Books, Fiction

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Worth A Read Yes
Length 406
Quick Review Delving into magical realism and familiar themes of justice, humanity, freedom, and equality, the era of slavery is raging in Ta-Nehisi Coates debut novel. 

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The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates in Galveston, Texas | Dress |

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ writes incredible essays and nonfiction, which are entertaining and thought provoking. I couldn’t wait to see what Coates would do in a world he created himself. Set in pre-Civil War Virginia, The Water Dancer is an impressive piece of fiction. 

Hiram Walker is the son of a slave and the Lockless plantation owner. His mother was sold when he was young, and he was taken in and raised by another slave on the plantation. The community is made up of Quality, slave/land owners, the Tasked, slaves, and classless whites. Hiram is an exceptional human because of his photogenic memory, but he also possesses the gift of conduction, the ability to travel across great distance through waterways. He eventually travels to Philadelphia through the Underground Railroad, where he meets Moses, a legendary Underground member. 

One of my favorite parts about the story is the way it is framed and told. Coates introduces Hiram in a death scene in chapter one. It captures the readers’ attention and holds it. There are also breaks in the narrative, where Hiram speaks as an older wiser man reminiscing about his younger years and even to speak directly to the reader. There is a lot of dependence on mysticism and suspension of reality. Coates shows the evils of slavery through the eyes of a slave. He also shows the entire society was trapped in the horrific cycle. Everyone suffered. No one was free. 

Story wise, it’s very interesting, well thought out, and thoroughly researched. Honestly, it’s rather forgettable. I’m having a hard time writing a decent or even remotely in depth review because it did not sweep me along. I read it and had to make myself keep reading. It’s not a novel I just had to know what happened. I remember the beginning far more than the ending. 

The Water Dancer is a combination of intriguing, boring, and well done. To be honest, it’s really hard calling, the beloved writer, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ prose boring, but it was. I thought it dragged on and on at times. Maybe part of it is that I don’t really like fantasy. I’ve never been a huge fan, and this is very much a fantasy novel. Although, I don’t think that has much to do with it. The fantasy bits were interesting and did not overwhelm the plot. 

Memorable Quotes
“She’d gone from that warm quilt of memory to the cold library of fact.”
“I was a man well regarded in slavery, which is to say I was never regarded as a man at all.” 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: The Water Dancer
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Publisher: One World
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780399590597

11..., Reading Lists

11… Black Writers I LOVE

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The Travelers | The Water Dancer | How to Love a Jamaican | A Raisin in the Sun | The Palm Wine Drinkard | Infidel: My Life | I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem | Passing | Half of A Yellow Sun | Homegoing |

Some of my favorite books are written by black authors. The first book I read by an African author was The Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola. It completely opened my mind to a new voice, culture, and world. 

Black authors have done more to open my mind than any other demographic. I would not be the person I am today without these authors, their stories, the characters, and the challenges they gave me to face in the mirror and the world.  

    1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie… I’ve read all of her books, and they are amazing. Americanah is absolutely stunning. I can’t recommend her enough. She has a uniquely African, American, female, human voice, which creates empathy and understanding by bridging the differences and finding the commonalities. 
    2. The Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola was my gateway book. Before it, I had always gravitated to the European classics. Tutuola opened my eyes to a more diverse world of literature, and I’ve never looked back. It’s an amazing novel. You should read it. 
    3. One of the first novels I read by a black woman after discovering Achebe was Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. It is an incredible novel, and I fell in love with Hurston’s prose. She was incredibly talented, witty, and amazing. Anything she wrote is gold. 
    4. A few years ago, Yaa Gyasi was all over the place because of her debut novel Homegoing. It is absolutely worth the hype. I love the book and reviewed it, here.
    5. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a great writer. I really love his essays. They are incredible and insightful. 2019 saw the publishing of his first novel, The Water Dancer, which I’ve just read and I’m in the process of writing a review.
    6. The playwright, Lorraine Hansberry, is best known for A Raisin in the Sun, a play depicting segregation in Chicago and the Black Americans living in it. It was the first play by a black, female author performed on Broadway. 
    7. Alexia Arthurs has an amazing and unique voice. I can’t wait to see what else she brings into this world. Her collection of stories How to Love a Jamaican is wonderful. I reviewed it, here.
    8. I love memoirs, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a phenomenal memoirist. She’s had a challenging and tragic life, but she overcame it and created good in the world through her activism and writing. I highly suggest any of her memoirs, but Infidel: My Life is particularly incredible.
    9. I recently discovered Nella Larsen and her novella Passing. It was published 91 years ago, but it still holds so much up in today’s world and provides insight into the days of years gone by. Read the review, here.
    10. I read Moi, Tituba, Sorcière… Noire de Salem or I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé in college. Some of the scenes in the novel have stayed with me ever since. It’s an amazing and heart wrenching novel in the original French and just as powerful in the English translation. 
    11. Regina Porter’s debut novel The Travelers is fantastic. It’s an amazing snapshot of American history. I reviewed it a few months ago, here.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

 

 

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Black History Month 2020

Happy Black History Month!

