My Top Book Pick of 2017: Julie Lekstrom Himes's Mikhail and Margarita

2017 was a trash fire

Well, 2017 was a trash fire, but you know what wasn't trash? Julie Lekstrom Hime's Mikhail and Margarita, published by Europa Editions. This novel is a treasure, and it was my favorite book this year. I wasn't alone in my appreciation: it won the 2017 First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, which is awarded to the year's best debut novelist.

I admittedly have a weakness for all things published by Europa Editions, and in fact have an entire bookshelf devoted to the press, but this book also appealed to one of my other bookish weaknesses: Stalin- and Soviet-era literature. One of the most classic Russian texts is Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov--a political commentary written as magical realism satire to subvert Stalin's censors and regime, and published in an uncensored version posthumously. Himes's book takes the author's life and his titular character, the beautiful Margarita Nikolaevna, and weaves a lovely historical fiction story about their relationship. I don't know how big the Venn diagram overlap is for people who like Master and Margarita and general Soviet history, but I am smack dab in the middle of it!

Timely in its subthemes of authoritarian regimes, censorship, and the power of satire and the arts, Mikhail and Margarita is a wonderfully written novel. While much Soviet literature speaks to the triumph of the human spirit, Himes's book seems to speak more to the inescapability and perpetual cycles of authoritarianism. Conceptually, this book made me feel like someone crawled into my brain and tailor-made a novel to my liking. I cannot tell you how much I dorked out about this novel when I discovered it, and without remorse I broke my 2017 resolution not to buy new books (with the intention of making a dent in my ever-growing TBR pile). While there was one rather graphic scene that I could have done without, the novel really is impeccable in its pace, vivid writing style, and literary calibre. Both entertaining and impactful, Mikhail and Margarita is truly a fiction gem, and I look forward to reading what Julie Lekstrom Himes writes next.

Himes, Julie Lekstrom. Mikhail and Margarita. New York: Europa Editions, 2017.

Punctuated Post: Anita Shreve's The Weight of Water

Read Anita Shreve they said. You'll like her, they said.

The Weight of Water takes place off the coast of Maine. So, when I traveled to Maine to a dear friend's graduation, I thought this book was a fitting pick! I love to read a book while being in the book's setting.

In a way, this was the perfect type of book to read during the hustle and bustle of travel: light and easy to dip in and out of while boarding flights and such. It has two narrative threads, one contemporary and one pertaining to a mystery from 1853. In the contemporary thread, a woman who is a photographer on a job at the island learns of gruesome murder. We also learn about the circumstances of another women, an immigrant to the area in the 1850s. An undercurrent of both narrative threads is the whodunit of the nineteenth century murder, partially as the contemporary woman finds archived letters written by the immigrant. I think the book could have been more enticing if the murderer didn't seem so obvious early in the book. While I am glad I gave an Anita Shreve book a chance, I am not sure that another is in my future soon.

Shreve, Anita. The Weight of Water. Back Bay Books, 1997.

How George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four Changed the World

On March 30, I had the opportunity to speak at a local history event. The Third Annual History Soapbox is a venue where ten people have 6 minutes each to persuade the audience that a book has changed the world. This was my humorous attempt to make a case for George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of

the Party stood out in bold capitals:

War is peace

Freedom is slavery

Ignorance is strength.

This language of opposites, you will recognize, is the Newspeak doubletalk of George Orwell's Oceania. In the novel 1984, it is the signature means by which the governance reinforces its agenda and policy to keep down the masses. Originally published in 1949, there is no dystopian classic more canonical, and no author who wished so ardently NOT to predict the future, but prevent it. Orwell spins the cautionary tale of Winston Smith's developing consciousness to the tyranny of Big Brother, the omnipresent totalitarian government, who is always watching, always manipulating. In Orwell's 1984, the Ministry of Truth erases history and the Thought Police can "disappear" you without so much as evidence or a trial. They use data mining and surveillance, which kinda explains why Republicans would want to revoke internet privacy rules. But, how can one man fight the oppressive regime? In the end of the book, epically, all are reduced to loving Big Brother.

When I first set out to craft my case that 1984 has changed the world for this Soapbox, I considered becoming goodthinkfullly fluent in Newspeak and then writing an argument completely in Newspeakese. But as I thought through this diabolically clever plan, I made an important realization: a satirical use of doubletalk does not convey humor or purpose when we are in fact living in a time of political doublespeak and alternative facts. So, instead of wit and wordplay, I shall rely on facts----of the non-alternative variety.

Fact: On this very day, Mar 30, in 1984, the US ended its participation in a multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon

Fact: In 1984, Prince's "When the Doves Cry" was Billboard's #1 song of the year

Fact: The film Amadeus won the Oscar for the best picture of 1984

Fact: These are not the first things we think of when we hear (hand motion) 1984.

