Shaina Reads

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I've written before about what makes a good travel read for me, especially when the going gets stressful. I love a short page count and light prose working together to deliver a story that isn't completely devoid of meaty ideas; The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry did the trick for me when I went to a work conference earlier this year and needed a breather between presentations and social events.

However, now that I'm packing my books to jet off somewhere purely for pleasure, my priorities have shifted. While I definitely plan to read over my vacation, I won't be relying on my books as much for stress relief (I hope not, at least!), opening up the possibilities for length, difficulty and topic. Variety and flexibility is the name of this game; I want to be able to move between reads as my whims dictate. And if I chuck the book aside (or, you know, carefully set it aside like a civilized person) to go jump in the lake and don't cast another glance toward it until the plane ride home? So be it!

Without further ado, here's what I've got in my carry-on:


I mentioned this one coming in the mail a few days ago, but I haven't had a chance to really dig in yet, despite the fact that the dust jacket has the most mesmerizing texture (sorry, is my book fetish showing?) and plenty of folks I trust have written reams about it. All I know is that there's a library, what sounds like a creepy cult, and it probably involves a fire. I'm all in.


This one's for the #BlumeAlong! I had a great time reading and tweeting about Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret earlier this month, and I'm excited to embark on a brand-new Blume in July. The Goodreads blurb promises female friendship, lush getaways at Martha's Vineyard, and more than a bit of drama. This isn't a book I'd normally pick up if Blume's name weren't stamped on the cover, but it sounds like perfect reading for lolling about in various locations (sunshine, hammock, tent, etc.).


This one comes along on my Kindle because my Classics Club List is woefully neglected and everyone (ahem, Amanda) has been telling me to read it. I also want to check out Re Jane by Patricia Park (Kerry wrote a great review and got my TBR a-growin'), and I'd like to have the original story under my belt before I tackle a retelling.

Of course, my Kindle houses more than a few other options, if none of these three jives with me.

Book covers from Goodreads. Top-to-bottom: 1, 2

Happy Monday, my bookish friends!

Today is an extra happy Monday for me because I fly to Oregon this Friday to spend a week and a half visiting my boyfriend's family and friends. I'm feeling overdue for some rest and relaxation; I've already mentioned a few times how this month has been a doozy work-wise, and I think a set change is just what I need to settle my brain down. On top of all the swimming, hiking and reading I'll be doing at his mom's house, I also get to celebrate my 24th birthday by camping out at a giant party in the middle of the woods. What more could a girl ask for?

Due to woodland frolicking and complete lack of Internet, things are going to slow down a bit over here, but I'm hoping to schedule at least one or two posts to go up while I'm gone. Maybe I'll crank out some of my wildly overdue reviews! It's good to have goals. Comment replies and blog visiting will also grind to a halt; I fully expect you all to fill my Feedly with excellent things for me to come back to.

Before I leave for vacation, I'm racing against an interlibrary loan due date to finish up The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and Our History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures by Australian journalist Christine Kenneally. The book came highly recommended by Heather from Bits n Books, and I'm enjoying Kenneally's exploration of genealogy and how attitudes about it have shifted over time. I'm crossing my fingers that I finish up with enough time to write about it before my traveling starts.

I also received some fabulous book mail last week in the form of The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. I've only read a handful of pages so far, but I'm already sucked in by the creepy. This one may end up going to Oregon with me, along with a few other selections that I hope to share later this week. I'll also share how ready my boyfriend is to leave me at home rather than help me lug books on vacation.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street tells the story of Nathaniel (Thaniel) Steepleton, a telegraphist who finds himself in a personal rut in nineteenth century England. Excitement arrives for him just in time in the form of an exquisite gold watch, mysteriously left on his pillow; the watch's alarm saves him from dying in an explosion at Scotland Yard. The watch leads Thaniel to Keita Mori, a Japanese clockmaker who is quiet about his past and even more so about his uncanny ability to predict the future. We also meet Grace Carrow, a scientist desperately trying to prove the existence of ether and have her chosen profession taken seriously. All three become immersed in trying to discover who bombed the Yard and whether another, more dangerous attack is coming.

