If Pit Bulls Had a God It'd Be a Pit Bull by Gabriel Ramirez (January ish)
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee (February)
The Waves by Virginia Woolf (March)
Bankrolling Empire by Sudev Sheth (April)
Gulf Coast Journal of Literature and Fine Arts Vol. 36.1 (May)
Bluff by Danez Smith (May)
Elsewhere, Home by Leila Aboulela (June)
The Namaste Club by Asha Elias (July)See also:
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2017
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2018
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2019
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2020
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2021
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2022
- (At Least) 12 Books in 12 Months - 2024
This is a chapbook of poetry I got from Miami Book Fair. The author was on a panel with Danez Smith that was really interesting -- they actually were not on the same page about everything, which I thought was really interesting and unique to have in a panel like this. Gabriel Ramirez seemed a bit more kumbaya about healing our fathers, and Danez Smith was a bit more jaded about their ability to heal without their own buy-in first. It was interesting to hear that dialectic given where I was with my own relationship with my own father in that moment.
I really loved hearing Gabriel Ramirez speak and read his poetry, which is why I bought the book. With that being said, it didn't connect with me as deeply when I read it on my own. Some favorites from the collection are: Russell the Pit Bull and the Widsom Held in His Mythical Lockjaw: Shout Out to the Dead, to the Dead, to the Dead; For Jonah; If Pit Bulls Had Church It'd Be an Open Field; and You Look Like You Talk Too Much.
I actually did not technically finish this book in March. As of this writing, it is early March and while drafting my new post I realized I can't recall finishing any books in January despite having read a lot. I realized I started and did not finish a lot of books in this time frame, including Overstory by Richard Powers (too cringe-y), The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino (too boring), Something about Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (too heavy), They Called Me a Lioness by Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri (for the book club), the Arabian Nights (lovely, but not meant, in my opinion, to be read cover-to-cover), and this book. I'm embarassed I didn't finish any books in January, and I needed to slot something into this section of the post, so I just finished reading the three poems I had left in this chapbook and fudged the date a bit to put it in here.
Loved this collection of essays! It is not actually a how-to book, it is just personal reflections about life by a successful author. I started it back in Boston, but didn't finish it before I moved. Was reminded of it randomly one day and checked out the audiobook from the library to finish it. Really liked it!
I really liked the essay The Querent, which was about tarot and how you can use tarot pulls to ideate stories with rich jumping off points for characters and scenarios. Personally, I would love to own a tarot deck, but my understanding is that you're only allowed to steal or be gifted a tarot deck. The author brought a friend along with him to the store to buy the deck for him, but that doesn't really feel in the spirit of the rule. Of course there is always the option to steal, but that doesn't really feel in my style. I will be patient and I am sure, one day, the right deck will come to me.
There was also the essay Mr. and Mrs. B, which was about the author's experience serving as staff for fancy New York dinner parties for some wealthy celebrity socialites (the Buckleys?). The husband wrote an infamously homophobic column during the AIDs crisis, and yet the wife donated generously to AIDs relief. The author, himself an Asian gay man who had been deeply involved in AIDs organizing, wrote about the curious experience of serving as a trusted wait-staff during their private parties to such a contradictory couple. I think the essay is interesting for how it sheds light on the intersection of two vastly different classes when wait-staff serve at parties for the wealthy.
I also really liked the essay The Rosary which was about the author's experience cultivating a rose garden. I highly recommend for anyone who likes roses!
FossilisedFlowers, one of my fav instagram accounts, posted a bunch of Virginia Woolf quotes and all my favorite ones were from this book so I found an ebook through Hoopla. Would love LOVE taking a physical copy to the beach and reading it by the literal waves. But it turns out the Miami Dade library system does not own any physical copies, which is weird to me? And didn't feel like paying $18 for it given that I am already reaching a number of books that feels uncomfortable to my commitment-issue self. Lots of interiority, which I love, especially because I've been feeling moody lately.
