Poignant, Powerful, Perfect Lowercase Poetry for the Soul

Titles: milk and honey and the sun and her flowers
Author: Rupi Kaur
Years Written: 2015 and 2017
Length: 204 and 248 pages
Why I chose these books: I saw pages of these books reposted so frequently on social media that I felt like I'd read them already. But I hadn't given it my full attention, and I wanted to.

Rupi Kaur's poetry is the kind of poetry that can exist independently of any context at all and still knock the wind out of you consistently. She was originally self-published! And she was born 3 years after me, in 1992. She is simultaneously intimidating and inspiring, but so tiny (I've seen her on Instagram). Her poetic voice is poignant beyond her physical years. There's not enough I can say about her art. It's never too much, and I couldn't get enough.

She has said that she writes her poetry in all lowercase letters, with minimal punctuation, as homage to her mother tongue, Punjabi. Though she can read and understand Punjabi, she doesn't have the ability to write in Punjabi, which uses the Gurmukhi script, sans uppercase letters and most punctuation.

Rupi writes about sexual abuse, toxic relationships, passionate romance and chemistry, and other topics that are easy to do the wrong way. The graceful bravery of her writing helps the reader swallow the hard pills, washing it down with the beauty and creativity of the simple pictures she paints.

Both milk and honey and the sun and her flowers are divided into chapters, but overall, they are fluid as a set. I read them back to back, and got plenty of emotion and inspiration from the things Rupi Kaur has written.

Rating: 10/10

A Quick, Troubling, Hilarious Memoir

Title: The Last Black Unicorn
Author: Tiffany Haddish
Length: 288 pages
Year Written: 2017
Why I chose this book: I needed reading material for a recent work trip and this was on the New Releases table at the airport bookstore.

When I started reading comedienne Tiffany Haddish’s new book, The Last Black Unicorn, I knew generally what to expect. I’d seen her Showtime comedy special, She Ready, and had also seen her in the movie Girls Trip and the very prematurely cancelled The Carmichael Show on TBS. Like The Rock and Leonardo DiCaprio, she’s always struck me as the type that can only play slight variations of the same character. But luckily for her, herself is a great person to play, and more entertaining and naturally charming than a lot of characters that are concocted.

I finished reading The Last Black Unicorn in two days. It was not at all a challenging read – it is obviously written for maximum ease of digestion. Tiffany Haddish has stories to tell, some of which she examines for a moral or educational takeaway, many of which she does not. Mostly, it appears as though her intent is to share the makings of her: surviving the foster care system, moonlighting as a pimp, hosting bar mitzvahs, living in her car while doing comedy, and so on. Some of these stories you’ve heard before, in standup and in interviews. As soon as you open the book, it is obvious she is an open book. The Last Black Unicorn rehashes several stories from She Ready, often with a bit more detail and introspection.

Anyway, the book was hilarious, written completely in her own voice, which I immediately admired. I analyzed all of this quickly. The grammar of the writing was edited per Tiffany’s speaking standards, often at conflict with traditional stylistic standards. As I read, I was like “Wow” – not just at the content, but at the whole concept. Haddish was illiterate until high school, and now she’d written an entire hardback book. At the same time, it wasn’t perfect English – she has a very distinct voice and personality, so editors probably wanted to keep that intact. The result is a book that is more like the transcribed version of a very long, personal, and painfully honest comedy routine than a story meant to be written. Through an upbeat overtone, powerfully dark tidbits poke through: she was beaten and molested in the foster system; her mother berated and abused her constantly; her history of relationships is full of jealousy and dysfunction.

And then I realized the book really was a transcribed version of a Tiffany Haddish comedy routine, in the most literal sense.

When the book ends, there is a page for Tiffany’s acknowledgments. After hers is a section for Tucker Max’s acknowledgments. Tucker Max? I recognized the name from a book a friend let me borrow in college, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. I quickly scanned the book again. I checked the cover, the inner flaps, the copyright page, searching for the name Tucker Max. Did I miss something – was he the co-author? In his acknowledgments, he thanked the team at Book in a Box. Then I remembered reading about this before: a company that writes your book for you. He co-founded Book in a Box, and Tiffany Haddish was a client. This damn near blew my mind. I realized at that point that Tiffany didn’t write this book at all. And I guess it made sense. She’s not a writer. She’s famous, she’s busy, she has $25,000 to spend on a team of professional ghostwriters. I checked the company’s website. It only takes 50 hours of phone conversations over the course of 7 months. They create the manuscript and develop your marketing plan. And most importantly, they write your story with your words and in your voice. If anything, I can say Tucker Max and his team did a convincing job of writing like you’d think Tiffany Haddish would write.

