Tag: TreesofReverieBookishChallenge

Blog, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie June 2016 Readathon Day 5

Day Five, Wednesday, June 29:

(All times are Brisbane local time)

This is the Day 5 Update post for the June 2016 Trees of Reverie Read-a-thon.

My To-Be-Read List:

  1. Wintering by Megan Snyder-Camp — FINISHED! 72 pages, 4 stars
  2. The Gunnywolf by Megan Snyder-Camp — FINISHED! 76 pages, 4 stars — ran through this one in an hour or two; the initial response is positive, but more detail will have to wait for a second read-through of both books and writing the review for publication.
  3. [insert] boy by Danez Smith — FINISHED! 116 pages, 5 Stars
  4. Time on Two Crosses: the Collected Writing of Bayard Rustin by Don Wiese [ed.] (Current page: 47 of 365; change: 28 pages)
  5. UNeducation, Vol 1: A Residential School Graphic Novel by Jason EagleSpeaker (Current page: 28 of 99)
  6. Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
  7. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Current page: 68 of 391)
  8. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
  9. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (Current page: 391 of 1225; change: 36 pages)

Sped through The Gunnywolf. Planning to go back for a second, closer read of this one and Wintering, since I need to write a review of them together. Read some of Time on Two Crosses, between packing boxes and running errands. Really feeling the time crunch to July 1st, but reading is a good relaxation, and I think I need that.

 

To see all Read-a-thon posts, go here.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Advertisement
Blog, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie June 2016 Readathon Days 3 and 4: Spine Poem and Quotes

Day Three, Monday, June 27 & Day Four, Tuesday, June 28:

(All times are Brisbane local time)

This is the Day 3 and Day 4 Challenges post for the June 2016 Trees of Reverie Read-a-thon.

 

Day 3: Spine poem! This is always my favorite challenge, basically.

She flees Wildwood
Little Red in the City
Half Magic
among The Oathbound
seeking Asylum

A Reckless Beauty
she Sees the Water Rise
The Sparkle in the Grit
The Secret School

Of Two Minds
calls Necessary Fire
against The Witches and wolves
A Monstrous Regiment
their Blood and Chocolate
The Silver Kiss
The “Comforts” of Home

“I Feel This
Truth
by Shackle and Sword
by Lion’s Blood
by That Hideous Strength
I will build Brave
a New World”

2016-06-27 21.22.32 HDR

Here’s audio of me reading this poem.

 

Day 4: Quotes

This is possibly my favorite set of lines in Hamilton, sung by Aaron Burr: “I am the one thing in life I can control / I am inimitable / I am an original / I’m not falling behind or running late / I’m not standing still / I am lying in wait!”

I love this, and have considered getting some kind of tattoo related to it. I even made a gif of the lines.

I love Hamilton, but sometimes Burr just gives me all of the feelings.

 

My To-Be-Read List:

  1. Wintering by Megan Snyder-Camp — FINISHED! 72 pages, 4 stars — Liked it. Still have to read the second book, and then I can start on the review, but that means I probably won’t share much detail here or on Goodreads, until that review is published.
  2. The Gunnywolf by Megan Snyder-Camp
  3. [insert] boy by Danez Smith — FINISHED! 116 pages, 5 Stars
  4. Time on Two Crosses: the Collected Writing of Bayard Rustin by Don Wiese [ed.] (Current page: 27 of 365; change: 8 pages)
  5. UNeducation, Vol 1: A Residential School Graphic Novel by Jason EagleSpeaker (Current page: 28 of 99)
  6. Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
  7. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Current page: 68 of 391)
  8. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
  9. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (Current page: 391 of 1225; change: 36 pages)

Spent a lot of Day 3 cleaning and sorting things and getting ready to move out of my apartment, but I took a lunch break to make a yummy smoothie and read the rest of Wintering, which I finished. Then went back to sorting, and put on the Alexander Hamilton audiobook, which I have been listening to while doing work that requires my hands. It’s pretty funny, and I spend a lot of time saying things like “well, of course he did,” and “Alexander, no!” and “seriously?! wow, okay…” (Which is how I read books, so at least I’m consistent.) Read a bit of Time on Two Crosses during my dinner break, and got through the section about the Freedom Rides, thankfully. Day 4 was about running errands, making calls, and providing emotional support, and I didn’t get much time to sit down and read. But I’m about to start The Gunnywolf, and (based on her other book) I’m looking forward to reading it.