Bernard - the main character? Really dramatic, would be insufferable in real life but fun to read from his perspective. comfortably life-partners with Neville, ocassionally. Long reflection at the end of the book. Neville - nerdy guy who gets along with Bernard 'cause he doesn't mind Bernard's moodiness; gayly in love with Percival. Jinny - tennis hottie girl next door. Always raising a hand for a suitor to toy with. Similar to Louis in desirability. Rhoda - moody neurodivergent girlie who is trying her best to follow along but just wants to be left alone let her live Susan - mother, nature-girlie. Louis - son of australian business man and big business magnate. successful, never married. Similar to Rhoda in reclusivity. Paired with Jinny once upon a time, but realizes that they don't actually want each other, they are just the same
Loved this book. Delectable. Gratuitious. Langourous. I've never read a book like it, which was the whole point of Virginia Woolf's other A Room of One's Own.
One of the main themes was that one person actually lives many lives. And Bernard in the final chapter reflects: is he actually Bernard and his friends are separate individuals, or are all six characters just different manifestations of the same individual (like a more mundane version of a split-personality). And maybe we all contain these split personalities.
At first I was getting lost, with the perspective shifts. But I looked up the first chapter's sparknotes and learned the book would be structured as a series of chapters. There are three coinciding timelines: the book from beginning to end, the waves from the beginning to the end of the day, and the characters from the beginning to the end of their lives. I find the structure so satisfying.
This was an awesome work of nonfiction from the Cambridge University Press. When my mother visited me in Miami, we went to a local Jain event at Florida International University (FIU) I had seen on a South Florida Jain list-serv. We fully expected crashing a meeting with four students in a classroom and maybe some pizza. Instead, we got a huge event that was almost like a Diwali party, with people dressed to the nines, dance performances, the announcement of the winner of an essay contest, and a gallery of art pieces. The keynote was provided by Professor Sheth on his book. Little did we know that there is such a thriving Jain studies program at FIU.
The book is about the role Jain bankers played in financing the Mughal empire. It mainly traces the history of one banking family (the Jhaveris) from generation to generation and describes their relationship with the ruling empire in each time frame.
It was a fascinating book, that gave a lovely high level view of the various eras of the Mughal empire. It was also really cool because I knew a lot of the locations in the book! A lot of the cities and religious sites mentioned are scattered throughout Gujarat, so it was a cool way to get a new perspective on the part of the world my family is from.
This book really validated my essential feeling that Jains, at their core, are fundamentally capitalists. We've been doing stuff with debt y'all can only begin to imagine.
It was also cool to learn about macroeconomics in history from this book. For example, one part of the book talked about how when currency was literally minted from gold and silver, the government would control the amount of currency in circulation to manage, e.g., inflation by increasing or decreasing the amount of erosion a coin could have before it needed to be re-minted. So, for example, lets say a newly minted coin is set to weigh one unit. Normally, maybe, a coin would be considered valid as long as it was 0.8 units. But if the government wanted more currency they could set that rate at 0.5. And if they wanted to restrict currency they could set the cutoff stricly at 1 unit. Another cool macroeconomic trend to hear about was how colonizers had a lot of bullion but couldn't trade in the market with raw bullion so they would need (often Jain) financiers to change their bullion into currency. And the demand for currency was tied to the chronology of the agriculture market. So in the beginning of the agricultural season bankers would sell currency at a very high rate to colonizers so the colonizers could use it to buy commodities. Then, later in the season, when demand for currency was lower, the bankers would use all the bullion they gained to buy back currency and reap profit. Note that, even with this financing scheme, the transactions were still profitable for the colonizers, which goes to show how lucrative the Indian subcontinent goods were.