Anyway, this seemingly unimportant detail caused me to examine my relationship with literature, what I really liked about books, and why I probably have preferred leisurely fiction reading for as long as I can remember. I love a good story, but I’m more interested in the words a writer strings together to tell it. It doesn’t matter if the story is real or not – I am interested in the author’s style and creativity, their descriptiveness versus their brevity. Reading this book, I felt connected to Tiffany and her words, and admired her courage in being open enough to share those stories. In the end, that admiration is still strong, but I feel a little less impressed by the book altogether. It is still entertaining enough that I'd recommend it to anyone who likes to laugh, or wants a quick, engaging read.

Rating: 8.2/10

A Slow Ride Through the Complexities of Infidelity

Title: Adultery
Author: Paulo Coelho
Length: 272 pages
Year Written: 2014
Why I chose this book: I love Paulo Coelho and picked this book up at the airport on a trip.

I love Paulo Coelho. Who didn't love The Alchemist? He is a wizard with words and even more so with feelings. His personality permeates even through fiction. He is clearly a peaceful, happy man who understands what it's like to not be peaceful or happy. Not only do we battle a perceived emptiness of wealth and success (like Santiago in search of his treasure), we second guess ourselves in many ways when we consider how the realities of our happiness and fulfillment match up with expectations. There is often a circular yet treacherous journey associated with our search for these elusive goals in life. Money. Love. Satisfaction.

Adultery was not The Alchemist. It was modern, it was specific, and the protagonist was a woman. I hate to say that the representation of the female narrator was a bit unnatural coming from Coelho, but some of it may have to do with cultural and language translations. The main character in Adultery takes us through her daily life as a successful businesswoman with loving husband and two kids. Nothing is amiss until she has a run-in with an old boyfriend from high school. You can probably tell by the name of the book how the rest of the story goes.

This book is somewhat of a slow read, but has some great moments that make it worth it. As with anything you read by Coelho, you will definitely feel something along the way.

Rating: 8/10

My 2016 in Books

Three years ago, I had a lofty reading goal: to finish 50 books by year's end. I knew I wanted to spend 2014 perpetually behind the pages of a book. I was working at Whole Foods with mostly immigrant adults and teens with no clue as to what LinkedIn is. Every day on my lunch break, I'd rip through novel after novel. I was failing an attempt at grad school, which was mostly to compensate for the fact that I was a degree-holding Whole Foods cashier. So, in retrospect, maybe I read so many books because I wanted to escape, but mostly, I wanted to be better than I was. I have always been a writer, and the best way to improve your writing (other than writing, of course) is to read other writers' writing. 

A far cry from my grand total of reading 30 of 50 books in 2014, I completed a whopping TWO in 2016. That was down from five the year before. Furthermore, it's taken me months to write about them. 

These were both great books. 'But What If We're Wrong?' by Chuck Klosterman came at a great time for me. Sparing you the mind-blowing details, in the past year I've changed my outlook almost entirely. Outlook on what? Politics, religion, entertainment, news media, LIFE. I've experienced enough cognitive dissonance to fill a possibly simulated Grand Canyon. Basically, I am now open to the possibility that a huge chunk of what I thought I knew (about everything) is actually wrong. The least interesting section was about music, but Klosterman writes about a little bit of everything, so you'll no doubt be entertained by something he says. 

'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks' by Rebecca Skloot is actually a book I was assigned to read in my Science and Environmental Journalism class five years ago. I never read it until late last year, and it was so much more captivating than I expected. It is about a black woman from 1950s Baltimore named Henrietta Lacks, whose cancer cells were taken from her by a doctor and used to make medical history and financial gain that was never extended to her living family. The books raises lots of questions about modern medical practices and the racist, often unethical foundation from which they sprang. If you know anything about the beginnings of modern day gynecology, you have some idea of what I'm talking about. Skloot is a great writer, and spent many years of her life researching for this book and spending time with the Lacks family, which is apparent when reading. 

My 2016 in books was a special one, because I wrote and published my first. 

'Men' was my way of wrapping eight years of love and relationships into a slim yellow booklet of passionate prose. I have read it four or five times since it came out last April. I don't want to read too closely because I'm afraid I may find a typo. I'm also scared for the time I read it and my feelings have changed, or I feel stupid for putting something in writing that no longer holds true. The book isn't like a blog I can rescind or switch to private. Nope, it is much more bold and immovable than that. It is print! It is my attempt at timeless while being utterly bound by time. I have gotten uplifting feedback from the people who have read it, and using that momentum to create my next book, which should happen in 2017. 

Stay tuned!