Before I get in too deep, I just want you to know that this novel features a clockwork octopus. Not only that, but it's a cheeky clockwork octopus that's kept as a pet. This might be the most exciting part of Natasha Pulley's debut. I don't mean for that to sound disparaging, because there's a lot to love in this book. Pulley has a knack for setting the stage; the story jumps back and forth in both location and time, and she clearly did her research when she set out to depict both England and Tokyo in the 1800s.

"A huge cherry tree snowed petals in a wind that brushed them eddying over the flagstones. They were well past their best now, brown at the edges. Fresh, apple-cheeked servant girls went by with their hands clasped before them, eyes down even when a group of young men clattered by with bows and quivers." - Loc 831, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

Thaniel is also a synesthete, allowing him to experience sound as color. He hears an orchestra as "shades of seaspray around the atlantic blue" (Loc 2619) and silence has "a silver hem" (Loc 149). This was a fun personality quirk to read about, being a word-taster myself. The romance arc is tender and unexpected and, overall, Watchmaker is one of the most original stories I've read this year.

However, this book is not without issues. I imagine this will be fixed in the final printing, but my digital ARC's formatting was way off. This was particularly jarring during dialogue-heavy sections; I couldn't always tell who was saying what, which made the plot hard to follow. I feel like I got to know Katsu (our lovable clockwork octopus) better than most of our protagonists. I didn't get a sense of depth, or even strong emotion, from any of them. You know how the love story was unexpected? While lovely, it also came out of left-field. I don't need these things spoon-fed to me, but with so little (and vague) build-up, it felt tacked-on.

All in all, I would recommend The Watchmaker of Filigree Street to anyone who loves a blend of historical and science fiction and has a strong sense of whimsy (aka loves clockwork octopuses). It's possible that I missed some of the nuance in the storytelling due to the poor formatting of my copy, and I absolutely think it's worth picking up the finished product to find out for yourself.

Obligatory disclaimer: I received The Watchmaker of Filigree Street from NetGalley for consideration of an honest review. Many thanks to Bloomsbury USA for offering me the chance to read it!

"This is a communal story. This is the story of black bodies across this country. This is not just my story." - Claudia Rankine, June 20, 2015

Last Saturday, I had the privilege of attending a free talk by poet and playwright Claudia Rankine. She came as part of New Haven's International Arts and Ideas Festival to discuss how "art teaches a poet to see." She read from her latest collection, Citizen: An American Lyric, and shared how she selected some of the art that goes along with the pieces, including Nick Cave's soundsuits and her struggle to obtain the rights to Public Lynching from the Hulton Archives.

Though slim in size, Citizen pulls together cultural and political commentary about being black in America and searingly personal moments of micro (and macro) aggression. "What happens when people get in the same space and are forced to negotiate?" Rankine wanted to know. She told us that she thinks of the book as a "community project," as she collected many of the stories in her poems from friends. She fleshed out one of her more disturbing pieces about a friend who made an appointment with a trauma counselor:

"At the front door the bell is a small round disc that you press firmly. When the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house! What are you doing in my yard?

It's as if a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd has gained the power of speech. And though you back up a few steps, you manage to tell her you have an appointment. You have an appointment? she spits back. Then she pauses. Everything pauses. Oh, she says, followed by, oh, yes, that's right. I am sorry.

I am so sorry, so, so sorry." - Citizen: An American Lyric, pg. 18   

Rankine told us that this friend kept that appointment (as she said, she'd "already gone all that way") and even made another, though she later ended up canceling it.


I've been struggling with how to write about Citizen since I read it a week ago. What I kept coming back to was that, as a young, privileged white woman, this isn't my story, and so who was I to comment on it? After seeing Rankine speak, I realized that, in a sense, it is my story. This is my story because I'm part of a society that allows people of color to be killed every single day. This is my story because I have what Rankine calls "the fluidity of white privilege," in that I'm able to feel terrible about atrocities like the Charleston massacre and wake up the next day and drink my coffee as though nothing happened. Andi made a fantastic point in her review about how Rankine's poems work "like a mirror," forcing you to grapple with not only the pain and anger of being erased, of being reviled, but also the act of negating another human being, whether out of hostility or simple thoughtlessness. Just because the story Citizen tells about me is infuriating and unflattering, I will not shrink away and say, "Not me!" because it's absolutely me. It's all of us. And the sooner we can accept that, the sooner we can do something about it.

