And At The End Of Two...

At the start of March, my book count stands at 39, with number 40 underway. Since the last update, I have added the following titles:

34. Coal Run by Tawni O'Dell (a working class novel that I stumbled onto from a website exploring—what else?— working class issues)
35. The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu (another woman of color writer from the master list, Fu writes an unsettling novel about girls stranded on a camping expedition; it is not the stranding as much as the telling of girls' life stories before and after the stranding that makes this novel work so well)
36. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (this was a recommendation by my friend David, who has not read it, and one I probably would not have come across otherwise. You have to buy into the very unconventional style of the book, but once you do, it's smooth reading. And I loved the ending(s))
37. I, Fatty by Jerry Stahl (excellent novel fashioned as a memoir told by silent star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, whose career was destroyed by a false allegation of a particularly heinous rape/murder; Arbuckle is the one who lured Buster Keaton (my all-time favorite actor) into the movie industry and Keaton plays a significant role in the telling of this story)
38. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (this novel about commitment, marriage, prison, and racism will break your heart and maybe, just maybe, mend it by the end)
39. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (this novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction last year and the National Book Award the year before, but the reason I read it is because it popped up in an interview about books and reading that Barack Obama gave towards the end of his presidency, an interview I read in Black Ink—Obama's description was so compelling I had to read this work)

Out of the 39 works I have read so far this year, 14 have been by writers of color. I recently saw a description of a talk called "Diversifying Your Bookshelf" and that is what I am conscientiously doing this year. Yes, it makes a difference and yes, it does involve being deliberate.

The biggest book hurdle I am facing right now is that our library is joining another library consortium, which will greatly expand the libraries from which we can draw. The hurdle? Our library's search engine, as well as individual library accounts, are inaccessible while the change is made. Arggh! I cannot see the status of books I requested before the conversion began (library staff will inform me by email if any come in) nor am I able to search for and request books while the conversion takes place. Beside my computer is a growing stack of slips of papers containing titles, just waiting for the moment our local library goes live (sometime next week, I believe...and hope).

Truly a first world problem, especially in light of the books I have been reading. I am drumming my fingers over lack of access to a search engine. And there is Booker T. Washington capturing the educational opportunities finally opened to former slaves, himself included, after the Civil War and the end of slavery: "a whole race trying to go to school..." A whole race learning to read at once.

What a moment that must have been.