Also, my hot take coming away from reading the book, and from having seen Muslim culture/its conspicuous absence in Gujarat the most recent time I visited India, is that maybe it doesn't make sense that Gujarat is a part of India and maybe it would make more sense if it was a part of Pakistan? Just because, like, for centuries before the British regime, the region had been governed by an Islamic government. Anyways, I'm not saying I endorse the idea of ethno-religious states, but if drawing the boundary between India and Pakistan is the project, I'm not sure it makes sense that Gujarat ended up on the side it did. Please don't quote me on this, it's just a thought I've been chewing on.
I first bought a copy of Gulf Coast back in October 2021 because one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite friends, Appendix by Diana Cao, appeared in Volume 34.1. I enjoyed reading that whole journal so much because of the breadth of works presented in such a digestible and beautiful format. And it is so cheap to buy back-issues of the journal. I was craving something similar, so I just decided to order a random copy of the journal.
It was great! Some of my favs from the collection were: Bachelorette Weekend by Maggie Lange; Secondhand Furniture by Monique Debruxelles translated from French by Laura Nagle; Dear Life by Melissa Crowe; Paring by Ashley SOjin Kim; Excerpt from Trump Card by Petra Hulová translated from Czech by Alex Zucker; Xibalbá by Felicia Zamora; Fever by JC Andrews; A Flapping of Wings by John Paul Scotto; Sympathy Card by Jared K. Hayley; Love Rose by Hasan Dudar; Question of Travel by Urvi Kumbhat; Blueprint for Blk Girl Survival by Ashunda Norris; The King James Bible is a Mirror by Brian Czyzyk; Palestinian Love Poem by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi; Conte by Arhur Rimbaud translated from French by Ryan Smith; RATS LAUGH by Jo O'Lone-Hahn; Deluge: A Chinese Almanac by Nicole W. Lee; Cafe Knighthawks (Spleen) by Manuel Becerra translated from Spanish by Kristin Dykstra; Posada el Cerdo Robado (Infancia) by Manuel Becerra translated from Spanish by Kristin Dykstra; Cahokia by Jesse Lee Kercheval; [Prayer / Teleportational Communiqué For Myour Pastfuture Transcestors (a Trans(re)lation)] by Rose Zinnia; and Street Howl for the Exiled by Javier Sandoval.
Danez Smith strikes again, and has always been one of the best to ever do it. I had gotten it at the Miami Book Fair last year when they were on a panel with Gabriel Ramirez (see above). I had left it on my shelf while I read some of the others books I had bought at the time.
The collection is so insightfully ambivalent and retrospect about the significance of poetry in a world that is so completely fucked. The two introductory poems are called anti poetica and ars america (in the hold), and there are multiple other poems called anti poetica and ars america throughout the collection. I learned that "ars poetica" is the name of a poem that explains the nature of poetry. So you can kind of get all combinations of [anti/ars] [poetica/america].
Also, I annotated this book a lot because I own a copy so I get to take liberties with it, which is not usually the case because I love borrowing books so much. It felt so extragavant to be able to underline/write in the book/mark it up. Also, things got a bit out of hand when I took it with me to the beach and someone put a water bottle in my bag without closing it so the whole book got waterlogged rip.
Some of my favorites from the collection were: ars america (in the hold) (pg. 4); on knowledge (pg. 7); less hope (pg. 16); alive (pg. 25); i'm not bold, i'm fucking traumatized (pg. 69); Denver (pg. 80); stoop poem (pg. 82); after & before (pg. 103); ars poetica (pg. 119); and craft (pg. 137).
This is one of the books I got on my most recent trip to the library. I thought it was a novel, but it turned out to be a collection of short stories. I started it on the Brightline train from Miami to Orlando where I went to Universal's Epic Universe with Maryam Arshad whom I had met a few weeks earlier at the South Florida Palestine Film Festival. Beginning the book was a really magical moment combining some of my favorite things: solo journeys, libraries, trains, culture, etc.
The stories are very much informed by the author's faith as a Muslim woman, in the same way of C.S. Lewis or Paolo Coehlo being Christian authors of fiction. I like reading these types of books from time to time: it is interesting to step into the perspective of a person of faith, even if I don't share their faith. And doing so feels in line with my own faith's emphasis on અનેકાંતવાદ (anekantavada which means a multiplicity of perspectives, or the idea that "ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects and viewpoints").
