June Reads
Getting back on track so the rest of the year I can (hopefully) get these out on the last day of the month. Here’s the books I read in June.
Read — 5 stars
Recommended by — the author gave a craft talk at my last MFA residency. He also an alum of the same program.
Matthew Henry writes about being a Black student and then a Black teacher in predominantly white classrooms. These poems felt like a master class in word choice, restraint, metaphor, and imagery. I didn't realize I was holding my breath through many of the poems until I exhaled sharply at the last word.
Listened - 3 stars
Recommended by Erin Strybis
Mary Karr's masterful way of crafting sentences is what kept me listening to this book. I think I would have preferred reading over listening so I could really sit with the language, word choice, and sentence structure. Some of the sections felt a little long, and I wonder if I just got distracted listening and missed key hooks that would have made the story feel more urgent to finish.
Listened - 5 stars
Recommended by the Essential Creative Nonfiction list from my MFA mentors
This might just be a perfect autobiography. Maya Angelou writes with a self-awareness that few other writers have achieved. She can make you laugh, cry, rage against the world and praise the beauty in humanity all at once. If you can, I definitely recommend listening to the audio book so you can hear Angelou read her own words in her gorgeous voice.
Read - 5 stars
Recommended by Katie Blackburn
Well, I can't stop thinking about breathing through my nose now. This book was fascinating and a really easy read for this type of nonfiction.
Read - 3 stars
Recommended by June book club* pick (I’m in 2 book clubs —not the Crying in H Mart one)
I am not typically drawn to thrillers, but I think I’m glad I read this one? It’s more of a decades-long investigation into character and why people make the choices they do than a true edge-of-your-seat thriller. The short chapters made the pace of the book feel more urgent which helped since it spanned such a long period. It started to feel a little long about three-quarters of the way through. I think there were too many places I had to suspend disbelief for me to give this more than 3 stars.
Listened - 4 stars
Recommended by Krista Tippett in an OnBeing interview several years ago and #48 on the Readers Choice NYT Top 100 List
Any long-form book written by a poet is sure to be full of gorgeous language, and this book was no exception. Ocean Vuong crafts sentences that made me gasp as I listened. I would be walking with my headphones and have to pause the audiobook to say the sentence out loud, just to hear how the words sounded. This book captures a heartbreaking and honest story of one young man's coming of age, but the lyricism in the writing is even more captivating than the story itself.