August was a bit of a quiet book reading month. I did catch up on my New Yorker Magazine stash but I was slow in actually finishing books. Here’s the short list:
What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing- Oprah and Bruce Perry. I like Oprah. But I LOVE me some Dr Bruce Perry. Perry is the author, along with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog...And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook -- What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us about Loss, Love, and Healing. I like Dr Perry so much that I don't even mind that this book title is a question that I think is just as problematic as "what's wrong with you?". Why? Because this book is as solid as everything Perry has ever done. Stories, science, compassion on every page. Oprah just helps Perry do his thing and make it more accessible. Also, if you are an Oprah fan you'll love all the tender personal stories from her too. The book unravels as a Q&A between Perry and Oprah. So, so good. This is a must-read, y'all.
The Eating Instinct- Virginia Sole-Smith. Non-fiction. Sole-Smith's view have been helpful to me as a parent (she talks a lot about kids and eating) but also as a woman who has restricted food in different ways in the not so distant past. But I love food and LOVE to eat! Sole-Smith debunks ALL the diet culture and wellness garbage in a calm, no nonsense voice that is also reassuring. She also echoes my longstanding line "you're not to blame, it's not your fault" throughout this book. So yay for that! This book is a great primer on food, eating, why diets don't work and more.
Beyond The Kingdoms- Chris Colfer. Fiction. All right, all right, I'm reading fantasy fiction for juvenile readers. But it's REALLY good! My daughter is into this series and I read the first three to be able to talk with her about them. But it's this book, book 4, that got me hooked. It's not just fun storytelling, it's history, travel, good and evil and mystery.
The Cancer Journals- Audre Lorde. Non fiction. In 1977, Black, lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde underwent a modified radical mastectomy. She was 44. Lorde stopped her other work to start The Cancer Journals, part manifesto, part memoir. It can be hard to imagine now with October's pink ribbons looming but there was a time when breast cancer was a shameful, silent secret. Lorde was not down with that, y'all. She wanted to reimagine breast cancer not as a marker of shame or disgrace, but as a sign of triumph in a great battle, and to“translate and politicize the private,” Lorde biographer Alexis de Veaux writes. The Cancer Journals is classic Lorde in all her gutsy, vulnerable beauty. Read, discuss, share.
What I stopped reading:
Crying in H-Mart. I waited for this one for months. But I couldn't not notice how terrible the mother was to the daughter. Whether it’s ignoring, minimizing and mocking her pain or injuries when she gets hurt as a little kid or the verbal abuse and emotional manipulation as a teen, it’s jarring to have mom’s behavior glossed over. But it also feels dishonest on the part of the author. The author had a mental break in high school but there’s no awareness or connection of how mom’s parenting may have brought that on. It’s a rather wild disconnect. After 60 pages in, I’d had enough. :/
Do you miss what I read in July? Click here. Got something to recommend? Click here.
Note: each book’s hyperlink above leads you to an affiliate link on Bookshop.org, not Amazon. if you click and buy from that link, I will get a few pennies.