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reading journals
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If your interest is piqued by any of Richard's journal excerpts below, click on a year.
1987-1993 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
1987-1993 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Recent Excerpts (Rev. 5/01/2020)
Eberhardt, Jennifer L. Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We
See, Think, and Do. New York: Viking, 2019.
An excellent book for every American to read. Why? Dr. Eberhardt addresses the concept of implicit bias, and she begins with some great examples that lead to a clear definition:
“Whether bad or good, whether justified or unjustified, our beliefs and attitudes can become so strongly associated with the category that they are automatically triggered, affecting our behavior and decision making. So, for example, simply seeing a black person can automatically bring to mind a host of associations that we have picked up from our society: this person is a good athlete, this person doesn’t do well in school, this person is poor, this person dances well, this person lives in a black neighborhood, this person should be feared. The process of making these connections is called bias. It can happen unintentionally. It can happen unconsciously. It can happen effortlessly. And it can happen in a matter of milliseconds. These associations can take hold of us no matter our values, no matter our conscious beliefs, no matter what kind of person we wish to be in the world” (31-2).
Greenwell, Garth. Cleanness. New York: Farrar, 2020.
The novel is part language lesson: Gospodar translates (upon first mention) each Bulgarian word or phrase and in such a way that one is acquainted with the word’s fullness. At one point, a male sex partner Gospodar has met online calls him Bulgarian for bitch. But the narrator doesn’t leave it there, massaging the meaning within the context of the indigenous culture. The novel is part love story, in which the narrator meets a man he only calls R (every character is reduced to a single initial, in some way protecting the identities of his co-characters, almost creating the feel that one is reading a roman à clef). I’ve never read such sensual yet meaningful sex scenes (for want of a better term). At one point, the narrator makes love to his lover, R, taking perhaps twenty minutes to kiss every part of the man’s body. When he is finished, his partner is attempting to hide his tears, the fact that perhaps no one has ever loved him so completely.
Smith, Aaron. The Book of Daniel: Poems. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh, 2019.
In the title poem, the persona levels with readers about Daniel Craig:
I made a Daniel Craig scrapbook
called The Book of Daniel. For years I bought
every magazine with him on the cover. In Interview
he’s stripped to the waist, hopping around on the beach.
Jamie Dornan was in Interview, too: arms behind his
head in a bathtub. I fell in love with Daniel Craig
when he was stalked by a man in Enduring Love--
before he was Bond-hot and too famous.
Smith, Alison. Name All the Animals. New York: Scribner, 2004.
If I had had the time, I would have read Name All the Animals in one sitting. In this memoir, the author begins benignly by sharing with readers in great detail how close she and her brother Roy are at ages nine and twelve, respectively, so close that their mother names them Alroy. Together, they explore an abandoned house in their neighborhood. And then, in a similar way to how it must shock the narrator and her parents, it shocks the reader to learn of Roy’s death at eighteen. The rest of the book covers several years following in which Alison finishes high school. She demonstrates how her family, good Catholics, avoid all the questions that should be asked and tackled. Alison develops an inner and outer world of her own making, all in aid of forgetting and yet commemorating her brother. In failing to grieve, she cuts herself off from most people until she meets one she can’t resist. Smith tells this harrowing story without sentiment and with all due regard for the truth. She structures it in such a manner that readers discover along with her how she must grow up, how she must proceed without Roy in her life.
Obama, Michelle. Becoming. New York: Crown, 2018.
Michelle Robinson Obama never holds back when discussing issues like racism, how, from the time she is a child, she must work harder, climb higher and faster, to prove to white people that she is just as good as they. The journey must be exhausting, knowing inside that you are as smart or smarter than white men and women but being put down in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. This book is a work of grace under pressure, how she becomes the person she wants to become, the wife and mother she wants to become, and how she becomes her own version of the First Lady, the first black First Lady, and it succeeds greatly in sharing with readers her love of life.