by Oyinkan Braithwaite
★★★★½
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After
by Clemantine Wamariya, Elizabeth Weil
A peripheral impression from this vital autobiography is of Clemantine’s sister Claire not seeing her as a full person in their experiences together, and how most adults don’t treat children with recognition, of having the universal capacity for pain and insecurity and dreams, and as equally … Read more
Practice Makes Perfect: French Conversation
by Eliane Kurbegov
It’s excellent to have grammar, vocabulary, and idiomatic phrases in context. Well-formatted and easy to breeze through.
Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City
by Tanya Talaga
★★★★½
Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist
by Franchesca Ramsey
The parts that are memoir are effortlessly readable. Franchesca is open and self-deprecating about the lifelong process of learning. The activist content is as titled, mostly introductory. There are some odd moments, regarding possible obsessions. Overall, it’s relatable, light-hearted, and revealingly bold.
Alter ego + 4 : Méthode de français
by Marine Antier, Joëlle Bonenfant, Gabrielle Chort, Catherine Dollez, Michel Guilloux, Sylvie Pons
Although the formatting/layout of each page is generally way too busy, it has engaging up-to-date readings, plenty of exercises, sample DELF tests, and charts of grammar in use. There’s also a CD-ROM for listening practice but I don’t … Read more
The God of Small Things
by Arundhati Roy
Kerala and nearly all of the characters expand into three dimensions in a story that weaves between past and present and addresses class and patriarchal structures, colonialism, family dysfunction, and the beats of a butterfly’s wing. It’s cluttered however with poetic turns of phrase that founder and repeat … Read more
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race
by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Above moments of distractingly patchy writing, this is an important work on Black British history and discourse on racism and oppressive structures in Britain and beyond.
Severance
by Ling Ma
★★★★½
An Unkindness of Ghosts
by Rivers Solomon
I liked the big picture of the story and the identities of the characters—women of colour, neuroatypical, queer, non-maternal. The pacing was lurching, however, with some episodes feeling out of place, others unfinished, while others still went on too long, like with the multiple flashbacks of misogynist role … Read more
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
by Robin DiAngelo
★★★★½
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story
by Hyeonseo Lee, David John
★★★★½
The Song of Achilles
by Madeline Miller
★★★★
Dear Fang, With Love
by Rufi Thorpe
★★★
Lakota Woman
by Mary Crow Dog, Richard Erdoes
★★★★
Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults
by Laurie Penny
★★★½
Where Locals Hike in the Canadian Rockies: The Premier Trails in Kananaskis Country Near Canmore & Calgary
by Kathy Copeland
The categories were helpful, including rainy day hikes and kid-friendly hikes. GPS coordinates to trailheads would have been convenient, as the directions were generally unclearly described. Incidentally, the ‘Mt. Rundle, South Summit’ hike is marked EEOR (East End of Rundle) at the trailhead.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
by Harriet Ann Jacobs
★★★★½
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
In place of exploring identity and belonging, or the transformation of tradition, or class privilege, or a human voice, The Namesake is bogged with unremitting descriptions of everything in a room. Across generations the characterisation is flat and, like in Amy Tan’s novels, the American generation is the … Read more
Nobody Knows My Name
by James Baldwin
★★★★½