Non-Fictional Fiction About An Old Guy's Crazy Sex Life

Title: Women
Author: Charles Bukowski
Length: 304 pages
Year Written: 1978
Why I chose this book: This was a contender for my book club a few years back, and I'd always been curious about it.

Charles Bukowski's Women follows a specific recipe: introduce a woman, describe her affair with the main character Henry Chinaski, then get rid of her before the next woman comes along. There are really many, many women in Women.

Chinaski is 50 years old, having recently left his job at the post office to become an author. He reaches a decent level of fame with his fiction and poetry, most notably in the number of women who shamelessly throw themselves at him, through rotary phone calls and snail mail, mostly. It is an autobiographical tale with a the label "fiction" loosely veiling it. The entire premise of Women is that Chinaski is fucking a slew of women as research for his writing. This is not without moments of self-reflection, mild epiphanies, and varied human emotion, but for the most part, it is about fucking. His sexual escapades with women, who are generally half his age, are usually ridiculous and often unsavory. But they are realistic, they are entertaining.

After watching a show about Bukowski on Netflix, and seeing him scream at his wife that she's a whore for going out to dance every night, I wanted to read his fiction and compare it to my shallowly-built perception of him. It all checks out. He is tall, fat, drunk, and charmingly chauvinistic, if there is such a thing. As a writer, he is honest if nothing else. His style of fiction writing is in some ways inspirational and other ways directionless. Personally, I prefer his poetry—I bought his collection of poems Love Is A Dog From Hell at the same time as this book and found it more enjoyable overall.

Rating: 7.7/10

A Scientifically Sound, Emotionally Disconnected Guide To Surviving On Mars Alone

Title: The Martian
Author: Andy Weir
Length: 369 pages
Year Written: 2011
Why I chose this book: The Martian was adapted into a film and released last Thursday. My friend Marianna highly recommended the book and I decided to read it before going to see the movie.

The Martian is the novel you would expect from a longtime programmer/space nerd/first-time author. Andy Weir writes about astronaut Mark Watney, who is stranded on Mars after an accident that his crewmates assumed killed him. He survives mostly on the strength of his ingenuity and background as a skilled botanist. This book is interesting, very well-researched and actually quite brilliant in regards to the space travel scenarios it illustrates. That said, it has all the elements of a great movie, but in a literary respect, is lacking certain depths.

The plot itself was interesting: it involves a lot of creative science, and innovative solutions to problems astronauts have yet to face. My problem was that I could never form a genuine connection with Watney. After learning his background and interests (which I could naturally have assumed, anyway), I realized Andy Weir is Mark Watney. This is all I could really think while reading: “shut up, you’re not funny, you’re stuck on Mars” or “Oh, Andy. You WISH you were Mark Watney (or Matt Damon).” In fact, at the end of the book there is an interview with Weir, and this was one of the questions:

"Do you have anything in common with your wisecracking hero Mark Watney?
I'm the same level of smart-ass that he is. It was a really easy book to write; I just had him say what I would say. However, he's smarter than I am and considerably more brave. I guess he's who I wish I were."

This tidbit is evident throughout the entire novel.

Watney is a quintessential wise-ass, often unrealistically flippant in response to life-threatening situations. I don't buy the fact that he was so lighthearted and sarcastic during an experience that was marked by painstaking work, putrid smells, and pure isolation. As a reader, I want more focus on his mental state, especially considering a large portion of the book is formatted as journal entries from Watney. The idea of being stranded alone on a planet for more than a year has so many more possible avenues than this story decided to embark upon (think the movies I Am Legend or Gravity). The story line of The Martian could go much deeper but instead ends up being a surficial semi-sci-fi novel that just happens to be jam packed with legitimate science that Weir actually worked out himself.

This is not to take away from the pure brilliance that seeps through the pages of The Martian. It’s just very clear he wrote it as a way to flex his science smarts and perhaps as a creative resume for a job at NASA.

Rating: 7.5/10

Seriously, The Most Practical And Uplifting Book I've Ever Read

Title: The Power of Now

Author: Eckhart Tolle

Length: 229 pages

Year Written: 1999

Why I chose this book: My friend Buddha introduced me to the concept of the 'pain body,' and through intensive Googling, I came across this book that I'd already heard of before in passing.

The first thing I will say is that everyone should read this book. The second thing I will say is that this is one of very few non-fiction books I have read for pleasure in several years. The third thing I will say is that this book is deeply powerful and highly practical. I'll stop counting the things I'm saying now. I can't believe it existed for 16 years without my having read it, but I’m glad I read it at this particular point in my life. I can admit that the very essence of me is skeptical of and resistant to terms like "spiritual enlightenment." Even the title, The Power of Now, initially strikes me as corny and barf-able. I immediately conjure mental images of preachers that wear pop star mics. As soon as I started reading, though, all my preconceived notions were shattered into a trillion pieces.

