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Ordinary Notes
Ordinary Notes | Christina Sharpe
5 posts | 5 read | 5 to read
A dazzlingly inventive, deeply moving, intellectually bracing exploration of pain and beauty, private memory and public monument, art and complexity in contemporary Black life. I wanted to write about silences and terror and acts that hover over generations, over centuries. I began by writing about my mother and grandmother. from Note 18 in Ordinary Notes A singular achievement, Ordinary Notes explores with immense care profound questions about loss, and the shapes of Black life that emerge in the wake. In a series of 248 brief and urgent notes that gather meaning as we read them, Christina Sharpe skillfully weaves artifacts from the pastpublic ones alongside others that are poignantly personalwith present-day realities and possible futures, intricately constructing an immersive portrait of everyday Black existence. Through the striking images and words in these pages, themes and tones echo: sometimes about life, art, language, beauty, memory; sometimes about history, photography, and literaturebut always attending, with exquisite care, to the ordinary-extraordinary dimensions of Black life. At the heart of Ordinary Notes is the indelible presence of the authors mother, Ida Wright Sharpe. I learned to see in my mothers house, writes Sharpe. I learned how not to see in my mothers house . . . My mother gifted me a love of beauty, a love of words. Using these and other gifts and ways of seeing, Sharpe steadily summons a chorus of voices and experiences to become present on the page. She articulates and follows an aesthetic of "beauty as a method, collects entries from a community of thinkers towards a Dictionary of Untranslatable Blackness, and rigorously examines sites of memory and memorial. And in the process, she forges a new literary form, as multivalent as the ways of Black being it traces.
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Augustdana
Ordinary Notes | Christina Sharpe
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I AM DOING A THEME YEAR!! It‘s apparently been 8 months since I‘ve been here, and I‘ve felt it. Didn‘t make my reading goal for the first time in ten years, so back to this app and reading to try again. My theme is letters, diaries, notes and journals! I wanna be real nosey and get epistolary!! Any recommendations would be helpful! These were my first two reads of 2024.

ChaoticMissAdventures Have you read this great one? I have read it three times and find it so interesting. 9mo
Augustdana @ChaoticMissAdventures I haven‘t read it before!! It did come up on a list of epistolary books when I googled, I‘ll make sure to add it to the TBR, thank you! 9mo
jlhammar How fun! I loved The Forbidden Notebook and am always drawn to the epistolary format. I‘ll tag a few I‘ve enjoyed starting with 9mo
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jlhammar If you‘re in the mood for a mystery, anything by Janice Hallett is great. 9mo
Augustdana @jlhammar thank you so much for the suggestions! You went above and beyond! I‘ll be checking these out. And yes, the Forbidden Notebook was great! (edited) 9mo
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Chelsea.Poole
Ordinary Notes | Christina Sharpe
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Organized by numbered notes, in sections with connected themes, Sharpe recounts anecdotes from her life, stories of unprovoked violence on black individuals, historical events and figures, quotes, musings on art, poetry, and much more to form a narrative on racism, social justice, and cultural critique. Heavy, but important. I have not read nearly as much anti-racism works of late and needed this. Toni Morrison‘s Beloved features prominently.

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triplem80
Ordinary Notes | Christina Sharpe
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My December #bookspin was definitely one of the best books I've read this year. I tend to read a lot of nonfiction dealing with issues of race, but in this unique format, Sharpe offered some observations about being Black that I haven't encountered before. I appreciated the new perspective -- it definitely made me think!

@thearomaofbooks

TheAromaofBooks Great progress!!! 11mo
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Hooked_on_books
Ordinary Notes | Christina Sharpe
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Weaving in stories from her own and her family‘s lives while also focusing on art, Sharpe explores the realities of living while Black in the US and how we sometimes get good intentioned things wrong. Much of this book is searing and sobering. There‘s one section that didn‘t work as well for me, as it‘s mainly quotes from other writers and finally different.

NBA longlist, nonfiction

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RaeLovesToRead
Ordinary Notes | Christina Sharpe
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And finally... my Foyles and Vendula haul. I think I may go and live in Foyles. Like a book troll. At first, they will protest, but eventually it'll just be like, "Oh that's just Rae, she's friendly. We just leave coffee out for her and she behaves herself."

IndoorDame Solid plan! 2y
TrishB I could easily live in Foyles 😁 2y
Branwen This sounds like a stellar plan, actually! 🥰 2y
RaeLovesToRead @IndoorDame @TrishB @Branwen Me: I'll just pop in... what harm can it do? There can't be THAT many books I haven't already come across.... 5 mins later: welp. I'm in trouble 😅🤣 2y
Megabooks What a fantastic haul! 2y
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