Known and Strange Things: Essays | 
pickI want to preface all other thoughts with the recommendation that you take this collection slowly. I worked within the parameters of a library loan period to finish this book, and I wish I'd had more time, both to appreciate the variety in subject matter and tone among the more thoughtful and even idyllic musings earlier in the collection, and to pace myself in encountering the often very heavy, dark material dealt with in the second half. 1/?
Sad realities and hopeful efforts. Hurray for preservation via digitization (tech doesn't have to obliterate or invalidate history, it can protect it)!
Oo, oo! New word!
Gallimaufry: "a confused jumble or medley of things"
I love it.
Just taking a moment to appreciate serendipitous similarity in cover colour palette of current reads.
Morning sky = beginning of book. I like.
pickWhat a lovely discovery. Teju Cole's topics range from books and authors to photography and politics. Throughout the book, Cole demonstrates that he has the education, intellect and writing skills to convey his thoughts to the reader in an accessible and interesting style. Some readers may accuse Cole of name-dropping or disagree with what he says and I will not argue with them. However, for me, this book was both a conversation and an education.
I‘ve been reading a few essays a week from this collection since August and it is full of exquisite insights. I can never get over the way that Cole speaks about art: in general, his own, or that of others.
Adverts in bookish magazines, create seeds of an imaginary nomadic life, seated near the back of book events.
An airplane feels like the most appropriate setting in which to read a Teju Cole collection.
A book of essays always invites a change of pace, and this one comes highly recommend by other folks on Litsy.
Great #readathon!! 😀❤️
📚 Finished two books
📚 Listened to about an hour of my audiobook
📚 Read more essays in tagged book
📚 Started and read most of One of Us Is Lying
#firsttime reading anything by this author but wow he knows how to write an essay! The first section is essays on books and authors so obviously I‘m relating but they‘re written with such intelligence and emotion. I want to savour them but at the same time I don‘t want to stop reading. #aprella
I needed something to read this evening that was stimulating but not overwhelming so I picked from my TBR these essays. I think I have chosen wisely. 📚❤️
pickI can see why Teju Cole received an award for the art of the essay. These are beautifully written and and the breadth of the subjects covered is impressive. I particularly enjoyed the essays on photography, which Cole looks at both from the technological and the political angle. An eye-opening book.
Hey, Fall -- where are you? I'm ready! Let's do this.
Every time I come back to this book, I wonder what took me so long to return to it.
Reading while the toddler runs around the library play room. Need to use anytime I have to keep reading for the #readathon #springcleaningreadathon
Finally, some outdoor reading time. If only I can convince my family to leave me alone for a while, my afternoon will be filled with books. #springreading #apriltbr #thegreatoutdoors #essays
Break time reading. Work gets in the way of so many good books. Sigh... Excited to start this, though. #essaylove #breaktimereads #apriltbr
Digging in this morning and loving it so far.
So I'll be returning to this one this morning, which I have liked so far (and, confession: three essays in and Cole already has me buying other books on his recommendation).
#bookishresolution number one - read the books I get from my two subscription services 😚😚😚😚 (not pictured: the two #botm I actually read)
This is real life, clutter and all. And the two books I'm starting the year with. How are you today? (Mug and tea from secret Santa @wen4blu)
To savour delectable literature, chew slowly. Happy holidays! #reading #nonfiction #tejucole #knownandstrangethings
"Throughout the culture, there are imitations of the gait, bearing, and dress of the black body, a vampiric "everything but the burden" co-option of black life."
pickAbsolutely love this book. One of my top five .of 2016.
We went camping into the desert, and it turns out I'm a big fan. Nothing like reading out in the open against a glorious sunset or in the light of millions and millions of stars. It was such a spectacular day. #addtoTBR
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/magazine/a-time-for-refusal.html?smprod=nytcor...
One of the most powerful responses to the election result I've encountered so far.
Putting together a pile for #nonfictionnovember...
"To be a stranger is to be looked at. To be black is to be looked at especially."
pickCole's latest work is a collection of previously published essays focusing on books, movies, photography, personal experiences on race, war, and colonialism. The stories are interconnected only in that they are mostly reviews. A good review, however, can reveal the thoughts of the reviewer more than the author's work. We can see through Teju Cole's lens through his reviews. Overall an excellent collection of his work.
“Marginalized voices in America have fewer and fewer avenues to speak plainly about what they suffer; the effect of this enforced civility is that those voices are falsified or blocked entirely from the discourse.”
#fridayreads "...“add up to a picture of a man for whom an imaginative engagement with literature is inseparable from life.”