There are several chapters, all relevant to one another and the larger theme of being fully present in the moment without basking in the illusions of the past or worrying about the future. My favorite chapter was ‘Enlightened Relationships,’ which had genuine gems I was able to put into practice immediately. One of the biggest pieces that I identified with very closely was about our past pain and the way we lay back in it, unconsciously perpetuating more of the same for our lives. Tolle spells it out this way: “As long as you make an identity for yourself out of the pain, you cannot become free of it.” Having been single for the better part of the year, after being in a five-year relationship, this chapter reaffirmed my peace in my solitude. I realized that most “love” relationships are addictions, a vain search for wholeness in a secondary source, and largely and unknowingly operated by the ego. 

While I was reading, I checked hashtags on Instagram to see who was also reading this book. And then I talked to them about it. Surprisingly, a few people mentioned that the concepts in the book were difficult to grasp at first, and that they needed to reread multiple times. For me, it was more of a natural absorption, like the muted voice in my subconscious had gained confidence and volume. Overall, this is an excellent book—one that isn’t guaranteed to help you (at least not immediately), but it sure won’t hurt you.  

Rating: 9.8/10

A Brief, Unmoving Response to the Problems of Contemporary Feminism

Title: One Dimensional Woman
Author: Nina Power
Length: 69 pages
Year Written: 2009
Why I chose this book: It was short, on my shelf, and seemed subversive and intriguing.

In college, my minor was Women's Studies. During that time, I passively absorbed many perspectives regarding gender equality and the trajectory of women's social status. This small book was essentially a regurgitation of the ideas we'd swap in class. Some of the topics addressed include "the working woman," pornography as liberation, and the intersection of feminism with consumerism. All in all, it was slightly boring and triggered very little emotional or political reaction from me.

Since the book is only 69 pages, ideas are introduced and just barely expounded upon before the next thought is spit out. This book primarily presents critical flaws in the popular ideals and patterns of feminism today, but does little to facilitate plausible alternatives. For example, author Nina Power offers a small tirade against the prototypical nuclear family, but hardly offers the other side of the argument, or a sensible suggestion of how we might eventually shift that paradigm.

Of course, this might be like an eighth grader reading a Clifford book—One Dimensional Woman may be a helpful primer for those with very little familiarity with the basic concepts of contemporary feminism. At 69 pages, it's certainly worth a read, regardless of its low-impact "wow" factor.

Note:  Yes, this is only the third book I've finished in 2015. Yes, it was only 69 pages, and yes, it is the first book I've finished since March 10. Yes, it is now July. Do as I say, and not as I do: make time to read, read, read. Keep your brain active lest it melt into mediocrity. Thank you.

Rating: 5/10

A Vacation You Would Probably Never Take IRL

Title: The Sly Company of People Who Care
Author: Rahul Bhattacharya
Length: 278 pages
Year Written: 2011
Why I chose this book: I found this book in the Kinokuniya bookstore in Los Angeles, and was intrigued by the cover and title.

This book officially has broken the record for longest time it's taken me to read anything (relatively short in length) from beginning to end. I started reading in October and didn't finish until a few days ago. That's five months, a time period in which a lot has transpired in my personal life. By the time the plot switched gears a little more than halfway through, it was easy to identify parallels between the book and my life, and all in all it was a strangely rewarding experience. (Side note: This is also only the second book I've finished in 2015—suffice it to say it's been a lazy year for reading.)

The main character of The Sly Company of People Who Care is a 26-year-old journalist from Bombay who leaves everything in India behind for a rudimentary life in Guyana. One a one-year visa, he navigates the poverty-stricken but awe-inspiring terrain of a new country populated by a smattering of different cultures and customs. He eventually meets a woman that captures his attention and they embark on an adventurous and volatile relationship that eventually lands them in a lot of trouble.

Language and the way Bhattacharya employs it was the most important part of this reading experience for me. The book is chock-full of regional dialect and though that sometimes slowed down my reading, it also paid off well in many moments. Another important part of this reading experience was the vacation that it takes you on. Unless you're Guyanese, you probably weren't thinking of traveling to Guyana. Bhattacharya's main character takes an unlikely vacation that people often question him about, incredulously. The book's ability to transport you to an entirely different place that you probably have zero prior reference for, so acutely, speaks to the layered, complex nature of the writing. Overall, it was an interesting read that took way too long to finish.

Rating: 7/10

A Great Novel for the Elderly and the Basic

Title: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Author: Mitch Albom
Length: 196 pages
Year Written: 2003
Why I chose this book: I picked this up when I was working at Barnes and Noble (roughly 6 years ago). It's earmarked in a bunch of different places, but I didn't recall much (or any) of the story. It seemed like a nice, wholesome choice to start off my reading in 2015.

