This post doesn’t live here anymore. It migrated to my other blog:
The Big No-No: An Outsider on American Fascism,
where it resides under the title:
What Folks Have Been Reading
WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING
In the late 60s Richard Proenneke built his own cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with only a few simple tools. He spent most of the rest of his life there. Sam Keith fleshed out Proenneke's diary of his first 16 months, when he was making his home by a lake. I love these kinds of books!
An old Oji-Cree healer and her nephew canoe down a river in Canada, away from the world of white people. They both have to come to terms with their past. The woman has lost most of her tribe and the young man is traumatized from his recent experience in the Belgian trenches of World War One. My second book by Boyden. Can't say enough about him.
An incredibly comprehensive history of everything related to slavery in the Southern United States, from the beginning of the colonies to the end of the Civil War. Over 700 pages and I took over 30 pages of notes. I will be sharing over many posts to come!
Hamid's debut novel. I love this author. A young man in Lahore, Pakistan, is the victim of love, drugs, obsession, the class system and his complete lack of self-awareness.
A golem, created in Poland and brought to life on a ship to America, and a jinni who was trapped in a flask a thousand years ago and released in New York -- the most unusual immigrants you'll ever meet.
The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.
Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.
The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.
Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.
Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.
Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.
A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!
In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.
Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.
Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.
A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?
A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!
Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.
Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.
Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.
This. Explains. Everything!!!
Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?
Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.
A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.
Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.
The most unusual murder mystery I've ever read. Incredible writing. It haunted me for days.
The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.
Resident Alien -- Being Dutch in America 
Not sure I’d qualify Tarantino’s “Basterds” and “Django” as wonderful, given they are more for entertainment value rather than accurate history by any means. I was called out (thankfully) to do a dead body removal (I worked at a funeral home at the time) while watching “Basterds” and just never bothered to rent it to see what I missed. “Django” I actually enjoyed… watching some fave actors in other than their typical roles… and the fictional idea of a “Dirty Harry” slave was cool. But… there were more than a few historical inaccuracies in both films so I’d caution your readers to take to much to heart if they watch them. Your other references are very sound sources though, to be sure.
You know.. given you’ve gone this far you might want to present to your readership the history of the Ku Klux Klan, which was an important part as a result of the collapse of Reconstruction. An interesting historical tidbit… you mentioned how “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was a catalyst for abolitionist furvor in the North. A ressurgence in the Klan in the very early 20th century was due in great part to the silent film “Birth Of A Nation”, which rather depicted the Klan as a glorious organization. Even to this day.. the media plays a role in how our history is formed.
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Hi Doug, Yes, I know Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds are fiction and historically inaccurate. Nobody ever managed to burn to death the entire top tier of the SS. But it’s what everyone wants to do when they see what those bastards did, so you get to vicariously do it. The same in Django Unchained. You should finish Inglourious Basterds. Just don’t start watching it expecting a regular WWII movie. It’s meant to be a theatrical, cathartic experience. The crescendo even takes place in a movie theater.
As for the KKK, that’s a good idea. But I’ll give everyone a break first. Me too. And I’m still reading Du Bois. I want to thank you, by the way. I really enjoyed writing this series. I started with what I knew, but especially your comments kept me on my toes and I learned a lot more. I had always meant to read Du Bois, but now I finally did.
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Great list. I have 12 Years on my library request list.
If I may add one more:
Frederick Douglass’ autobiography
Anyone interested in the civil rights movement and what happened behind the scenes may be interested in Harry Belafonte’s memoir My Song
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Great! Thanks, Debra.
Yes, Frederick Douglas was also a former slave. It’s much more well-known than 12 Years a Slave was until recently.
At some point I might write more about the Civil Rights Movement.
As for slave songs: I learned from reading Hambly’s Benjamin January books that many slave songs were secret instructions for runaway slaves that might be nearby while they were working in the fields. Any song about wading in the water, for instance, could mean that whites were hunting for the runaway with dogs, so he should go through water whenever possible, so the dogs couldn’t follow the scent.
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Some of those old songs are so beautiful, too. They continue to be sung. I love how even in the worst of situations hope remains.
I haven’t read any Benjamin January books. More for the list. thanks!
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Yes, especially if you ever go to New Orleans, you should start reading one, because he (I mean the character) mentions all the streets where he walks and where his friends live and all that, and it’s all in the old part of town, so you can actually follow his footsteps and imagine which houses were placee’s cottages, etc.
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