I enjoyed parts of this book & found others extremely irritating. Linguistically, there were both over- & under-explanations. On the whole, the entire book needed a much firmer hand in the editing department- it skips around between subjects & timelines & is a little too focused on navel-gazing for my taste, even for a memoir. I did, however, enjoy the parts that dealt more directly with developing an identity & relationships in a second language.

"Mary didn't have the power to remove the limits that society imposed on her girls, but it was her duty, she felt, to help pry off the restrictions they might place on themselves...You can do better - we can do better, she told them with every word and every deed. For Mary Jackson, life was a long process of raising one's expectations." A highly appropriate passage to be reading today. #InternationalWomensDay #DayWithoutAWoman #recommendsday

My TV is off. As part of my ongoing protest-by-not-watching effort to influence the ratings that are so important to No.45 even the tiniest bit, I've decided to spend the time I would usually devote to watching this type of address to learning about a part of history with which I'm unfamiliar. In a case of excellent timing in #library holds, Hidden Figures is tonight's pick. #blacklivesmatter #blackhistorymonth #feministhistory #smashthepatriarchy

One upside to being home sick on #ValentinesBookExchange day is not having to wait until after work to open my #cupidgoespostal bag-o'-bookish-treats from the fabulous @quietjenn . Thank you, thank you, I love it all! 😊 (And I might have to go find some of those Card Catalog notecards...) Thanks again to @BookishMarginalia for a great idea and superb organizing!

The #audiobook for this one was my second audiobook attempt, and apparently #comedy is the key to me not hating listening rather than reading. The story itself felt longer and more wandering than really necessary, but it was entertaining. Sean Schemmel's narration is AWESOME! So many unique, hilarious voices! I definitely recommend a listen.

#CupidGoesPostal awesomeness (I hope!) en route for next week's #ValentinesBookExchange, organized by the fabulous @BookishMarginalia !

2016 @bookriot #ReadHarder Challenge complete. (Spending #NYE on the couch reading? Bookworm status confirmed!)

Despite having been published more than 50 years ago, this book barely feels dated at all. (The little bit that does comes from some of the conversational language in use at the time.) It's a poignant, pointed look at child development, family life, and the emphasis we place on appearances and what's "normal." This was my "main character with a mental illness" book for #ReadHarder2016, and was an unexpected delight.

"Milk Mother said that stories are like footpaths of the gods. They lead us back and forth across time and space and connect us to the entire universe, to people and beings we never see but who we feel exist." The beauty of this story, its language, the Khmer history and myth it shares, shines through the horrors it recounts. If stories have souls, this one's is a bright, shimmering wish for the best of our humanity. #readwomen #weneeddiversebooks

This #Recommendsday read is going to my 13-year-old niece this Christmas! She was really sad after the U.S. election, and I want her to have this reminder that women have been ignoring patriarchal norms since...well, forever, and that she can do and be anything she wants. (For the sake of continuity, I should probably gift someone else Debora Spar's *other* Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection, shouldn't I?) #ReadWomen

This is an awesome collection of the stories of six #transgender people, mostly in their own words, curated by the photographer/author and shared with photographs - or not - that help tell their stories. #weneeddiversebooks #lgbtqbooks

I loved this book from the moment I opened it, & love it even more after hearing Martha Brockenbrough talk about it this evening. She is my #WonderWomanWednesday, to whom I would happily listen talk about anything. She has so much curiosity, & such attention to detail. One of my (many!) favorite things she said was that she writes each of her supporting characters as if s/he were the star of his/her own book, & sometimes they take over the story.

My favorite #nonfiction read in remotely recent memory, & one I'll come back to often. No 2 readers are likely to experience this book in the same way; it's an intensely personal account of the author's experience with #feminism, independence, & romantic relationships, which serves as a foil for the reader's own. Perhaps best summed up by the closing #epigraph by Mary Oliver: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild & precious life?"