From the title alone, you can assume a few things about The Five People You Meet in Heaven. You can assume it has religious undertones, likely a tad cheesy. You can assume it is a feel-good story with a happy ending. You can also assume that Mitch Albom, who also wrote Tuesdays with Morrie, will, from time to time, tug at your heart strings and tear ducts. Ultimately, it was a cute story, but nothing groundbreaking or deeply profound. It might be a nice book to read if I was anticipating an imminent death. Or if I was a religious type who made a New Year's resolution to read more books. This would be the perfect choice.

TFPYMIH (horrible acronym) is the story of Eddie, an old maintenance guy at a beach pier amusement park. He dies, and then meets five people from his life, in their respective heavens, who then explain to him the meaning of his life's events. It is cute, and it is short. Some parts, mainly a section involving Eddie as a soldier in battle in the Philippines, are quite gruesome, but Albom's writing is more on the side of fable than truly convincing fiction. I didn't cry, and I cry at a lot of things, so there's that. At best, I probably smiled, and might have let out a small gasp at one or two moments.

Rating: 7.7/10

50 Books In 2014 Year-End Recap

Today is December 29, and I am approximately one-third of the way through my thirty-first book of the year, and I probably won't finish by Wednesday. I have read a grand total of 30 books for the year 2014. Of course, my goal was 50, and I would be disappointed, but someone tweeted me this yesterday:

When I started this reading challenge, I knew that 50 books in one year was a lofty goal. Fifty was always kind of an arbitrary number. I knew it wouldn't bother me very much if I didn't finish, as long as I stuck with it throughout the entire year—and that I did. Even though some months passed in which I finished only one or two books, I never went anywhere without a paperback in my purse or a digital copy of something on iBooks. I seriously read a lot of great books this year, and it has been my most fruitful New Year's resolution to date by far.

My biggest realization is that to truly enjoy a book, you've got to take your time, and you've got to read it more than once. I didn't do either one of these things this year, in the interest of completing my goal. Even though 2014 is ending, the challenge isn't (especially since my friend/blogger maven Tyece so graciously included me in her list of 50 Blogs To Take Into 2015—check it out!). 50 Books In 2014 will remain a space where I document and review all the fantastic literature I consume, and hopefully inspire others to read some of the same titles (or any titles, really). Here are some graphs.

Weren't those cute? Special shout outs to: Paolo Coelho for writing the best book I read all year (The Alchemist); Kevin Kunitake for lending me several of these books and being a great literary conversationalist; Amazon for making it possible for me to order books for as low as $0.01 plus S&H; Tyece Wilkins for reading and supporting the blog via Twenties Unscripted; my online pal Courtney for appreciating the blog and being a fellow bookworm; and to everyone who supports my reading habit in one way or another. See you next year!

Book 30: Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Title: Tropic of Cancer
Author: Henry Miller
Length: 318 pages
Year Written: 1934
Why I chose this book: A tattered, almost obliterated copy of this book was lent to me by my friend Kevin. I took it, but bought a copy on iBooks for ease of reading.

This was not a bad book, but it was a bad choice. As you can see, it has been a MONTH since I last finished a book, and it's December. This means that I have less than a month to read 20 more books. Fortunately for me, this is one of those challenges that you can still feel good about regardless of the outcome (kind of like running a marathon for charity or something like that). Plus, some people won't read 30 books in 30 years. Hmm. Anyway, I say this book was a bad choice because it certainly would be more enjoyable sans a hovering timeline. It is a book that provides profoundly meaningful tidbits, about life and the human condition, but not necessarily a quick and easily digested storyline.

Tropic of Cancer is one of those books I've always known of (perhaps initially through an episode of Seinfeld) but had no clue about its content. The only thing I knew, just prior to starting, was that it was initially banned, which is not a concept my modern mind can necessarily grasp. It turns out that Tropic of Cancer is a surly, kind of depressing, half-fiction account of author Henry Miller's nomadic life in Paris as a struggling writer. The novel is chock-full of dirt, both sexually and hygienically. Life for Henry Miller between 1930 and 1934 was apparently laden with lice, starvation, and whores. I later learned that he based many of his characters on people he knew in real life, including beastly poetic writer Anais Nin (who I read earlier this year, and now realize was probably writing about cheating on her husband with Miller). They apparently had quite the passionate affair that many speculate to have crystallized in his character "Tania":

"I am fucking you, Tania, so that you'll stay fucked. And if you are afraid of being fucked publicly I will fuck you privately. I will tear off a few hairs from your cunt and paste them on Boris' chin. I will bite into your clitoris and spit out two franc pieces..."

