Number 3 of Books That Blew Me Away

I recently reread The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) by Junot Diaz. The story of a nerdboy Dominican Republic American struggling with love and life, it holds my attention to the end. Although the fantasy and gamer jargon and the DR Spanglish may confound a reader, there are many line by line definitions to be found if you just search the title on the Internet.

http://www.annotated-oscar-wao.com/index.html

It is a heartbreakingly beautiful reflection on manhood and the essence of love. In light of his recent New Yorker article (4/16/2018) "The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma", this work is worth a deeper examination.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-silence-the-legacy-of-childhood-trauma

Number 2 of Books That Blew Me Away

Number Two

One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty (1984) spoke to me as a teen in Jackson, Mississippi.  I heard the voices in “Why I live at the P.O.” and loved to write. Miss Welty’s house was close to Belhaven College and Millsaps in Jackson so I knew she was real. My mother had seen her in the grocery store. Writer’s were real; their stories were real. My secret dream was real too.

Ten Books That Blew Me Away

This is in response to the FaceBook challenge from Patricia Spears Jones to list ten books that have blown me away.

The Spiral Dance by Starhawk was first published in 1979. I arrived in California in 1980. I can’t remember when I first read this but I remember the excitement of reading in print the Wicca life I had only heard about. Coming from a Southern Christian background, this was beyond the comparative religion classes where I read the Bhagavad Gita. After the second edition came out in 1989, I danced with Starhawk and many others under the full moon and asked for healing for Mother Earth. I have a signed copy from that night.