The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears | 
pickBook #17 of 2023: “The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears” by Dinaw Mengetsu
A beautiful, sometimes melancholy, sometimes sad, sometimes hopeful story about a young man forced to flee his home in Ethiopia to build a new life in Washington, DC.
I‘m enjoying this book very much, especially since it‘s set in an area local to me — Logan Circle in Washington, DC. I‘m also stopping periodically to learn more about African history and politics. This morning I took the time to learn about Mobutu of the Congo (now Zaire). This is helping me understand the main characters (from three different African countries) much better.
Immigrants are such a large part of the American experience. To immigrants here in the USA, thank you for making our country emotionally richer. In appreciation of your contributions, I will be reading this novel about an Ethiopian man‘s experiences as an immigrant to the USA.
pickI loved this short novel about an Ethiopian refugee living in dc in the early 2000s. It tells his story intermixed with the gentrification of Logan circle. Having lived in dc and close to this neighborhood in 2007 the sense of place really resonated with me. Timely and moving. Captures the feeling of living in a place while still being apart from it. #booked2018 #refugeemc
About to start this book for #refugeemc #booked2018. About an Ethiopian refugee running a convenience store in an African-American section of dc.
Book club read! I‘ve lived in Washington DC for 6 Year‘s now and this book tells a story of the DC before all of the gentrification over the last decade. So crazy to read about all the places I know so well but before they were those places.
pick#readaroundtheworld #Ethiopia. This is my second book by an Ethiopian author this month. However it is largely a first person narration of an immigrant‘s life in Washington D.C. with only a few flashbacks to the Red Terror in his home country. The book is quietly melancholic, laced with feelings of estrangement and loss. Not just the loss of his family, and his country but the loss of his future.
so-soThe writing here is beautiful & fittingly spare. And I always enjoy immigrant stories, getting that new perspective on our country and learning at least a little about what it's like to come here and try to fit in while retaining your sense of self and home. But I struggled a bit with the structure here - it jumps between time periods but without a clear indication of which is which. And the ending felt like it should've been the middle. 3/5 ⭐️
With each blink a new face looked back at me, simultaneously handsome and grotesque and nondescript. Who was I? That was all I wanted to know.
[Well, not gonna finish it in a day like I wanted to because I had to work late 😠 I suppose I still could if I stayed up super late but I've been trying to go to bed earlier to compensate for the cat waking me up at all hours. Oy vey! Well, at least it's reading time now.]
Wonder if I can get through this one in a day? It's only 228 pages! 😜 I mean yes I have to work but there's also night time! #nowreading
These are four of my all-time favorite books. Certainly my favorites each year that I read them.
#FierceFeb #ToBeYoungGiftedandBlack
#2017mostanticipatedbooks TBR Shelf Edition Part 1
#SeasonsReadings2016