More than the actual novel itself, I am fascinated with the circumstances that led to the novel's creation. I am blown away by the inspiration that two awesomely nasty writers shone onto one another in the nude and then onto paper. I'm also fascinated with the feeling of being a fly on the wall of some unintentional bigot's dilapidated Parisian quarters in the 1930s. The novel can be quite graphic, but honestly contains nothing more offensive than life itself. It has been heralded as the literary work that paved the way for our current freedom of expression in fiction. For that, especially, I am grateful.

Rating: 8.3/10

Book 29: The Giver by Lois Lowry

Title: The Giver
Author: Lois Lowry
Length: 225 pages
Year Written: 1993
Why I chose this book: Like the last book, this one was recommended to me by my friend Kevin (which means it will be a great, meaningful book that I absolutely love).

Long after Brave New World, but years before The Hunger Games trilogy, Lois Lowry wrote this brilliant, powerful, yet simple story about many of the same dystopian visions that seem to recur throughout popular literature. The Giver is a kid's book, but relevant to all ages. For those unfamiliar with Aldous Huxley's masterpiece Brave New World, it is about a society where babies are bred for particular careers, and everyone is too doped up on a drug called "soma" to ever consider the bigger picture, or even the existence of one. People are generally more familiar with The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, in which kids aged 12 through 18 are entered into an annual drawing where boy and one girl are selected from each of the 12 districts to fight in an arena (though more like a complete ecosystem) until one survivor remains. The Giver is not as complex as Brave, nor as violent as Hunger, but much more moving than either.

The main character, Jonas, is a young boy who lives in a community where everything is rigid and controlled. Births are regulated to 50 per year, and each "newchild" is closely monitored so that on their twelfth birthday (which occurs as a mass ceremony every December) they can receive a job assignment from the community's elders, for which they immediately start their training. Though many kids already know what they will be assigned, because of their expressed interests and hobbies, Jonas has no idea what he will get. So, of course, he gets assigned a mystical, prestigious, but super mysterious and scary job: Receiver of Memory. Essentially, his job is to hold all the memories of the world so that everyone else doesn't have to. This turns out to be, like, the biggest gift/curse combo you could ever imagine.

Jonas goes through about a year of very painful self-discovery and newfound awareness, which all culminates in a simple, slightly unfinished ending. Lowry's reserved, elegant style of writing definitely add to the pleasure of reading this story. Moreover, it gives us highly relevant but perhaps uncomfortable food for thought.

Rating: 9.7/10

Book 28: The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

Title: The Celestine Prophecy
Author: James Redfield
Length: 246 pages
Year Written: 1993
Why I chose this book: This was lent to me under high recommendation from my young Henry Miller-Murakami, better known as my friend Kevin.

In all caps, the back cover of this book boasts: "A BOOK THAT COMES ALONG ONCE IN A LIFETIME TO CHANGE LIVES FOREVER." This might seem a bit corny or pretentious (corntentious), but after finishing this very spiritual novel, I can't say it is inaccurate. This book is similar in content and attitude to others I have read (Siddhartha, The Alchemist), but delivered in a way that is more modern, much more specific, and perhaps more relevant.

The narrator of The Celestine Prophecy never goes into much detail about himself, his life, or even his appearance. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure he ever gives his name, either (though if I missed that completely, I'll feel pretty foolish). The first chapter throws the reader into a dinner with a longtime, rarely-seen woman/friend, where the narrator is informed about a secret, widely-debated Manuscript circulating in Peru. This Manuscript deals with our understanding of ourselves, our purpose on Earth, and what we must do to achieve enlightenment and move towards our destinies. It all sounds cheesy, but I swear, it's not.

The rest of the book follows the narrator as he discovers the different Insights of the Manuscript one by one as he voyages the jungles of Peru, now made dangerous by government officials and police seeking to prohibit dissemination of the document. The Insights are the heart of The Celestine Prophecy, because they actually make sense, and answer a lot of the questions that we have, and ones that we forgot we should have. The Insights discuss things from the proper way to interact with children, to the importance of speaking with every person you make eye contact with. And, of course, the book's content heralds highly the meaning of coincidences. This is the first thing we've got to start paying attention to, if we ever hope to (Andre 3000 voice) vibrate higherrrrrr, and evolve into really kick-ass super-sentient beings.

This book was very interesting, though a bit lacking in the creative style of the language. Every character seems to speak the same way, and deliver information on-time and in full as the plot progresses. I have a sneaking suspicion that before writing this story, James Redfield wrote (or stumbled upon some version of) the Manuscript in question. Nevertheless, it's worth reading, though it may take a while. Redfield packs each sentence with need-to-knows. It's no lazy read.

