The Warmth of Other Suns

The Warmth of Other Suns:  The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

Published:  2010 by Random House

Source:  Received as a gift

  I cannot give this book a proper review.  Reading it made me mad, it upset me, it made me cry, but at times it also made me smile.  And I don't know if I have the right to any of those emotions.

 

  The Warmth of Other Suns is about the migration of thousands of black citizens from the segregated Jim Crow South to cities in the officially (though not always in practice) desegregated North.  The general migration story is explained, but Isabel Wilkerson, herself the daughter of such migrants, specifically tells the story of three people: 

• Ida Mae Brandon Gladney: A sharecropper's wife in Mississippi who, with her husband and young children leave the cotton plantation to join her sister in Milwaukee, but who eventually settles in Chicago
• George Swanson Starling:  An agitator for better wages for orange grove pickers in Florida, he flees just ahead of the lynch mobs for New York City
• Robert Joseph Pershing Foster:  The son of the principal of the colored school in Monroe, Louisiana, he becomes a doctor and - not wanting to be merely a country doctor for the colored people - heads to Los Angeles to seek his fortune.

  We see their stories almost in their entirety:  The demeaning existence they had to endure in their hometowns (though it must be said there seemed to be an incredible sense of community within the black population which must have been what got some of them through such difficulties); the struggle to leave, the difficulties of life in a completely new environment up North.  What was extremely surprising to me is how much discrimination they had to put up with even once they were settled in these large metropolises, and this is where I started feeling outrage and shame;  neither myself nor my immediate ancestors had any part of this injustice but I kept wanting to just look up some of these people and apologize.

  The three stories are similar, yet very different at the same time.  Ms Wilkerson tells the three stories so well that they read like fiction.  I wish that some of the events described were fiction, but sadly ......

   It's a fairly long book, but it is definitely worth the effort. 

   I started this book just after Christmas, and finished it on January 3, so I just might make this one of my favorite books for 2011 and 2012.  Highly recommended. 

bibliosue's 2012 Reading Resolutions

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a safe and wonderful holiday.  Christmas was spent quietly at home, and the last week of the year was an extremely busy blur at the office so I did not do anything for New Year's Eve except relax. 

So ... 2012 is upon us and I started thinking about what I want to accomplish with my reading and in turn with my blog.  As much as I love getting free books to review and though a small part of me wants to be an esteemed book critic (I can be delusional sometimes), I think that for 2012 I am going to move away from this.  I don't do a lot of formal reviewing but when I do it sometimes feels like I'm doing homework and that takes away some of my enjoyment of the reading experience.  I still plan on writing reviews, but it will be for books that I have selected and obtained on my own. 

Given the state of my to-read shelves I really should impose a book-buying embargo, but I know that just is not going to happen (I'm going up to Toronto next week and have a list of books to pick up when I'm there).  What I can commit to, though, is a concentrated effort to control my impulsive book purchases so that I can catch up on what I already own and only purchase books that I genuinely want to read right away.

I don't think I will set a goal for the number of books to read in 2012.  I read over 120 in each of the last two years and I think that is good enough for me.  I would like to pay attention to what I'm reading rather than how much I'm reading and again given the state of my to-read shelves this is a challenge to avoid wanting to rush through one book to get to the next one. 

Do you have any reading goals for the new year? 

TLC Blog Tour - New

New:  Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change by Winifred Gallagher

Published:  2011 by The Penguin Press

Source:  Received from Publisher for Review

  When I began reading New:  Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change, I was expecting a diatribe about how today's consumer culture gives almost every product a limited life span to encourage more and more consumption.  This topic is touched upon, but instead what I found was a very interesting account of the value and importance of novelty in civilization.

  As the author, Winifred Gallagher, describes, neophilia (desire for novelty) has had an evolutionary purpose; it has helped civilization react to events or situations which in turn has led us to the world we live in today, for better or worse.  Using the example of Homo sapiens versus Neanderthals in prehistoric times, Gallagher notes that  Homo sapiens, as strong neophiles, were able to adapt to periods of potentially disastrous change and evolve into the "human race" as we know it today, while the Neanderthals, as neophobes (novelty-resistant), preferred the comfort of their insular surroundings, didn't interact with anyone else, and as result drove themselves into extinction.

  In the present era, novelty works on a spectrum.  There are extreme neophiles - those who are extremely sensitive to and distracted by new stimuli in their environment - and extreme neophobes - those resistant to any newness at all - but most of us fall somewhere in between.   It is a survival instinct to react to novelty and change (as Gallagher explains, a swerving car on the highway is a novelty in one's average existence and is thus reacted to as such) and how we determine an event on a separate danger spectrum is likely to determine how we react to it from a novelty point of view.