What we think of is, oh, wait, was that the name of that super popular Taylor Swift album, you know the one, oh that was 1989? Okay. THEN, we think of George Orwell's book. And, this is because the most notable thing about 1984 is a book about that year, yet predates it. A book that anticipates and predicts, in an astonishingly accurate manner, the rise of a neoliberal agenda, the smoke and mirrors elements of government, and a society complicit in its own ignorance.

Unfortunately for the world, but serendipitous for my purposes here, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, is more prescient than ever after the 2016 presidential election in the US and the developments that have transpired under a Trump administration. To measure the book’s current influence, look no further than a spike in book sales that put it on bestsellers lists everywhere after Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s political advisor, absurdly rationalized misinformation the current president of the United States was dispensing by describing it as “alternative facts” a la George Orwell’s “newspeak” and “doublethink."

But Orwell’s masterpiece changed the world long before the current political climate, and that 1984 had changed the word is indisputable.

Exhibit A:  CBS's long-running hit show Big Brother, hosted by the one and only Julie Chen. Now, what other book do you know of that has inspired a prime time reality television show while simultaneously fulfilling the idea that a bunch of the populous would willingly (and enthusiastically I might add) succumb to having their free will curtailed.

Exhibit B: Twitter says so, so it must be true.

@EKKAH writes: George Orwell 1984 is one of the best books ever written. Book emoji. Heart emoji. #readabookday

@reesnathan on June 25, 2013: Happy birthday George Orwell! 1984 is still hands down the best book I ever read and it comes at a time where it's

significance is huge.

And, now I bring you to Exhibit C: This canonical book is on high school reading lists everywhere. It is often the first book to open up a young reader’s eyes to the possibilities of political dystopia and to encourage critical thinking and skepticism about the social structures around us. Due to the broad readership and accessibility of this book, it has been changing the world of its readers since its publication nearly 70 years ago.

Until now in this county, perhaps we have hoped doublespeak and Big Brother could only be a figment of Orwell’s imagination. Given current circumstances, though, this book is especially changing the world by helping inspire daily resistance against a governmental regime that has jumped out of the pages of fiction into reality.

So, esteemed judges, people's choice, when you make your decision tonight about the book that has changed the world, I invite to you consider these questions to guide you:

One: Which of these books have you actually read?

Two: What other presenter here is sporting an appropriately bookish t-shirt (which by the way, was purchased years ago)?

And lastly, what other book has ever made you so acutely aware of getting your face gnawed off by rats?

There is only one answer, and it is Nineteen Eighty-Four. And remember: Big Brother is watching.

Punctuated Post: Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven

It is not often the case that you embark on reading a best-selling book award finalist and have no idea what the novel is about. I lucked out, both in a sense that each page and plot twist was a surprise, and then in the sense that the book is premised on an epidemic. I am fascinated with epidemiology. In sixth grade, I used to read the goriest passages from Richard Preston's The Hot Zone. In college, my first major was microbiology because I wanted to become a virologist, but math is not my strong suit, so I get my epidemiological fix through books. My interest isn't even merely quite about the power of a small virus that can tear through civilization, it is about the post-apocalyptic humanity (or lack thereof) that comes with it, in books like Parasites Like Us by Adam Johnson, Blindness by Jose Saramago, Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam series, and now Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

I finished this book two years ago--exactly two years to the date I started drafting this post (oops!)--and with the benefit of hindsight I can still say that I really enjoyed this book and have recommended it on many occasions.

Mandel, Emily St. John. Station Eleven. New York: Vintage Books, 2014.

Edward P. Jones's The Known World

Happy Black History Month! When I started The Known World by Edward P. Jones last month, it was coincidental that I would be finishing it this month, but how appropriate that I'd be reading such a wonderfully powerful novel of African American historical fiction during a time we especially dedicate to the celebration of black history, and at a time when the president-elect has insulted and attempted to undermine the great civil rights hero, John Lewis, and seems to think Frederick Douglass is alive doing an "amazing job." Meanwhile, the vice president honored black history month by praising the work of a white man. Lest we ever forget the power of books, John Lewis's memoir and graphic novel trilogy sold out on Amazon when news spread about Trump's attack on the now politician. It is so important for people to engage with stories and histories that provide insight on the continuing inequalities in our government, society, and world.

The Known World among just a few other
books my TBR pile.

The Known World is set in the antebellum South as the US nears its Civil War. The plot is compelling because it complicates the history of the slaveholding south by telling the story of a freed slave, Henry, who then becomes a slaveholder. The book illuminates the varied reactions to this reality: disappointed parents who were former slaves themselves; a proud former-master who facilitates the purchase of Henry's new slaves; poor men in the community who resent that a black man has slaves while they do not. All these relationships illuminate the system that on the one hand views black people as property, but on the other hand has so engrained the idea of slavery that it can be legal for anyone to own slaves and to continue to reinforce the system.