Rating: 8.8/10

Book 27: Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham

Title: Not That Kind of Girl
Author: Lena Dunham
Length: 262 pages
Year Written: 2014
Why I chose this book: I am a huge fan of Dunham's HBO television series GIRLS. I've always been curious to read the memoirs Hannah is working on in the show, and I imagine that this book is essentially it.

Not That Kind of Girl is only the second non-fiction book I have read this year. However, after reading Lena Dunham blather about her self-centered, vaguely unstable, privileged, prosciutto-eating childhood, and her colorful adult life (that runs virtually parallel to that of the character she plays on GIRLS), you wonder just how reliable of a narrator she really is. At one point in the book, Dunham actually says "I am an unreliable narrator," before proceeding to explain how she retells details about other people's lives as if they were her own—before she even realizes she is lying.

Remember when Hannah's literary agent read her work and asked, "Where's the pudgy face slick with semen and sadness?" It's here, in NTKOG. There's a lot more, though. Behind the pudgy face is what is and always has been a brilliant mind (something Dunham both knows about herself and proves simultaneously). It's clear that Dunham has no qualms about looking or sounding like a jackass, and frequently redeems herself with her special brand of intelligence and wit.

One particularly high point in NTKOG. 

This book reads less like a how-to manual and more like a how-never-to. Never let someone continuously fuck you and fuck with you. Never forget that we are all destined to die. Never underestimate the audacity and spite of a pre-pubescent daughter of crunchy granola types in Brooklyn. Dunham is a piece of work. And she's transformed her life into a pretty entertaining and cleverly written piece of work.

She is morbid, the physical embodiment of the acronym TMI, and her self-deprecating style is as much charming as it is pathetic. I think the moral of the Dunham story is that she doesn't give a fuck. But she really, really does. She wants to make it, to be heard, to have her experiences documented and digested by the new generation. She reminds me that everyone is crazy and unstable. But if you can write about it intelligently and make others laugh while doing so, you've hit the sweet spot. We can't take ourselves so seriously, and it's good to know that Lena is true to her attention-seeking brat of an inner child.

Rating: 8.5/10

Book 26: The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

Title: The Sirens of Titan
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Length: 319 pages
Year Written: 1959
Why I chose this book: I really liked Cat's Cradle and dig Kurt Vonnegut as a human (RIP).

I hate to admit that this is a science fiction novel, but it really is. Most of the plot revolves around space and time travel, and a Martian invasion on Earth. But it really doesn't read as Star Trek as that all sounds. [Quick side note: this is the first book I've read on my phone using iBooks. Thought I'd hate it, but I didn't. I've always been a traditional paper-page-turning reader gal, but reading on my phone was surprisingly convenient and even enjoyable. Yay technology!]

Anyway, The Sirens of Titan is really a very deep book presented in a witty, almost goofy way. It is about a vapid playboy named Malachi Constant who becomes a brainless soldier on Mars named Unk, and eventually returns to Earth as a prophesied wandering space traveler. The plot is wildly imaginative and would seem like a coleslaw of non-sequiturs if not for the fact that everything eventually ties together seamlessly and beautifully.

Vonnegut really has a knack for making you examine not just yourself but mankind altogether. The central themes of this book are, in my opinion, free will and purpose. What if our bigger picture is just a speck in a bigger picture? What is the biggest picture? Reading this book made me smile. It reminded me just how much we really don't know shit about life. Vonnegut, like every good writer, writes about the same things in many different ways throughout his works. He has a brilliant, almost sacrilegious sense of humor, and what seems to be quite the lovely take on life and death. It makes me feel so at peace about his being dead (RIP again).

"Luck, good or bad, is not the hand of God. Luck is the way the wind swirls and the dust settles eons after God has passed by."

Rating: 9.8/10

Book 25: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Title: Fight Club

Author: Chuck Palahniuk

Length: 218 pages

Year Written: 1996

Why I chose this book: I love Palahniuk but always overlook this book, because in all its acclaim, the story still never appealed to me.

When I first started reading Fight Club, I knew the story, more or less. I thought I'd never seen the movie, either, but had caught enough cable re-run snippets of it that I couldn't be surprised by anything in the plot. Turns out that the more I read, the more I realized I could see Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter acting out each scene. I guess I saw more of the movie than I remembered. It kind of ruined the reading experience for me just a bit. 

The basic story is that an insomniac starts a fight club and mischief gang, with the help of his evil friend Tyler Durden who is actually his schizo alter-ego. The book may have been better if I'd read it blindly, not knowing that Brad Pitt is really Edward Norton. 