My favorites from the collection were: Summer Maze; The Circle Line; and Pages of Fruit.
This book is satire. I got this book in a moment of satire (more on that below). And it really just all felt like a part of the bit, but by the end of reading it, I actually thought it was a really entertaining novel even outside the novelty of how I had come across it. It's basically an airport pulp murder mystery type of novel, which is so fun for a summer read.
In Miami, I have a hot yoga studio I really love that's available on class pass called Mimi Yoga which has one location in Wynwood and one in Coconut Grove. I make last minute bookings for the 8pm classes on days when my work schedule allows it. One Tuesday, I looked for a spot, and neither location had an 8pm class option, which is unusual. But instead, there was a special event at the Coconut Grove location for a book signing + yoga class for five credits (which is a steal). I knew it wouldn't be a life-changing yoga flow or anything, but I was curious and happy to sign up for a community event and was so curious to read the book they were giving out (fully expecting it to be some second-rate self-published type thing from one of the yoga studio owners' friends).
When I got there, each of the attendees got a copy of the book, a branded tote bag, a protein bar, some electrolytes, a pink E11even baseball cap (okay..?), and a handle of vodka. Keep in mind, I paid the equivalent of like $8.50 for this class, and I was walking away with a yoga class, a book, a baseball cap, and a handle of vodka lol. I wasn't particularly in the market for E11even merch (I've never been, even though I plan to go at some point because it is such a Miami institution) nor for a bottle of vodka (I've been on a bit of a sober-curious journey lately). But I can definitely brainstorm some fits that incorporate the cute baby pink color of the ball cap, and its not like the vodka will spoil before it gets regifted, so who am I to complain. But the whole situation really set the tone of comical suspension of disbelief enough for me to question what was actually irony and what was not.
On that note, and to set the scene, the only South Asian people in the room were the owner of the yoga studio, the author of the book, and myself. Anyways, I flip through the book as people are getting settled and see that one of the characters is named Indira (whom I would come to learn is the only South Asian character in the book). At the end of the class, I go up to get the book signed because why not. I mention to the author that my grandmother's name was Indira because I think it will be a sweet, disarming nod to our shared culture we can chat about. And, bless her soul, the author was SO awkward about it. She kind of hesitated on how to respond, and then said she doesn't have anyone in her family named Indira (pronouncing it with a hard D), but that her daughter's name is India. I spelled my name for her, and the note she wrote in my book was, in its entirety, "Om!". One m, with an exclamation mark! That is such a funny choice for what to write! Granted, I think signing a book for strangers as an author is an inherently weird thing to be tasked with, but to this day I really can't figure out if I'm supposed to read the "Om!" ironically or not. If it's satire, that is sooo funny. And if it isn't satire, that is also kind of hilarious, you know?
Anyways, the next day I have the book with me in the lunch room, and I'm telling Gisell this story. Sean comes to sit with us, and sees the book, and without missing a beat asks "oh have you read the other book by her?". And Gisell and I start laughing because, again, I ended up with this book so randomly and I did not expect it to be on anyone else's radar whatsoever. But he was like "no no Lex and I both read the other book Pink Glass Houses it was a fun read" and apparently the author is like Miami-famous.
So I read the book. I will be honest, some of the early character development feels a bit awkward. I was still trying to get a sense of what to take seriously. But after the table-setting is done, the book really hits its stride as a fun romp to read. I was in the market for a casual novel and this really delivered on that. I will definitely let Gisell/Sean/etc. borrow it, even if I'm not sure I would make it a blanket recommendation.
SPOILERS: in retrospect, maybe my initial interaction with the author was so awkward because, at that point, from her perspective the only thing she knew about me were some surface-level similarities between me and the character in the book that is ultimately revealed to be the book's secret villain?