In the interest of getting Citizen into the hands of as many people as I can, I'm hosting a giveaway. I'm going to select one lucky reader from the comments below to win a paperback or Kindle copy of Citizen: An American Lyric. (If you want to comment but don't want to be entered in the giveaway, just say so!) Leave your comment by 6 PM EST on Friday, June 27, 2015 to be entered to win. If you don't have a Disqus account, be sure to leave me a way to contact you. Good luck!

EDIT TO GIVEAWAY TERMS: I realized that I can open this up to international readers by offering a Kindle copy or $15 Amazon giftcard instead of a paperback. U.S. residents will have their choice of paperback or Kindle.

Before my post today, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the shooting in Charleston on Wednesday night. The victims and their families are in my thoughts, but I want to do more than think about it, even if what I do is small and can in no way erase the atrocity of their murders. In case any of you are interested in contributing, a donation page for the families of the victims is supposed to go live today at noon.

It's finally Friday, and guess what? I have a ridiculous stack of books to read this weekend! My book bingo plans, desire to tackle some chunksters and a buttload of holds all coming in at once conspired against (or for?) me. Shannon and I plan to combine forces and build a book fort. Come join us! I bake awesome cookies.

Uh, guys? I think we're gonna need another #flashreadathon. My stack is taller than my cat. pic.twitter.com/H9LU2nbm6x

— Shaina (@shainareads) June 17, 2015

In the interest of not getting crushed by this literary avalanche, I demanded threw out the idea of having another #flashreadathon. The first one was born last March out of Heather of Capricious Reader's need to make a dent in her reading pile. There were no rules and no set reading times; it was all about reading as much or as little as you like and using the hashtag to check in on other folks doing the same. It was an awesome, low-key way to get some social reading in, so I'm thrilled that we're about to have another! Many thanks to Monika of Lovely Bookshelf for whipping up an updated graphic for the event.

The only set plans I have for this weekend are to go see a (free!) talk by Claudia Rankine at our local art gallery about her use of mixed media to take on race relations. It couldn't be coming at a better time, since I just finished Citizen and have been struggling with how to talk about it. I'll be taking notes to share with you all and picking up my own copy of Citizen today, in case she's in a signing mood.

Other than that, it'll be all reading, all the time. Can you only join in for fifteen minutes? Do it, and hop on Twitter using #flashreadathon. I'd love to see what you're reading this weekend.

I forgot to mention in my (caffeine-laced ramble of a) Monday reading post that I'm taking part in the Summer of #BlumeAlong, hosted by Kerry over at Entomology of a Bookworm. After coming clean about never having read anything by Judy Blume to her Twitter followers, Kerry decided to host a read-along of two of Blume's most beloved novels. We're starting with the iconic Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret and rounding things out with Summer Sisters, one of Blume's adult novels.

To kick off #BlumeAlong, Kerry has a few questions for us.

1. Is this your first time reading Blume, or did you grow up on her books?

Oh, did I ever! My mother was a huge Judy Blume fan growing up (my mom had me at 20, so she too got to appreciate Judy in her pre-teen years) and she made sure I had all of her childhood favorites. They're probably neck-and-neck with Harry Potter for the books I reread the most. A testament to my love for them, they were frequently victims of my alter ego, Shaina, Destroyer of Books; I distinctly remember dropping my copy of Then Again, Maybe I Won't in the toilet. My mom was also fond of Judy's more "adult" repertoire, which she (unsuccessfully) tried to hide from me. Let's just say I learned a lot from Wifey and Forever. 