I've read several books by Chuck Palahniuk, but this was his first. I appreciate the fact that he is incessantly, reliably disgusting, and never shies away from the most grotesque descriptions possible. It wasn't my favorite Palahniuk book, but I already knew it wouldn't be. It seems that he has only mastered his craft of yucky fiction brilliance in the 18 years since his debut novel. It's not a bad book, and I'm sure in some rights it's a classic, but I didn't care for it all that much. 

Rating: 7/10

Book 24: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver

Title: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Author: Raymond Carver

Length: 159 pages

Year Written: 1981

Why I chose this book: This is my roommate's book, and the title interested me. I love reading what people write about love. 

This is the first book of the year that has actually been a collection of short stories. Generally, I don't enjoy short story collections, because I have abandonment issues. I can't stand the idea of investing in characters and a plot for just a few pages before being yanked into another completely different scenario. And if this is what I hate, then I truly hate What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. But strangely, I don't. I liked the book's incompleteness, failure to deliver answers to some of your most important questions, and cryptic realism. My roommate called it a "total snoozefest." She didn't like it because she was left wondering most of the time. But this is the type of book that won't appeal to all readers. Some people read for information, others read for the joy of reading. Carver's stories deliver a short-lived experience packed with startlingly real emotion. I think the point of his stories are simply to feel, to read and absorb ordinary (yet extraordinary in their own right) moments that usually go undocumented.

One example of a story in What We Talk About drops you immediately in a kitchen with two quarreling lovers and their young baby. The woman kicks the man out, and he won't leave without the baby. He grabs for it, and they yank the infant back and forth between the two of them. The story is only three pages long, but fills you with enough discomfort to make it feel like you just saw it happen in real life. There are many cringeworthy moments in this book, and though none of them are particularly dazzling, they are all quite real. The title was a little misleading, because although this book does have much to do with love, it's not in a very romantic or typically pleasant way. Carver is an obviously talented writer, however, and it came as no surprise to find out he started his career as a poet.

Rating: 8/10

Book 23: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Title: The Alchemist

Author: Paulo Coelho

Length: 172 pages

Year Written: 1988 

Why I chose this book: My friend Kevin told me that this book was similar to Siddhartha (novel by Hermann Hesse), and on top of that, I know it's a classic that most people read in school (but again, I somehow didn't). 

I read that Paulo Coelho wrote The Alchemist in just two weeks, because the story was already written in his heart. If you've read The Alchemist, that just makes the most perfect sense. This book transported me to such a pure place, and touched my heart like only a simple, majestic allegory can (read: Siddhartha). It's about a young Andalusian shepherd named Santiago who decides to follow his dreams (literally) to the Egyptian pyramids. All the while. the world is conspiring to help him achieve his destiny. I admit, it sounds a little corny when you describe it to others, but reading it, it completely enchants you. There are so many life lessons to be learned in this book. No wonder it's been referred to as "more self-help than fiction."

If you've never read this book, now is the perfect time. It's a very fast, enjoyable read that is bound to stick with you in one way or another. There are many, many notable quotes in this book, but this one pretty much sums up the feel of the novel:

"The Soul of the World is nourished by people's happiness. And also by unhappiness, envy, and jealousy. To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation. All things are one. And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

Rating: 9.9/10

Book 22: Written On The Body by Jeanette Winterson

Title: Written On The Body
Author: Jeanette Winterson
Length: 190 pages
Year Written: 1992
Why I chose this book: I was assigned this book in a Women's Studies class I took in college. Even though there are notes in the book (in my handwriting), I couldn't remember actually reading any of it.

This was an unexpectedly difficult read, especially coming off the heels of a few more traditional novels with straightforward story lines. Written On The Body, the story of a person and their affair with a married woman, often seems more like poetry than prose. And I use the word "person" because the narrator in this story is genderless. Rather, they do have a gender, but it is never mentioned. This was the only thing I knew about the book when I started to read, and so I caught myself searching for clues as to whether this was a man or a woman. And there really is no way to tell, but that's kind of the point. Jeanette Winterson is telling a story of love and passion beyond gender. Written On The Body is a story about the way love can consume you, get you into ridiculous situations, and run your life so far off course that you don't know what's what.

This book was so fucking quotable, too. It's a Tumblr dream. Winterson has such an ethereal way with words, that even when you aren't quite sure what she means, you feel it anyway. Here are a few of the quotes I marked:

"The day before Wednesday last, this time a year ago, you were here and now you're not. Why not? Death reduces us to the baffled logic of a small child. If yesterday why not today? And where are you?" 

"Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? 'I love you' is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them."

"When she bleeds the smells I know change color. There is iron in her soul on those days. She smells like a gun." 

Rating: 8.5/10