(Cole describing President Barack Obama comparing him to Jefferson and Lincoln as "readers in chief".)
— 2 minutes ago
My new post on essay collections from 2016 is up at Book Riot. http://bookriot.com/2016/09/20/25-great-essay-collections-from-2016/
“Photography is a fast art now, except for those who are too old-fashioned to shoot digital...for most of the art‘s history... photographers had no choice but to be slow. Film had to be loaded into a camera, the shot had to be taken with some awareness of the cost of materials, the negative had to be developed, and the print had to be enlarged. A certain meticulousness was necessary for photographs, a certain irreducible calmness of temperament.”
Read this line last night and I've been thinking about it all day. It never hurts to be reminded to step back and get perspective.
Lovely new read. I love Teju Cole's clarity of expression & little (often self-deprecating) asides. Even the prologue has rhythm & tension & pacing in abundance. I think I'm really going to enjoy this.
Lovely new read. I love Teju Cole's clarity of expression & little (often self-deprecating) asides. Even the prologue has rhythm & tension & pacing in abundance. I think I'm really going to enjoy this.
Taking my lunch break on the side of the highway today... As you do. And starting this collection of essays. I have such high hopes.
This is the best way to start the morning. I am in awe of this writing. Not only am I inspired by all that I read in this collection, but I am inspired to pick up the different works of literature and poetry that is discussed in this book. Bravo Mr. Cole!!! :)
Just finished his first essay, The Black Body, and there are so many truth bombs and mic drops nearly the whole chapter is highlighted yellow.
Just finished his first essay, The Black Body, and there are so many truth bombs and mic drops nearly the whole chapter is highlighted yellow.
#somethingforsept #septemberphotochallenge #readandeat @RealLifeReading does anybody else look at salad like an equation? Some days I think I'm doing it right but when I dump it in the bowl it all comes out carrots. Or I've somehow created a crouton salad with a little bit of kale. Today I'm irritated because my kale to everything else ratio is off. Don't even get me started on dressing. Dressing stew is the worst.
How do you support your local independent bookseller? One of my local stores has started offering a subscription service and I got my first book today. So thrilled. Since they are an hour away, I was happy to get it in the mail! http://www.malaprops.com/malaprops-homeward-bound-paperback-originals
Been hanging back lately.... I haven't been excited about what I am reading. I picked this up from library last night, read 5 pages on the way home, and I am excited ... 😀
Many of the essays in the first two sections appear in the tone of a review or an obituary. As skilled a writer as he is, Cole's ability to focus in on his subject, a person, object or art form, often means the best quotes I wanted to pull out, were actually an appropriate centring and distillation of others' words. As a result I now have a range of other creatives I want to look into right away. 2/? 2y
What also stood out to me was how important it is to the expansion of art and the mind, to gaining new perspectives and increasing empathy, that people, artists in particular, can travel. 3/? 2y
4/? 2y
Natives on the Boat - racism in the older generation, subtle forms, how a person can be skilled, kind in that moment, still a racist
Poetry of the Disregarded- brief but gorgeous commingling of one writer admiring another
In Place of Thought - 4 searing pages, please read 5/? 2y
Portrait of a Lady - African portrait/people photographers, past and present, subjects of photos asserting independence, how they wish to be seen, especially women, lesbian and transgender, contrast to how white colonialists and explorers took pictures of 'natives' - a reminder of how art can function to change perspectives 6/? 2y
Google's Macchia - also looking at digital photography - how do we judge it, curate it, make new art from it - my fave for being so open to creative possibilities rather than JUST fear around surveillance, copyright, etc 7/? 2y
Reader's War - the rewriting of opening sentences within the text is incredibly impactful, I have trouble with Cole's 'torn' back and forth - perhaps being of a different country means I can't see the fine line of necessity drawn for military justification, even as he chastises the use of drones and assasinations 8/? 2y
Shadows in Sao Paulo - continuing in themes of: 1) how a photograph is not simply capturing the truth, manipulation by lense chosen, aspects focused on, etc; 2) traveling to different places and reflecting on the art and history, the artists, people who lived/visited/worked there 9/? 2y
White Savior Industrial Complex - Just. Read it.
Perplexed ...Perplexed - Such an eloquent look at a topic I didn't want to make eye contact with - mob violence/killings
A Piece of the Wall - Visceral reminder of Solito - (bio of an immigrant's crossing) - attempts balance of perspectives in who is interviewed, but it's so obvious that compassion is only visible in those who want to help, want a demilitarized, open border. Those enforcing border all appear terse, uninterested in nuance, callous. President at the time not excluded from censure for stance on immigrants/immigrant law. 10/? 2y