K's Books

I read this book for the first time a decade ago and immediately fell in love with it enough to buy my current copy. This was actually banned in my elementary school library, along with Matilda by Roald Dahl! I was 10 when the Harriet the Spy and Matilda films came out, and they were wildly popular in my class. On average, everyone in that school lagged behind in reading and the teachers complained about how irritating it was to help us (gee, I wonder why everyone struggled reading); so when we asked if the library could carry the books, the teachers told us no and that we should watch the movies instead because then we didn't bother them!   Even though I was 30 the first time I read this book (and Matilda, which I appreciated but not nearly as much as Harriet The Spy ), I've reread it at least 4 times since then. It's like I'm making up for lost time. Harriet is a difficult character, she insults people for their appearances constantly but a more considerate protagonis...

I was excited to jump right into this after finishing Fahrenheit 451  as Bradbury and Asimov were contemporaries. Although the authors were  similar, within the genre of scifi written by white men shortly after WWII the two books are very different. The former rebellious, human-centered, pessimistic and the latter thoughtful, machine-centered, and cautiously optimistic. I read both books for the first time within a couple years of each other, but for drastically different reasons.  The first time I watched Terminator 2 I was 12 and it made me cry hysterically; years later I understood the emotional impact of watching two self-sacrificing "parents" in the film while my parents neglected me. I watched the film shortly after my mother banned me from watching animation (except The Simpsons), telling me that a good husband wouldn't want a wife who watched cartoons, and I needed another fantastictical escape. Sci-fi became that escape where I tried to find the emotional connect...

Warning: spoilers Like many Americans my age, this book was required reading in school. I believe 8th grade, definitely before high school. I didn't get it, the only scene that stuck out enough to me to remember was when Montag read a poem to his wife and her friends and one of them them burst into tears.  I read the graphic novel version a decade later, which I really didn't like as I thought the visual depiction took away a lot from the story. But that was when I decided to purchase a copy of the novel for myself, even though I didn't read it until now.  Part of reading this in middle school was teachers & parents chastising us, the students, for being very similar to the characters in the book (not the protagonist). We did strongly prefer to watch TV, we stayed inside most of the time, we didn't explore or create, we were very shallow... that's how we were raised! Matilda and Harriet The Spy we're banned from the school library not because of their conten...

I got this huge box yesterday, so I finally unpacked my books and organized most of them in chronological order (bottom left to the right, then top left to right, I realize that's a weird way to do it but it was physically the easiest way). My very large books, such as The Beatles Anthology , are still packed and will be until I get shelves. I organized more into another box too:  A few months ago I created the spreadsheet of all my books and was surprised to see the layout of all the publishing years: only one book from the 1940's, a bunch from the mid-80's, etc. The titles are just words on a spreadsheet, having them physically laid out like this brought many surprises. The Invention of Women and Pomosexuals  are very different books on the same topic and there they are side-by-side in 1997! The Feminine Mystique beside The Autobiography of Malcolm X in '64/'65 but the latter seems light-years beyond the former - even though I read both wh...

I'm bending the rules of my project and not rereading this series now. I reread the entire series a little bit over a year ago, and frankly it's not in me to read them again so soon. Although I grew up on the bizarre animated version of The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe (watch it if you can find it, the professor's cat is stoned beyond description), I didn't read them until I was in middle school. I discovered a lovely box set in my mother's attic and enjoyed them so much that the night after I finished the last book, I dreamed that I found a secret 8th book in the series and read it immediately. That box set is what I own now, and it's very meaningful to me. I was raised in a very strict Catholic environment, so even though I knew the books were heavy-handed allegories of Bible stories, that didn't strike me as odd or annoying (that was most of the media that was around me at that time!). It helped that my dad praised my love of the books, rare positi...

The sixth book I'm reading in my library and the first nonfiction. I read this for the first time after college, mostly while riding the L, and had been intimidated by its dense material.  It's somehow even more dense now, and I finally have the context to understand just how white this book is. I'm grateful that it was published at its time and I can see how influential it's been, but it was an exhausting read. This book is a far cry from Their Eyes Were Watching God, a much more grounded and relatable book.  Also.... and this will come up again in the future...I DON'T CARE ABOUT FREUD!!!!  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/457264.The_Second_Sex 

I was in middle school the first time I read The Hobbit and have reread it many times since. The copy I currently own was in my mother's basement long before I was born. It's still a delightful fantasy that took my mind off current concerns, a much beloved book.  Despite owning a physical copy, I actually listened to the audiobook instead. Except for The Yellow Wallpaper , all the books I've reread thusfar have written dialects; I wanted to read rather than hear American Southern dialects, and I had no preference for British dialects. Most of my books don't exist in audiobook form at all, so this was a rare pleasure. When I created the spreadsheet of my private library, I was surprised to discover that Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Hobbit were published the same year! Both involve The Hero's Journey, although the protagonists, settings, and scopes are vastly different. Although Bilbo has been a very famous character for decades, I find Janie from Hurston...