The Angel of History | 
bailedA gay Yemeni living in San Francisco in the 1990s checks himself into a psychiatric clinic having lost too many friends and his lover to AIDS. In the meantime Satan is interviewing Death and the saints known as the Fourteen Holy Helpers about him.
I wanted to like this book and kept thinking it was on the verge of becoming something really good but a third of the way through I have to admit it's just not happening for me. DNF.
pickMy last completed read of 2022. Heartbreaking, humorous, and elegiac. Now I‘ve got to add Alameddine‘s new one to my TBR list. BTW, my aunt was a bit of an angel nut. Currently hanging out at my Southern Gothic homestead…Happy 2022!
Very late, here are my top seventeen books I read in 2017. I've been bothering everyone I meet to read The Angel of History (immediately one of my all-time top 5) since last January, so now it's y'all's turn. It destroyed me and rebuilt me better. READ IT.
#17in2017
so-soWhat can I say😐except I wanted to like this book way more than I actually did😪, & I‘m honestly just glad I made it through it😶. I‘m not going to lie the author is obviously talented and his play on poetry & prose is brilliant, but 🤦🏻♀️the useless rambling and poor structure was just too much. There were really memorable & important parts to it, but alas it was vastly overshadowed by its countless pitfalls.
My next read is a total #BlameLitsy 😅, but I‘m expecting many more to follow suit as my #BlameGoodreads TBR/Stack is seemingly just as endless😆
#TBRtemptation post 8! Over the course of one night in a psych clinic waiting room, Yemeni-born poet Jacob will revisit his childhood in an Egyptian whorehouse, adolescence with his wealthy father, and life as a gay Arab in San Francisco. That night, he will be taunted by Satan, urged to die by Death, and attended by 14 saints. Profound, philosophical, and hilarious. #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎
Finally reading this novel! Alameddine's UNNECESSARY WOMAN is one of my favorite books ever, so I'm thrilled to be reading ANGEL OF HISTORY. Have you read this novel? I'm about 90 pages in - set during the AIDS epidemic of San Francisco, this novel is deep, philosophical and socially relevant so far. The prose is brilliant.
#TBRtemptation post! The latest from the award-winning Arab author. This book takes place over the course of one night in the waiting room of a psych clinic, the story follows Yemeni-born, Egyptian whorehouse-raised Jacob, a poet who finds himself as a gay Arab in San Francisco. Tainted by Satan & tempted by Death, he also has 14 saints to discuss things with. A deep & hilarious work, according to many. I'll give it go! #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎
Howling grief. The beauty of Alameddine's prose is stunning
I first discovered Rabih Alameddine in Bookshop Santa Cruz when I picked up a copy of An Unnecessary Woman and loved it! On to his latest novel...
pickFunny and heartbreaking, wholly engrossing.
Death, about to be interviewed by Satan, smells of history and formaldehyde.
I didn't expect this book to be amusing.
http://lithub.com/literary-hubs-best-books-of-2016/
I hate being a "Book Fan." It's bad enough that I've only read about 5 of these books -- but my real frustration is the 10 or 12 I've never even heard of.
How can you be a fan of reading contemporary novels if someone's got a best-of list and you haven't even heard of a third of them?
pickLoved this dark look at a day in the life of a survivor of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in SF. If you like your novels full of references from everyone from Baudelaire to Nina Simone to Apocalypse Now, you might like this.
There is a dignity in decay, Satan thought...
(great first line)
"Robin is ideal because he was always being... rescued by Holy Rusted Metal Batman, Holy Buttfuck, Don't untie me yet, we have a few minutes..."
??????
pickThis book hit all the right notes for me. It's as if Bulgakov grew up in the Middle East and wrote an LGBT novel. Required reading: dark yet funny, smart, high- and low-brow at once. This book is everything. Will reread once it's out in the fall.
Training for @24in48 readathon next weekend! #everyweekendisreadathonweekend
How can you not know your history? I yelled over and over... how can you allow the world to forget us... the grand elision of queer history?
Whoa this is fierce.