I also celebrated Black History Month with Octavia E. Butler's Kindred and Miguel Barnet's Biography of a Runaway Slave. Next I'll be digging into Daina Ramey Berry's hot-off-the-press The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave in the Building of a Nation from Beacon Press. Don't limit reading about black history to this month--these stories and histories are crucial every day.


Barnet, Miguel. Biography of a Runaway Slave: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition. Trans. W. Nick Hill.
     Evanston: Curbstone/Northwestern University Press, 2016.
Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. Boston: Beacon Pres, 2003.
Jones, Edward P. The Known World. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.

Punctuated Post: Jonathan Safran Foer's Here I Am

Note the Arizona-themed bookmark
cross-stitched by my mother.

This book is long enough, so I will keep my thoughts to a Punctuated Post. I do not regret a single minute of the time I spent reading the nearly 600 pages of Jonathan Safran Foer's latest novel, Here I Am. In fact, most of it felt fairly fast-paced. There is a great deal of dialogue, and various narrative strategies keep the pages turning. If anything slows down the reading pace, it is the need to process some of the deep emotional episodes that sustain the book. From family to catastrophe, this book covers the gamut of heart-wrenching scenarios. And, I suppose it is this very breadth that became, in my opinion, the greatest weakness of the book. When a book is about everything, it sometimes feels like it is about nothing. Is this book about the father character, Jacob? His family? Dealing with crises? Politics and political catastrophe? Religion? Death and loss? I am never one to shy away from a long book with a complex plot, yet a can't fight the suspicion that this book would be even better if it were about just a little less.

While I would have wished for a little more focus to guide me to the core message that the author wanted the reader to walk away with, there were little literary nuggets throughout the book that served as a huge payoff for the reader. I'll end with one sentiment that resounded with me.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am, p. 493

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Here I Am. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2016.

My Top Book Pick of 2016: Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad

Hasta la vista, 2016

There were a lot of things not to like about 2016. A lot. But there was also some good interspersed among the gut-wrenching disappointments. Some of my favorite things about 2016 included my discovery of the book app Litsy (where you can find me @ReadosaurusText), Teen Vogue emerging as a serious source of political news and commentary, and it was an incredible year for the visibility and popularity of African American nonfiction and fiction. Ibram X. Kendi won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Heather Ann Thompson's Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy was a finalist for the same award and has earned oodles of other accolades. On the fiction side, we saw the Collected Poems: 1974-2004 of Rita Dove, the latest Walter Mosley, and of course Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad.

I realize that picking The Underground Railroad as my favorite book of 2016 is not especially groundbreaking--as a best-selling, award-winning, Oprah's Book Club title, it is not much of a revelation to declare this book as good and worth reading. This book is truly special, though. The Underground Railroad follows the motivations and experiences of a young enslaved woman named Cora. As she undertakes a personal journey, so does the reader, and that journey is at once difficult to read and impossible to draw away from. I read this book months ago, and Cora still says with me, the way you think back to a person you met briefly but who had a deep impact on you. The book's mix of accessible while artistic prose and a history-inspired plot influenced by the genre of magical realism leaves nothing to be desired. The book adds to the exceptional body of literature (both fictional and nonfictional) that provides a lens into the legacy of slavery. Whitehead paints vibrant pictures of the historical realities of slavery, inequity, and the quest for freedom. Some parts of the narrative are alarmingly relevant almost 200 years later. In one passage describing the policing of slaves, Whitehead writes: "The patroller required no reason to stop a person apart from color. . . . Rogue blacks who did not surrender could be shot." Sound a little familiar to how black bodies are still policed? The book's narrator goes into more detail about the systems that constantly worked to enforce the system of enslavement:

Slaves caught off the plantation need passes, unless they wanted a licking and a visit to the country jail. Free blacks carried proof of manumission or risked being conveyed into the clutches of slavery; sometimes they were smuggledto the auction block anyway. (p. 153)

Is it any wonder that such egregious racial inequalities exist today when persistent systems of violence and suppression were unilaterally sanctioned?  

Reading this book was a plethora of experiences. There was the experience of pure appreciation of the book's prose and plot. There was a huge emotional component of experiencing this book, as we follow the hardships and brutality that Cora and her collaborators endure. What also added to my experience of reading this book was a small but exciting interaction with the author on Twitter. I don't expect famous people to respond to every cray cray fan, but given how easy social networking makes it to engage with people who are legitimately engaging with literature, I really appreciated that Colson Whitehead liked one of my tweets about his book.

Exhibit A: Colson Whitehead like my Tweet!

We don't know what is in store for 2017 of course, but make sure that The Underground Railroad is in store for yourself if you have not yet read it. It is imperative that we all keep reading books that challenge our emotions and conceptions, because literature that challenges us remains one of the surest ways to expand our humanity, compassion, and knowledge. 

Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. New York: Doubleday, 2016.