2. If you grew up on her books, what's your favorite?

Are You There, God? is classic; I'm having all sorts of nostalgia just looking at my old copy in Kerry's banner (the super '90s one, second from the left). I remember loving Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, probably for all the silly newsletters that Sheila published. I wrote fiction throughout my childhood and worked for the school newspaper in high school, so I guess I could relate. I also enjoyed Deenie, though I blame it for encouraging my hypochondria (the book is about Deenie discovering and living with her scoliosis). It's Not the End of the World became more poignant for me after my own parents separated. I clearly can't pick!

3. Are you reading one or the other or both of the books?

Both! I've never read Summer Sisters, so I'm excited to get more Blume under my belt.

4. Where will you be reading in the coming weeks?

I'll be doing the bulk of my reading in southern Connecticut, but, depending upon how things go, I might just be packing Summer Sisters for a trip to Oregon in July. I'm going to the Oregon Country Fair, where I'll camp out in the woods of Veneta for four nights and have a blast taking in the sights, sounds, tastes and absolute joy of the fair. It's beautiful, wacky, and totally overwhelming for an introvert like me. I will absolutely need some reading breaks in the tent.

5. Where will you be sharing your #BlumeALong thoughts along the way?

I'll be tweeting with the hashtag #BlumeAlong, and I'm going to play blog posts by ear.

This week's reads: 1, 2, 3

Happy Monday, everyone! This morning's exclamation points and hyperbole is brought to you by an extra-large pot of coffee.

Can I just come out and say that I've felt like a terrible book blogger lately? I know, I know—I'm ridiculous, but hear me out. I haven't written a proper review since the end of May, opting instead to share fascinating facts or giant chunks of text in lieu of extensive commentary or analysis. I've read no fewer than six books so far this month and haven't told you anything about them (save for the aforementioned giant text chunks from Considering Hate). These poor, neglected reads remain un-starred and un-reviewed on Goodreads while I jump headfirst into new and enormous projects; House of Leaves and A Game of Thrones, here's to you, you crazy chunksters. These new and enormous projects are successfully defenestrating any half-coherent thoughts I had about my previous reads as I type. (Did I mention that I drank a lot of coffee this morning?)

All of this is to say that I'm doing a bunch of reading and not a lot of reflecting and reviewing. I knew this would happen, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating, since one of my blog's main purposes is to help me better remember and think about what I read. Here's to working on climbing back on that thoughtful reading and writing horse sooner rather than later. Here's a thoughtful reading and writing horse, because the internet:


Last week, I finished up The Wives of Los Alamos, Considering Hate (my thoughts/text chunks here), Murder on the Orient Express (which I ended up liking far more than And Then There Were None), and Citizen: An American Lyric. 

This week, I want to finish the forthcoming The Only Woman in the Room; it's been hovering at the halfway point on my Kindle for a couple weeks now, and I want to see how Pollack wraps things up. As I mentioned above, I plan to continue making (tiny, tiny) dents in A Game of Thrones, and, because I don't have enough pages on my plate, I've added House of Leaves into the mix. I've been itching for more horror since reading Bird Box, plus it's Julianne's favorite. How can I go wrong?

If you follow me on Twitter (and you definitely should), you know I'm taking part in a summer bingo challenge hosted by Books on the Nightstand. Their generator randomly picks 25 squares for you out of 140 possibilities and constructs a card designed to get you reading out of your comfort zone. In theory, you could keep generating cards until you get one that most closely fits your reading taste, but where's the fun in that?

Here's my card and the books I'm counting so far:


I've knocked out a bunch of the more general squares with books I was planning to read anyway, but others are forcing me to think outside my wheelhouse. I just learned what qualifies as a verse novel last week, and I'm excited to check out Autobiography of Red, a modern retelling of the myth of Heracles's tenth labor. Confession time: I've never listened to an audiobook (gasp!), and I'm finally going to break out the earbuds to enjoy a re-read (re-listen?) of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or The Hobbit, thanks to solid recommendations from you lovely folks. I'm also on the hunt for a book about Islam for my "religion with which you are unfamiliar" square, if anyone has recommendations in that vein!

