Hey, I've Read That: we review books everyone else read (fifty) five years ago

Indie Next, that flyer we have at the front of the store, all about new books, has started what they are calling Revisit and Rediscover, which looks suspiciously like this very, (sometimes) recurring, blog feature. Regardless, I am happy to see Revisit and Rediscover. I'm a big backlist reader, and feel there is still much to celebrate in old books.

By weird coincidence, I recently read one of the February Revisit and Rediscover titles, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. Somehow I escaped this book in school. I've become increasingly concerned about the quality of my education considering the unforgivable number of classics my teachers didn't make me read. My dismal curriculum aside, I wanted to read The Fire Next Time after picking  up Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me. There's a quote on the back from Toni Morrison. Among her praise of Coates. she says, "I've been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died." 

I decided to read The Fire Next Time first, given all the comparisons between it and Between the World and Me. And I have a strange affinity for James Baldwin. It's an admittedly recent love affair for me. I only read my first Baldwin a few years go, Giovanni's Room, which I could not get over. That book lead me on a rather intense foray into LGBTQ literature that has defined my reading for the last two years. I feel a sort of debt--an immense gratitude to Baldwin for this, and I was happy to increase the depth of my acquaintance with him.

The Fire Next Time is made up of two essays, the first being a letter to his nephew on the centennial of the signing of The Emancipation Proclamation, the other, an exploration of racism in Harlem, and the roles of Christianity and Islam in race relations. It is a slim volume, and so the amount of fury and anguish and fear and hurt and redemption and hope that tumble off its pages is surprising, as if from a much longer book.

Baldwin's descriptions of being stopped and frisked by police and left lying on a Harlem street as a teenager are eerily familiar. His agony over the unfairness of his nephew's place in life determined only by the color of his skin all too recognizable. "The limits of your ambition were, thus, to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being."

For a country where one in three Black men can expect to be incarcerated, his words are sadly prophetic. And then the heartbreaking realization--those two letters were never meant to be a prophecy, that's just how little has changed since he wrote them in the early 1960's.  The overt racism of James Baldwin's United States has merely hidden itself behind our insidious institutional racism and the false promises of a "color blind" society, too proud of its ability to finally elect a Black man as president.

Beyond the sad timeliness of his subject, Baldwin's writing is hypnotic. "For here you were, Big James, named for me...here you were: to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world." The tone and cadence of his words seems to mimic the beat of his heart and with it, the obvious love he has for his nephew. The richness of his writing is matched only by the clarity of his thoughts:

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in the order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.

The Fire Next Time is a powerful and provoking manifesto, and a hopeful exploration of what we all must find within ourselves. It is indispensable--and a compelling companion for Between the World and Me. Read it. Read them both. Join the conversation.

-Erin

Hey, I've Read That: we review books everyone else read five years ago

Turns out I'm not the only one reading about five years behind. Kalani saw my post on Sloane Crosley and wrote up one of his own. Finally, a creative outlet for our literary procrastination. -Erin

Just Kids by Patti Smith

When Just Kids came out in 2010 I was working part-time as a security guard in a shopping mall. Of course the only store I actually liked walking by was the bookstore. I can still remember the sight of that black and white book cover sitting on top of the bestseller shelf every shift that I “patrolled.” I casually knew of Patti Smith's music and having recently finished reading Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol.1, I told myself I would someday read the music memoir that everyone was talking about.

This past summer, after five years, a National book Award, and countless accolades and top ten lists, I finally read Patti Smith’s Just Kids. My expectations were completely wrong in thinking that Smith would be recounting the 1970s New York music scene or sharing wild and crazy tales about touring the world with other legendary rock stars. While there is some of this (Smith name drops Hendrix, Joplin, Ginsberg, Burroughs, etc.), this memoir has little to do with Smith’s early life or her music career, but is really a tender portrait of her friendship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe.

Smith further proves what a multi-talented artist she is with her carefully written memories that exude love for her lost friend. This book was absolutely worthy of the high praise it received and was worth the five year wait for me to finally read. (If you enjoyed this memoir about friendship check out Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett and Widow Basquiat by Jennifer Clement)

With her new memoir, M Train, Patti Smith again chooses not to write meaningfully about her days as a rock star. Yet again, Smith writes a completely enamoring book this time focusing more on her present day life after the deaths of her best friend (Robert Mapplethorpe), her husband (Fred Smith), and her younger brother (Todd).

M Train is about how she has coped with her new solitary life. A less talented writer would never be able to make a memoir like this work. Bizarre anecdotes, like the time Smith met chess champion Bobby Fischer in a dark alley at midnight in Iceland and the time she gave a keynote speech at a secret society club called the “Continental Drift Club,” fill the pages of this book. Smith writes about seemingly random fragmented memories from her life like an old man rambling about old war stories to his grandchildren. Despite this, I am completely engaged with every word she writes and cannot wait for more.

-Kalani

Hey, I've Read That

In which I review a book everyone else read five years ago.

I have never been known for my ability to keep abreast of all things pop culture-y. I still have my VCR. Which you might think is silly, but I get the cheapest movies at Value Village. Cheaper than Blockbuster even.

This inability to keep up (with the Kardashians) extends to my reading life. I spend a lot of time reading books published outside the current decade, so when I do read a "new book" most everyone else has already read it... five years ago.

But since I'm in charge of the blog, I can post whatever review I want, no matter how irrelevant it is. So here you go.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

This book is guaranteed to make you feel better about yourself. Almost every other essay, I found myself saying, "well, at least I've never done that."

Crosley pulls no punches in relating the miseries and embarrassments of her early adulthood. Failed relationships, and terrible jobs feature prominently. Her piece on being the reluctant maid of honor for her not-so-close friend is particularly hilarious.

Here you find the best friend, you're not quite sure you want. She's crass and selfish, sometimes mean, and will almost certainly get you into trouble. But she does it all with such wit and humor, it's difficult not to be charmed.

Sloane Crosley's new book The Clasp, her first novel, comes out October 6th.

HA! Tricked you! This post was relevant!

-Erin