Taylor > Recent Status Updates

I'm getting sucked in. Still maintain my previous comments.

This book lays heavy on the pathos and it’s written to appeal to the broadest audience possible, especially of women readers. But even knowing that, it’s working on me. In an interview, the author said her goal was for women to put themselves in the shoes of YPJ fighters. Well, my mirror neurons have been a flurry. This book is battle stories with JUST enough context. Not deep into the background.

Tasty little snack of a book, that toggles between historical data and hyper-visual, poetically rendered scene, to call forth from the distant past a struggle for liberty that I know nothing about. (Wouldn’t recommend the book for someone who is trying to become informed, so much as for someone who enjoys prose and wants to stoke the ever-burning coals of resistance.)

Such an essential book. I wish I had come to it years ago.

Gorgeous! I understand Maggie Smith’s popularity. Her poems are accessible without sacrificing depth or artistry, they’re deeply compassionate, and also honest—a precious pairing—and apparently, she is a prolific writer.

I was sort of meandering in these stories without much commitment until I got to Hyacinths and the linked stories that followed. It’s interesting to watch the traits of various different characters shift from person to person in story to story, and to guess at the “real people” in Amy Bloom’s life, who had these traits. The stories are very psychological.