she learns he's raped another teenage girl and now she has to decide if the family breadwinner (who is now famous) should stay protected by her silence or if he should have to pay the piper. I love this book because it captures the essence of BK when hip hop was new and exciting, it shows Rabbit's transition from bubbly before the rape and sullen afterward; and how it affects all her relationships.  Funny, sad, poignant, and fast-paced. Just like how I like my books.

• The Book of Night Women Marlon James

A Jamaican Slave Narrative. The language and dialect is so engrossing that it was hard to not have an accent when I was done reading. The beauty of this book lies in the history, of course the language, and the complicated mindset of the characters: The cunning, the lies, the search for freedom, the cowardice, the self preservation, the survival, the strength, the cruelty of slavemasters, the confusion of being a slave, being made love to by your master or being your master's child, the obeah (black magic), and the acceptance and/or rejection of God. 

• Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Subtlety is an art well practiced by Marques. Words like angry, sad, ecstatic are not present here. However I always knew what each character was feeling, where they'd been, their uncertainties and vulnerabilities never stated outright, but prepared as a feast for me to feed upon and savor. <--- prose, baby! Fermina chooses stability in Juvenal (could be translated as juvenile? though he seems the more stable and mature of the two) over the love of Florentino at a young age. Florentino is somewhat of a stalker, but his love is so pure, it's kind of hard to be mad at him. She ultimately goes back to him in their old age. Whether for true love, or need for companionship, is not exactly clear to me...I need a re-read!

•  The Red Tent Anita Diamant

The biblical (though fictional) story of Dinah (Jacob's daughter with Leah) told from a woman's perspective. The Red Tent was a place for women to congregate during their monthly periods and to give birth,and support one another. I liked the color of this book and the way the way the regular lives of the women are portrayed.

• Breath Eyes Memory Edwidge Danticat

Sophie, a new Haitian immigrant arrives in Brooklyn and has to figure out how to make this work. Struggling between her Haitian identity and American culture, she has to learn who her mother is, finds out she is the product of a rape, suffer through her mother's nightmares, and is also traumatized in the process. This book paints vivid pictures of the marketplace in Haiti, the apartment in Brooklyn, their relationships and the trauma of life when people have been dealt a bad hand. 

• Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe

Okwonko is so proud and fearsome a warrior, however cursed with a son that is too much like his own father, who he believes to be lazy. he is then given an adopte son, but it turns out he must be killed (and it is Okwonko, who does it though he was instructed not to.) In the mean time, when exiled, he learns the whites teaching Christianity have permeated their villages. For all that he does and tries to control, trouble finds him and things do indeed fall apart at his feet. Masterful. 

• The Coldest Winter Ever Sister Souljah

This is the book that really let me know I could write a story in my time. I can't simplify it as a crack tale gone awry, as I would most of the other 'hood books' that followed. The characters were developed well, and I enjoyed the full circle of the story. Winter was headstrong in her convictions and paid for them dearly; Midnight was gallant, though flawed in his line of work; her mother was the quintessential crackhead, who used to have it going on.  As much as Winter loved her mother, her shallowness would not allow her to ackknowledge her especially in public. Real.  I also enjoyed how Sister Souljah put herself in the book and registered as a regular person doing extraordinary things. Not gloating or patting herself on the back. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

• The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini

I love, of course, the setting in the Middle East during the fall of Afghanistan's government. But more than that, I love Amir's struggle to do the right thing, which he loses regularly; and Hassan's genuine and forgiving nature despite Amir's constant betrayals. A wonderful story of cruelty, class struggles, redemption and finding peace within oneself.

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 

Again, the transition of a man from 'ordinary' Malcolm Little (though he never seemed to be) to greatness. Malcolm X's service to Blacks is exemplary. However his service to Allah superceded all he'd learned coming to Islam and produced an icon.

• The Jester James Patterson

A Medieval love story, (paralleling the Crusades) that I could read one hundred times and not be bored. Hugh is clever in disguising himself as a court jester to avenge his wife Sophie's supposed death, though he finds out she hadn't been dead all the while. All in all, he eventually finds love in Emilie (his social superior) and they live happily ever after. I'm a sap for happily ever after...:o)

The ULTIMATE STORY BOOK...

The Bible

There is not a story that has ever been told that is not found here.  Lies, treachery, robbery, sacrifice, honor, songs, advice, and love.

That's my dime plus a penny, good people! What are your faves?

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