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Holy crap. I can’t believe it’s February already. I feel like I haven’t done anything productive this year. Oh well, there are still 336 days left to turn this shit around. 

Back on topic: 
There are so many amazing heritage months during the year. Every year, I try and focus on one or two because I can’t focus on them all. Damnit! The very first year, I spent February celebrating black women for Black History Month. (Last year, I focused on Asian American Pacific Heritage Month and LGBTQIA+ Pride Month.) It was wonderful. On Instagram, I talked about a different amazing black woman every day, focusing on lesser known movers and shakers throughout history. I only read books penned by black women. These women are/were incredible. They have been the backbone of this country for centuries. Well, not just this country, but that’s a much longer story. They deserve far more recognition than they have ever gotten. For as much as I knew before that month, I learned so much more. It started amazing conversations, which I would have never had otherwise. I expanded my mind and my heart. I love being a nerdy blogger because my focus is on educating myself and pushing others to do the same. I read books about a variety of things from memoirs by comediennes to novels to nonfiction. You can’t know something until you know it, and there was so much I didn’t know. There is so much I don’t know. It’s why I keep reading: to educate myself, to be better, to do good in the world. 

I push a very intersectional feminist agenda. I didn’t have a huge following back then, but I knew from the beginning I wanted to use whatever my platform was to showcase incredible humans of diverse backgrounds and voices. Not to speak for them, but be a channel for which their voices could be heard or realized or found. It’s hard to know something you don’t know, which is why I try to showcase the divergent world in which we exist. It’s so easy to be caught in our own bubble, but outside our bubbles, a world seethes with an indescribable amount of individuality and intersection. We are all humans. Our existence is uniquely our own, but it also overlaps in so many fascinating ways. We are more alike than we are different. But it’s impossible to experience the unique overlapping of humanity trapped in our own spheres of being.  

That first year blogging and Instagramming was enlightening. Racism exists. It’s rampant. It’s horrible. It’s everywhere from our grandparents to the media to our own internal bias. For as much love and support as I received, I also encountered a great deal of dickweasels. I lost over 500 followers because I was highlighting black women. I heard “There are incredible white women too,” or “What about black men?” I wasn’t saying black women were better than anyone else. I was saying we, as humans, are all beautiful and fascinating, but let’s bear witness to an overlooked and left behind and oppressed group of people because they need and deserve love and acceptance and have the right to be seen. I may have lost 500 followers, who I didn’t want anyways if I’m being honest, but I gained over 1,000 new followers. I heard so many comments of support and awe. It’s not about the followers; it’s about what those numbers represent. Hatred exists in the world, but I have found kindness and compassion weighs heavier. People want a better world. People want to do better. People want to grow. People want to give and receive kindness.

This year for Black History Month, I’m not just focusing on women. I’m reading books by black authors. I won’t be highlighting a person every day because honestly, it was a lot of work and research, and my job has been keeping me very busy lately, and I don’t have the time. I truly wish I did. I hope to expand my mind and those of everyone who cares enough to follow along on this journey. I’m still completely baffled people care what I have to say, but if you’re listening – in this case, reading – I will be using my voice to raise awareness and advocate for change, peace, kindness, love, acceptance, tolerance, and a beautifully colorful world. Although, I try and do this all the time, so Black History Month really isn’t all that different than any other month. It’s just a more one directionally focused month.  

So far there are only seven books on the list, but I might try and sneak an eighth in there since there are eight book review days in February. If you haven’t noticed, I post every Tuesday and Thursday. Send me your recommendations if you have any!!! What I’m reading this month: 

The Black Book
Dapper Dan by Daniel R. Day
How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Becoming by Michelle Obama
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Charged by Emily Bazelon (It’s not by a black woman, but it does talk about an issue that affects the black community at much higher rates than white people.)

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Books, NonFiction

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Worth a Read YES
Length 400
Quick Review Eight pieces previously written by Ta-Nehisi Coates are combined with observations and opinions he has looking back while We Were Eight Years in Power.

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We Were Eight Years in Power at Oak Alley Plantation | Shirt | Jeans | Shoes | Sunglasses

I am ashamed to say I had not read a Ta-Nehisi Coates book until We Were Eight Years in Power. From the very first page, I was hooked. The majority of Coates’ writing has focused on race in the U.S, and he has become known as a “black writer” for better or worse. Over the course of Obama’s presidency, Coates wrote a great deal. Looking back over that time, he chose eight pieces to document those eight years. Before each, he included addendums, thoughts, opinions, hopes, and more.