BINGO! I'm probably way too excited about finishing my #BookBingoNW2016 blackout square, but completing this made my OCD side very happy. There are some gorgeously illustrated ones out there, too - I've seen at least one with mini-book covers for each square. #summerreading #summerofbooks

I felt so fortunate & was so moved to hear Congressman John Lewis speak about his March trilogy at Bellevue Library last Friday. He and his co-creator Andrew Aydin are an amazing team with big goals, and their illustrator Nate Powell pulls it all together on every page. It's inspiring to see a change-maker like Rep. Lewis putting so much thought into passing on his legacy and his methods. #weneeddiversebooks #CivilRights #equality #BookBingoNW2016

Somehow, I hadn't read this before. Listening to the audiobook narrated by Claire Danes is heart-breaking, stomach-clenching, and completely terrifying, because it's horrifyingly easy to see how what should be laughably far-fetched could become reality. If you haven't read this book yet, please do. It isn't a fun read, but it feels like an absolutely necessary one. #bannedbooks

After struggling w/an early draft of #BookBingoNW2016 for about 10min in June, I decided Post-Its were the way to go, letting me change my mind & plan ahead. 14 down, 6 IDd/started, & a few more to pick. At least 6 overlaps w/my #2016BookRiotReadHarderChallenge list makes me extra happy! (What's that? Working for a #library system has turned my book-nerdishness up to 11 to the nth power, you say? Well, maybe, but it's not like I had far to go.)

Typical: Walk into The Elliott Bay Book Company in search of one book (either Spinster or Bad Feminist - ha, "either"), walk out with four. Actually, this isn't that bad - when I walk into a library looking for one book, I usually walk out with an armful. #bookstacks #indiebookstore #feministlit #poetry #2016ReadHarderChallenge #BookBingoNW2016

Round 2 of choosing books based on awesome titles for 2016 went much better than round 1 (The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu)! If you're looking for #funfearlessfemales, September is one 12-year-old who fits the bill (I have a feeling her author does, too). #YAfiction

Very quick, very moving read. I like this format for a memoir-as-history that's accessible to all ages, and it didn't detract at all from the emotional impact. I found myself tearing up several times, and have been thinking about the history of the Civil Rights movement all afternoon. #weneeddiversebooks #Recommendsday #BookBingoNW2016

Given the tongue-in-cheek lyric references peppered throughout this book, I'm pretty sure Lauren Willig is a fan of musical theatre, and especially The Scarlet Pimpernel. A fun, fast read despite being a little over-the-top in places, this is a great story for some summer escapism. (And now I have to go hunt down the next book in the series...)

Holy wow, this book. The most human post-apocalyptic story I've ever experienced. That it's told through the eyes of an autistic teenager and has a cast of characters that is incredibly diverse for a work of fiction makes it all the more real, and the tugs at your heartstrings all the stronger.

"Without snow on top or verdant trimming of fir below, Rainier would still inspire. We are drawn to the quirks of the planet....[John Muir said Rainier] 'was so fine & so beautiful it might well fire the dullest observer to desperate enthusiasm.'" Appropriate reading material for today's view.

This book's title & summary are misleading. It's much more a history of modern terrorism in Mali & the AQIM occupation in 2012-13. The manuscripts are a fairly minor thread, & the timeline is a mess for the first~150 pages.(And points lost for conflating burqas & niqabs, on top of gaming the title.)

"[T]hese artifacts - treatises about logic, astrology, and medicine, paeans to music, poems idealizing romantic love - represented 500 years of human joy. They celebrated the sensual and the secular....They were monumentally subversive." Picking books based on awesome titles is off to a good start!

I have no idea how to classify this book, but I really enjoyed both the suspension of disbelief required & how much it made me think. It's grounded in a solid, historical reality, but uses that foundation to branch out into something that manages to be both futuristic & ancient, & entirely strange.

I'm usually very reluctant to give up on a book, but I made an exception for this one. That the parts set in the past in Italy were okay is about all I can say that's positive. The characters weren't likable (or even like-to-hate-able), the plot didn't grab me, & nothing about the writing stood out.

Hands down, the funniest book I can remember reading, ever. Which is not at all what I expected, given that it's about a man who is in serious danger of dying at any moment. I'm a quiet, solitary reader, but I kept cracking up and reading passages of this one to anyone who couldn't easily escape.

It's difficult to put into words just how much I loved this book. It's the textbook on 20th/21st-century women's rights in the U.S. that I wish I'd had in middle school or high school, centered on the woman who is perhaps the most unassuming feminist in recent memory, and one of the most effective.