  Going into my preconcieved notion of the essence of this book, Gallagher does go into the consumer side of novelty and especially how in our present day novelty is represented by the latest gadget or even the buying experience itself.   This appears to be a relatively new phenomenon, which Gallagher compares to an almost religious experience:

By the lights of the old Protestant ethic consumer meant something like "spendthrift" or squanderer.  the avid customers queuing up for Black Friday sales and the latest Apple productcts, however, resemble religious pilgrims who prove their devotion by sleeping in front of the shrine on the night before they're permitted to purchase the Holy Grail.



  Related to this is Gallagher's thought that the pursuit of new "stuff" has resulted in society - specifically, American - losing touch with the purpose of novelty.  In today's turbulent economy, with young people fearful of what the future has in store for them; and the increasing number of seniors who are typically more conservative (and more neophobic), Gallagher notes:

All of these social influences contribute to a newly fretful America that's wary of original ideas that have uncertain outcomes, much less of active problem finding.

  Aside from the descriptions of studies on the science of novelty which I found uninteresting (I am NOT a science person), I found this book to be extremely interesting and a pleasant surprise to what I had originally expected.  The concept of novelty is much much more than material, and is more important than I had ever thought.



Secret Santa Update!

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful day with family and friends.  My husband and I are spending a quiet day at home, but later on we will Skype with my family in Winnipeg. 

Ok, I admit I couldn't wait to open my two remaining gifts from Secret Santa, but I did make it until Friday, which isn't too bad for me.  And I was thrilled with what I received (over and above the reading journal and the chocolates and the coffee):

Two books on my wish list!

Funnily enough, these are the only books I received as gifts.   I think people assume I've read everything or already have the books I'm interested in. 

Once again, thank you to my Secret Santa, Sheila at Book Journey for the wonderful wonderful gifts.  They are all perfect. 

Happy holidays!

My Favorites of 2011

  With a little more than a week left of the year, I've read 123 books in 2011.  Yes, it's a lot, but it's a bit short of my goal of 140 books.  I read an eclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction, books published this year and books that have been sitting on my TBR shelf for a while.  I've enjoyed most of them, loved a lot of them, and surprisingly disliked very few.

  Rather than making a list, I thought I'd highlight some of my favorites of the year:

  Favorite fiction published in 2011:  The Submission by Amy Waldman
  Favorite fiction published before 2011:  Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
  Favorite non-fiction published in 2011:  Man Seeks God by Eric Weiner (I just finished this and have yet to write about it, but it is a great book.)
  Favorite non-fiction published before 2011:  The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson
 
  I'd also like to mention the most pleasant surprises of the year:

• Something Missing by Matthew Dicks
• Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore (I'm not sure why I didn't write about this one)
• The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French
• The Bee-Loud Glade by Steve Himmer
• The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson

  These are all books that I discovered thanks to the Books on the Nightstand Readers' Retreat I attended in April (best weekend ever).  I am pretty sure I would not have selected any of these on my own and I definitely would have missed out, because these are all original novels that were a pleasure to read.   I'll be attending their retreat again in 2012(in Oxford, Mississippi) and I cannot wait to see what gems they have for me this time around.

Secret Santa Came!

I'll admit it .... after my bad experience with Secret Santa last year I was getting a bit concerned this year when as of Saturday nothing arrived at my doorstep.  But today, on returning home from running a few errands I found a package on my doorstep with the following goodies:

  And being an excited kid, I just had to open one of the gifts, which was:

It's a lovely reading journal which is different from many others I've seen and I can't wait to start filling it up.

The other two wrapped gifts are going to remain un-opened until Christmas (if I can wait that long); but I might have to open the chocolate and try the coffee out before then.....

And I know the Secret Santa "rules" say we aren't supposed to reveal ourselves until after Christmas but I must thank my Secret Santa -- Sheila at Book Journey.  I think she went above and beyond what was necessary and I know the other two gifts waiting for me are going to be perfect.

Southern Literature Challenge

  Yup, another challenge, but unlike the others I will be participating in during 2012, this for me will be a true challenge.   Because I (ahem) am sadly lacking in Southern Literature.  Three of the best books I read this year -  Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen and The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove by Susan Gregg Gilmore; and The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson - would be perfect for this challenge, and they are the extent of my Southern Literature exposure.

  Hosted by The Introverted Reader, this challenge requires reading fiction or non-fiction written by an author from the South (to clarify for my international readers, that is the Southern United States) that is set mostly in the South.  I am going to aim for the "Y'all come back now, y'hear" level and read four books for this challenge.

  I don't have a reading list for this challenge yet, but I am pretty sure that I will be reading some William Faulkner during the first part of 2012, as I will be attending Booktopia 2012 in Oxford, Mississippi, in June (SO EXCITED!), which happens to be where Faulkner lived.  I know that I will likely pick up a lot of recommendations for this challenge (and for Mount TBR in general) when I am there, but I hope to have at least one or two books completed before then. 

  I'm a clean slate people -- any recommendations for me?