 

To see all Read-a-thon posts, go here.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Blog, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie June 2016 Readathon Day 2: Recommendation

Day Two, Sunday, June 26:

(All times are Brisbane local time)

This is the Day 2 Challenge post for the June 2016 Trees of Reverie Read-a-thon.

 

Book Rec ToR Readathon June 2016 Day 2

If you liked… Jericho Brown’s The New Testament, consider… Danez Smith’s Black Movie. Both books reflect on Black boyhood and queer Black manhood, what it is to exist as a queer Black man in the US. Where Jericho Brown riffs on the Christian Bible and religion, Danez Smith uses the lens of films and popular media. There’s tribute, joy, pain, elegy, honor, and celebration. These books are hard and present and also alive and wondering, hoping and imagining. These books are wishes and dreams and tears and so much more, and if you enjoyed Jericho Brown, he wrote a glowing endorsement on Danez Smith’s newest book, [insert] boy, so you better pick up some Danez Smith and read.

For a preview, here’s a video of them performing “Dear White America,” one of the poems in Black Movie.

 

My To-Be-Read List:

  1. Wintering by Megan Snyder-Camp (Current page: 20 of 72) — Reading this and the next book in order to write a review for publication. Interesting read, so far…
  2. The Gunnywolf by Megan Snyder-Camp
  3. [insert] boy by Danez Smith — FINISHED! 116 pages, 5 Stars — Will hopefully post a longer review than what I currently have on Goodreads, which just reads “Dang. DANG.” Need to sit with this one a little longer before I have fleshed out comments.
  4. Time on Two Crosses: the Collected Writing of Bayard Rustin by Don Wiese [ed.] (Current page: 19 of 365)
  5. UNeducation, Vol 1: A Residential School Graphic Novel by Jason EagleSpeaker (Current page: 28 of 99)
  6. Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
  7. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Current page: 68 of 391)
  8. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
  9. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (Current page: 355 of 1225)

Didn’t do much reading today, since I spent most of the day running errands. I’m about to be homeless on July 1st, so that took priority, and then I spent a few hours announcing during a live broadcast for a Black community celebration here in town, which was loads of fun! About to settle in to read before bed

 

To see all Read-a-thon posts, go here.

Save

Blog, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie June 2016 Readathon Day 1: TBR List

Day One, Saturday, June 25:

(All times are Brisbane local time)

It’s that time again! I am participating in the June 2016 Trees of Reverie Read-a-thon. This is the Day 1 Challenge post.

Goals:

  • I want to write a brief review for each book I read and post it (likely on Goodreads)
  • I want to complete each of the daily updates and challenges

My To-Be-Read List (in order):

  1. Wintering by Megan Snyder-Camp (Current page: 20 of 72) — Reading this and the next book in order to write a review for publication. Interesting read, so far…
  2. The Gunnywolf by Megan Snyder-Camp
  3. [insert] boy by Danez Smith — Met Danez recently, and got this and another of their books. They’re a sweetheart, and they signed it and took a selfie with me, and I can’t wait to read it!
  4. Time on Two Crosses: the Collected Writing of Bayard Rustin by Don Wiese [ed.] (Current page: 19 of 365) — Important read for me. Paused because of anxiety; currently reading about the Freedom Rides, and it stressed me out.
  5. UNeducation, Vol 1: A Residential School Graphic Novel by Jason EagleSpeaker (Current page: 28 of 99) — Recommended by a cousin of the author. Paused because it’s a pretty hard read.
  6. Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs — have really been enjoying this series so far, and I’m excited to read this one!
  7. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Current page: 68 of 391) — Fun read, so far. Paused due to school reading taking priority.
  8. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss — I bought this one ages ago, after learning about it’s existence, and it’s been sitting in my too-read pile ever since.
  9. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (Current page: 355 of 1225) — Super excited to get back to this one. I credit it with helping me realize how much I wanted to go into studying history, and setting me on my current path, which includes studying at the University of Ghana, applying to the McNair Fellowship, and preparing for a PhD program in History.

My aspirations are always so much more than I can actually complete in the given span of time, but we’ll see how much I can get through between now and July 3rd!

 

To see all Read-a-thon posts, go here.

Blog, Book Reviews, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie Readathon: Dec15-Jan16, Challenge 1

Hi, hi!

I hope y’all are having a great new year. I’ve been keeping busy, trying to get ready for the start of the next term, getting my small press’s books into shops here in Portland, and trying to squeeze in time with friends before classes start. I’ve been writing, drawing, and reading, as well.