The challenge is also making me think a lot more about how I categorize my reads. I originally thought Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric would count toward the "currently on the bestseller list" square. Upon finishing it this morning, I took a step back and realized just how much the book had challenged my understanding of the black experience in America. I know I'm going to be rereading this one for the nuance I missed the first time through, and so it ended up on my "about a subject that challenges you" square.
I'm enjoying the process of seeking out new books so much that I might just generate myself another card when I finish this one, seasonal challenge be damned.

I've taken the last couple of weeks to (slowly) read and mull over Considering Hate: Violence, Goodness and Justice in American Culture and Politics. The essay was co-authored by Kay Whitlock (writer and racial, gender, queer and economics rights activist) and Michael Bronski (political organizer, writer and professor at Harvard University), both of whom wanted to tackle the psychological and theological underpinnings of why it is that we hate and the political and cultural ramifications of our enmity. (They offer extensive analysis of more than a century of American cinema, for any film buffs reading this.) Whitlock and Bronski do not offer concrete solutions to the inequality and injustice rampant in American society, but they suggest ways we can change how we think about these issues and, as a result, begin working toward progress.

For those who dislike academic writing, beware; at just under 150 pages, this is dense reading. If you don't mind that, the book provides plenty to chew on within its relatively low page count.

À la my post about Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari, I'm not even going to attempt to review this book. Instead, here are a few particularly good passages that got my neurons firing:

"In the United States, rape, sexual assault, child sexual abuse, coercion, and harassment are subject to criminal prosecution, including prosecution as a hate crime. These legal remedies, though seldom pursued, support the idea that American society does not tolerate this violence. ... In its common form the rape story becomes an idealized tale of public virtue and individualized evil. Reality reveals this to be untrue. This idealized concept of justice coexists with a rape culture in which sexual violence is tolerated as an everyday aspect of private and public life. Rape culture is defined by attitudes and cultural messages that continually downplay the extent of sexual violence, stigmatize those who are assaulted, and celebrate male sexual aggression. When rape is acknowledged at all, it is often described as a violent form of sexism that affects all women equally. That is a simplification and a distortion." - pg. 38, Considering Hate

As a regular social media user, the following passage really hit home for me (italics mine):

"Who bears responsibility, and what kinds of responsibility, for addressing massive harm? Who is responsible for dismantling the policies and practices that produce it? The most common response to these questions entails people proclaiming 'not me,' quickly followed by public displays of outrage, always directed against others. Most people refuse to engage with these questions in any substantive moral way. ... When people acknowledge the existence of mass violence, they seldom grapple with the question of responsibility, which is often wrongly reduced to a question of legal culpability. In a culture that articulates a sharp division between good guys and bad guys, where almost everyone identifies as the former, this makes perfect sense. The hate frame allows people to morally disengage from considering how they are implicated in harming others." - pgs. 102-103, ibid. 

"Anxiety and anger often arise in relation to the question of collective responsibility because politically, responsibility is linked to punishment. ... Responsibility must be separated from punishment. To do so opens new understandings of collective moral engagement and agency rooted in an ethic of interdependence rather than of retribution. The idea of moral agency must be detached from the act of coercive moralizing, so that it can be envisioned as action that can interrupt the harm inherent in systems of domination and violence. Rather than emphasizing guilt and blame, public focus might usefully shift to such concepts as societal accountability, healing, and redress." - pgs. 114-115, ibid.

And I'll leave you with this. I think it's the most elegant explanation I've ever read for why "colorblind" policies are, for lack of a more fitting word, crap:

Page 107, ibid.

I've been sitting on my library copy of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari for weeks, trying to figure out a way I could review it that will do justice to all the facts and ideas it gave me to chew over. Well, after three renewals and exactly zero words written, the book is due back tomorrow, and it's officially time to get down to business. Cue the listicle! (My god, Blogger recognizes "listicle" as a word now. These times we live in...)

In just under 400 pages including endnotes and citations, London-based journalist Hari weaves together the origins of the American war on drugs with the stories of dealers, police officers and doctors forced to operate under the often draconian (and, even more often, implicitly racist) laws borne by it. He also explores how other countries—including Canada, Switzerland and Portugal—regulate substances and how they deal with addiction and recovery.