From the very first page, I was a little in love with Coates’ style. There is some tongue-in-cheek phrasing throughout We Were Eight Years in Power to subversively emphasize the all too present hypocrisy, blindness, and iniquity within American society. I love reading simultaneously intelligent and accessible works. Coates is like your favorite professor who is really smart but also swears a little. He has a truly remarkable knowledge base spanning classics, science, pop culture references – I absolutely looked up 96.92% of the latter – and everything in between. Reading this was overwhelmingly stimulating in the best kind of way.

One of the most fascinating pieces was “The Case For Reparations.” It was amazing and chilling. Coates brings a light to the haunting realities black Americans live with on a daily basis. Americans (read that as white Americans) need to read it. We cannot be a country divided. To survive, we need to face history. Ruins are not just in Rome, they are all around us. We live in the ruins we created centuries ago. Chicago comes up a great deal throughout We Were Eight Years in Power for good reason. It is a prime example of what we have yet to overcome, “Today Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in the country, a fact that reflects assiduous planning.” If we refuse to even acknowledge the reality of Chicago, how can we possibly move forward?

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We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Obama was the first black president. The progress was followed by a giant side step/fall/catastrophe. Trump won the presidency. (Sadly.) Coates is a realist, but there is an optimist underneath. Like many others, Coates did not believe it was possible for Trump to win, but win he did. Coates was wrong. (Sadly.) The optimist helped him believe in America, even though his career has focused on the stubborn and insidious white supremacy rooted in American tradition, society, and legal institutions. Hope helped so many believe Trump was impossible. Fear made it possible.

I love We Were Eight Years in Power. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a master of words and insight. They say the pen is mightier than the sword. His pen is not a sword. It’s a scalpel cutting precisely to dissect society and humanity to see the reality our country faces. As I was reading Coates’ words, I wondered if he ever reads his writing and thinks ‘damn, I am a magician with words.’

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*By the way, I decided to take the pictures for this book in front of slaves’ quarters at Oak Alley Plantation. Our history and current success is due to the thousands and thousands of people who were never considered people at all. They were stolen from their homes, owned, beaten, raped, murdered, and more. America needs to start recognizing history as it happened not how it has been taught or recorded for generations.

Memorable Quotes
“All my life I had watched women support the dreams of men, hand over their own dreams to men, only to wonder, in later years, whether it was all worth it.”
“America had a biography, and in that biography, the shackling of black people – slaves and free – featured prominently.”
“White people are, in some profound way, trapped; it took generations to make them white, and it will take more to unmake them.”
“I would like to believe in God. I simply can’t.”
“The essence of American racism is disrespect.”

Title: We Were Eight Years in Power; An American Tragedy
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Publisher: One World (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9780399590573

Books, Reading Lists

Cruise Reading List

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My suitcase is packed. My books are packed in my favorite weekender. I have my sunhat ready to go. Wearing my comfiest shoes and yoga pants for a roadtrip!

I’m off on another adventure. Technically, it’s my first adventure of the year. The year rolled over while I was on my last adventure. I’m spending a few days with family in New Orleans before heading on my first cruise. A bunch of my mom’s side of the family are taking a cruise to Mexico to celebrate my grandma’s 80th birthday!

I am working the next couple of days, but I am not working while on the cruise. Well, I’m not working three of the four and a half days on the cruise. Those three days will be the first days I’ve not worked in…. years. I’ll be doing work for the blog like taking pictures and writing. I like to think of that as fun(work). It’s work, but I love it.

I will actually get to sit down and read. Actually dedicate time to reading. I’m super behind on my reading list, so hopefully, I can catch up over the next few days. Fingers crossed. Besides reading, I get to actually put on clothes and look like a human being!!!

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  1. Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way
    Tanja Hester
    I’m currently reading this. It’s full of lots of great ideas. I kind of feel like I’m living a work optional life because I have the freedom of taking my work with me everywhere I go.
  2. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
    Ta-Nehisi Coates
    I’m really excited to read this one.
  3. Mother Winter
    Sophia Shalmiyev
    I’m looking forward to this memoir about emigration and motherhood.
  4. The Bold World; A Memoir of Family and Transformation
    Jodie Patterson
    I love the cover, and I’m looking forward to reading about a mother’s journey with a trans child.
  5. French Quarter Fiction; The Newest Stories of America’s Oldest Bohemia
    Editor: Joshua Clark
    I love New Orleans, and this is an obvious choice since I’m in the city.
  6. American Spy
    Lauren Wilkinson
    I love the cover a whole bunch. The story sounds pretty great too.
  7. Dreyer’s English; An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style
    Benjamin Dreyer
    My inner language nerd is going to have so much time reading this. This is my version of porn.