I’ve signed up for the December 2015/January 2016 Trees of Reverie Readathon, hoping to finish up some personal reading before I head into the term and only have time for school reading. (Which will be awesome reading, my classes are brilliant, I just also love my personal reading choices.) Unfortunately, my laptop died (on Christmas morning and everything!), so while I’ve been reading, I haven’t been able to participate in the blogging part of it — until now!

Bookish Challenge 1: TBR List & Reading Goals

TBR List

  • To continue:
    • Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
      • This book is brilliant. It’s also really long. (GoodReads says the ebook is 832 pages, though my file shows 1315 pages, so my version may have shorter pages or something.) I have no hopes of finishing this during this readathon, because classes begin Monday, and it’s a very long read. I’m currently just over 1/4 of the way through, and I love it so far. I am interested in history, and this is the kind of book I want to write someday: a funny, interesting, conversational approach to history, that engages the reader and relates facts without bogging down the narrative with strings of dates and incidents just rattled off one after the other. The style is educational, but not entirely impartial. I very much appreciate Chernow’s willingness to question the morality of choices made by the people he writes about. He does not dance around the horror of slavery, nor does he avoid acknowledging that people we consider great owned slaves. While I am a little uncomfortable with his veneration for capitalism, and I am wary of his embrace of empire, overall I think this is a brilliant, well-written book, and I’ll probably come back to it when I begin to research and write history books in the future.
  • To start/finish:
    • Washington’s Spymaster: Memoir of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge by Benjamin Tallmadge
      • I started this because I wanted to squeeze in something short at the end of the year, to boost my number for the 2015 GoodReads Reading Challenge. It ended up, however, being a lot harder to read than expected, because (to be frank) it’s kind of boring. While I love history, I prefer something more like Chernow’s style. This book is very dry, less a memoir than it is a listing of battles and actions of the US Revolutionary War, with special note of where Tallmadge was serving in relation to the main action. It also features very little mention of spying — it comes up for the first time 34% of the way through, and is not dwelt on at length.
    • Scars/Stars by Walidah Imarisha
      • I know Walidah; she teaches in the Black Studies department at my university, and I have had the pleasure of taking her History of the Black Panther Party course. She is a wonderful scholar and a brilliant poet. She co-edited Octavia’s Brood, and her story in that collection is funny and poignant. Recently, I was able to get a copy of her poetry book Scars/Stars, and I’m loving it, though it will definitely warrant a re-read. This one’s been slow going for me, as I read over each poem, annotate it, and digest it one by one.
    • Medicine River by Thomas King
      • This is actually overdue for a prior class — I never finished it during the term, and I feel a little guilty about that. I got about a third of the way through, but just couldn’t get it done then. I’ve since got about another third under my belt, and I’m hoping to power through the rest in the next week. It’s a funny read, but I’m struggling with it for some reason.
    • MARCH Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, & Nate Powell
      • I happened to come across this at Powell’s Books recently, and snatched it up. I read the first volume a couple months back, and loved it, and I can’t wait to settle down with this and get into it. The previous one was well-written and beautifully illustrated, and I don’t doubt that this one will be as well.

Bookish Goals for 2016:

  • My GoodReads 2016 Reading Challenge goal is 60 books. That’s 10 more than last year’s goal, and double my 2014 goal. I think I can make it happen.
  • I would love to write up reviews of 10 books here on the blog, at least a couple hundred words per book. This is a soft goal, though, since I already have a lot on my plate this year, so it would be great to do it, and I’m not going to cry if I can’t get it done.
  • I’m in a ton of GoodReads groups who do group reads, and I haven’t actually participated in any of them, I think, so that’s another thing I’d like to do this year.
Blog, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie Readathon: Bookish Challenge #13

Bookish Challenge 13: Book Playlist!

I love making playlists. In fact, it’s one of my favorite ways to procrastinate, which is what I’m doing right now. (I have two papers to finish for school, and a whole whack of reading to do, but I’m going to make a playlist, because… uh, yolo*, I guess. *cries salty tears into my teacup*)

This time, I’ve made a playlist for The Dragon Can’t Dance by Earl Lovelace, which is a brilliant novel I read for my Caribbean lit class this term. As I’ve previously mentioned, I prefer to make quite long playlists, that I can put on as background noise while doing other things; this playlist clocks in at 2 hours and 42 minutes long, which is actually a bit on the short side for me.

The cover of The Dragon Can't Dance, which reatures white text over a photo of a Black man dressed as a devil with red wings and body paint

Most of the songs are assigned by character, with a few songs being used to express their situation at a few different points in the book, and thereby sketch a kind of arc:

  • Songs 1, 19, and 34 are for Cleothilda
  • Songs 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 17, 18, 35, and 40 are for Sylvia
  • Songs 5, 15, 21, 23, 24, 26, 31, 32, and 33 are for Aldrick
  • Songs 9, 22, 25, and 30 are for Fisheye and the Calvary Hill Nine
  • Song 27 is from Mr Guy to Sylvia
  • Song 16 is from Sylvia to Aldrick
  • Songs 8, 29, 38, and 39 are for Philo
  • Songs 11, 28, and 36 are for Pariag
  • Song 37 is from Dolly to Pariag
  • Songs 12, 13, 14, and 20 are for Carnival season

Here’s the list:

  1. We Are One by Angelique Kidjo
  2. Flora’s Secret by Enya
  3. No Scrubs by TLC
  4. Partition by Beyoncé
  5. Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi
  6. I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) by Whitney Houston
  7. I Think I’m In Love With You by Jessica Simpson
  8. Billionaire/Successful by Ahmir
  9. Pistols at Dawn by Seinabo Sey
  10. Anaconda by Nicki Minaj
  11. Tu Koi Aur Hai by A.R. Rahman, Alma Ferovic, Arjun Chandy
  12. Cheers (Drink to That) by Rihanna
  13. All Night Long by Lionel Richie
  14. Pata Pata by Miriam Makeba
  15. Turn Me On by Kevin Lyttle
  16. (소녀시대) – Run Devil Run by Girl’s Generation
  17. Glamorous by Fergie, ft. Ludacris
  18. Flawless Remix by Beyoncé & Nicki Minaj
  19. Criminal by Fiona Apple
  20. Trini Dem Girls by Nicki Minaj, ft. Lunchmoney Lewis
  21. Ribcage by Mary Lambert, ft. Angel Haze & K.Flay
  22. Bad Blood by Bastille
  23. No Air by Rissi Palmer
  24. A La Claire Fontaine by Les Petits Minous
  25. This is War by Thirty Seconds to Mars
  26. Wicked Games by The Weeknd
  27. O.M.G. by Usher, ft. will.i.am
  28. Grand Piano by Nicki Minaj
  29. Wordplay by Jason Mraz
  30. Demons by Imagine Dragons
  31. Happy Ending by MIKA
  32. Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson
  33. Angry by Matchbox Twenty
  34. Younger by Seinabo Sey
  35. The Weakness in Me by Joan Armitrading
  36. Prem Ratan Dhan Payo by Palak Muchhal
  37. Love on Top by Beyoncé
  38. Mad Season by Matchbox Twenty
  39. Marilyn Monroe by Nicki Minaj
  40. Sight of the Sun by Fun.

You can listen to it on Spotify.

 

*yolo, in case you don’t know, stands for You Only Live Once, a mantra adopted by some millenials to express their desire to enjoy life and do things that make them happy, probably in response to how thoroughly screwed we feel as we collapse under the weight of our student loans, trying to live up to the demands of our predecessors in an unstable housing market, racialized unemployment disparities, and a racialized system of gendered wage disparity, where we’re shamed for not being able to be literally in two places at once: to go to school and spend 45 hours a week in class for a degree that we shouldn’t need for the low wage work we can find, while also magically working the 48 hours a week it would cost to pay tuition (which is to say literally nothing about rent, bills, and food), and if we want to sleep 8 hours a night (not something you can really sustainably skimp on) that leaves 8 hours per week for cooking and eating and commuting and literally everything else outside of school and work. What, bitter? not me…

Save

Blog, My Writing, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie Readathon: Bookish Challenge #3

Existentialism

The wretched of the Earth are killing — rage — ending — racism
like Greek Tragedies
from a mouthful of forevers, Lucy asks ‘Ain’t I a woman?’

Black women and their
feminism: the bones, the breaking, the balm
scars / stars

she’s crossing the mangrove, seeking the will to change
says ‘men (masculinity) and love are fantasy;
the dragon can’t dance’

says ‘I’m all about love — new visions — the other side,
but where we stand, class matters’

 

photo of a large number of books spread out on a black velveteen cloak
16 books used in the creation of this time’s spine poem — click the photo to check out poems by other participants in the October 2015 Trees of Reverie Readathon.

The books:

  • Existentialism by Robert Solomon
  • The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
  • Killing Rage: Ending Racism by bell hooks
  • Greek Tragedies by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (eds.)
  • Mouthful of Forevers by Clementine von Radics
  • Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid
  • Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
  • The Bones, the Breaking, the Balm by Dominique Christina
  • Scars/Stars by Walidah Imarisha
  • Crossing the Mangrove by Maryse Condé
  • The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks
  • Fantasy by Jacqueline Furby and Claire Hines
  • The Dragon Can’t Dance by Earl Lovelace
  • All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks
  • The Other Side by Julia Alvarez
  • Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks

There’s an alternate view of the books on my Instagram, and you can listen to me reading the poem on Soundcloud.

Save

Blog, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie July 2015 Readathon Day 4: Recommended Read

Day Four, Tuesday, July 14:

(All times are Brisbane local time)

I am participating in the July 2015 Trees of Reverie Read-a-thon. This is the Day 4 Challenge post.

Challenge:

If I could share and recommend only ONE book/series that I’ve read so far in 2015…

Oh, my! Just one? How do I even choose?! This is such a hard question…

Ugh. Okay, If I have to pick just one of the books I’ve read this year, I’m going to have to go with— Wow, this is hard…

Alright, I pick:

Mouthful of Forevers by Clementine Von Radics. I was invited to read my poetry at a reading she was also a part of, and though I got a bit lost and was late, I loved what I heard of hers, and after the event we swapped a copy of our own book for the other’s. I didn’t get to read it until a week later, though, when I devoured this book over the course of a flight from Oregon to Alaska for a debate tournament, and I made my teammates read my favorites, and gesticulated a bunch and was very, very excited.

(Warning for profanity.) Continue reading “Trees of Reverie July 2015 Readathon Day 4: Recommended Read” →

Blog, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie July 2015 Readathon Day 3: Book Playlist

Day Three, Monday, July 13:

(All times are Brisbane local time)

I am participating in the July 2015 Trees of Reverie Read-a-thon. This is the Day 3 Challenge post.

Challenge: Book Playlist

I take playlists really seriously. I prefer a playlist you can put on and leave in the background for hours; most of my playlists range from 3 to 12 hours. I love sitting down to spend a couple hours combing through music to find a list that works well together, conveys the feeling of the book/ship/show/concept/etc. that the list is dedicated to. Continue reading “Trees of Reverie July 2015 Readathon Day 3: Book Playlist” →

Blog, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie July 2015 Readathon Day 2: Spine Poem

Day Two, Sunday, July 12:

(All times are Brisbane local time)

I am participating in the July 2015 Trees of Reverie Read-a-thon. This is the Day 2 Challenge post.

Challenge: Spine Poetry

Today’s challenge is to create a poem using book spines. Here’s what I came up with:

2015-07-11 22.13.04 HDR

Within the enchanted,
supernatural
John Winchester’s journal:
a field guide to getting lost,
a grief observed;
O, Lady of the moon
protect Octavia’s brood
from enemies below

 

 

Readathon update:

I got off to a poor start, not managing to get any reading done on Day 1 of the challenge (I was working on an article for publication, on deadline), and getting very little on Day 2, but here’s what I’ve got in so far:

 

  1. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Current page: 130 of 227; net change: 18 pages)
  2. Supernatural: John Winchester’s Journal by Alex Irvine (Current page: 169 of 217; net change: 11 pages)
  3. The Jewish Study Bible by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Eds.) (Current page: 343 of 2181; net change: 9 pages) Note: not originally listed, not technically being read for the challenge, but the challenge dates encompass two weeks of parshot (readings), and so those will be included in my page count.

Net change for all books read so far: 38 pages

 

To see all Read-a-thon posts, go here.

Blog, Read-a-thon

Trees of Reverie July 2015 Readathon Day 1: TBR List

Day One, Saturday, July 11:

(All times are Brisbane local time)

I am participating in the July 2015 Trees of Reverie Read-a-thon (I participated last July as well!). This is the Day 1 Challenge post.

Goals:

  • I want to polish off all the books-in-progress on the list
  • I want to read for at least four hours each day
  • I want to write a brief review for each book I read and post it (likely on Goodreads)
  • I want to complete each of the daily updates and challenges

My To-Be-Read List (in order):

  1. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Current page: 112 of 227)
  2. Supernatural: John Winchester’s Journal by Alex Irvine (Current page: 158 of 217)
  3. Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davi (Current page: 40 of 115)
  4. The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld (Current page: 112 of 233)
  5. Every Person’s Guide to Judaism by Stephen Einstein and Lydia Kukoff (Current page: 78 of 179)
  6. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
  7. Octavia’s Brood by Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha [Eds.]
  8. A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis
  9. Wild by Cheryl Strayed
  10. A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
  11. Lady of the Moon by Amy Lowell, Mary Meriam, and Lillian Faderman

 

To see all Read-a-thon posts, go here.