Like I said, there is so much to discuss here, but, instead of trying to summarize all of it, I'm going to leave you with three of the most interesting (and infuriating, and disheartening...) facts I learned while reading.

1. The racist impetus of changing gun laws.

In the 1920s, police forces in the Southern states increased the caliber of their guns because "[c]ocaine was, it was widely claimed in the press at this time, turning blacks into superhuman hulks who could take bullets to the heart without flinching" (pg. 27).

This is not the first book I've read that discusses how drug law enforcement is disproportionately focused on people (especially men) of color due to political/media fearmongering (e.g., The New Jim Crow, Just Mercy), but this particular example of a racist falsehood giving birth to new legislation stopped me in my tracks early on in the book.

2. The follow-up experiment no one knows about.

3. Surprise! The father of the drug war "dealt drugs" and became an addict himself.

Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the man behind the earliest calls for action against "the marihuana evil" (pg. 16) and the menace of the drug-addicted black man, ensured that an influential (white) member of Congress had access to his drug of choice: heroin. "The bureau even picked up the tab until the day the congressman died" (pg. 297-298) and blocked journalists that attempted to break the story. Toward the end of his life, Anslinger became addicted to morphine to treat his angina.

I can't even attempt to swallow the amount of hypocrisy here.

If you have any interest in learning about the long, sordid history of the war on drugs, the impact drug laws are still having today, and the ways other countries navigate drug regulation, I implore you to pick up this book.

All images from GR. L-R: 1, 2, 3, 4

It's Monday! is hosted by Sheila over at Book Journey.

Welcome to a new week, friends. After pulling a 10-hour data collection shift on Saturday, today is day two of my weekend; as is appropriate for a makeshift Sunday, I'm writing this from my bed with a sleepy cat on my lap and a mug of coffee in hand. I've got it real hard, let me tell you.

My lab's summer internship is off to a productive start, and I'm just as exhausted and desperate for the sanctuary of my books as I thought I'd be. (Psst... speaking of book sanctuaries, I wrote about them last week.) Last week, I tore through the forthcoming The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips and the backlist Bird Box by Josh Malerman. I enjoyed both of them for their quick pace and suspenseful writing, but neither one's ending left me breathless.

This week, I'm hoping to work through a few books I'm right in the middle of: the academic but fascinating Considering Hate by Kay Whitlock and Michael Bronski; the stifling, simmering The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit; and The Only Woman in the Room, Eileen Pollack's memoir of her days as one of the lone female physics majors at Yale.

I also want to continue a heck of a journey I started last week with George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. My boyfriend and I decided that the best way to get through the A Song of Ice and Fire cycle would be to read them aloud to each other, and we've had a lot of fun (and some awkwardness—oh hey, graphic sex scenes with 13-year-olds) working through the first hundred pages. Just a billion more to go.

Keeping it short today—I've got bookish bingo squares to tackle!

Last month, I shared a post about how the homeless often get short-changed when it comes to accessing resources (books, computers, etc.) at public libraries. I was inspired by a piece by Kelly Jensen over at Book Riot about how an initiative to get free e-books into children's hands is ignoring a significant segment of the population—namely, the poor and/or those without Internet access.

I was surprised and delighted to find out from some commenters that there are libraries out there that do offer services to homeless patrons, and I also learned a little more about the various legal and fiscal roadblocks libraries can run into when they attempt to create lending systems and programming for underprivileged populations (e.g., less accountability for missing materials, resource licensing, and more). I know that policies and programs vary widely by state (and probably even county), and I really appreciated everyone who took the time to weigh in!

Still, there's another aspect to this issue that I can't stop thinking about, and I think it's best summarized by a quotation from the American Library Association's toolkit about how to provide better library services to the homeless and poor. The toolkit quotes Sassafras Lowrey—author of Kicked Out, an anthology that compiles the voices of currently and formerly homeless LGBTQ youth—about what the library can mean to the young and displaced:

“I needed a book about how to live through this more than I needed to know I had somewhere to stay, to know I had a way to get to school or to know what I would have for dinner. I needed a book to prove to me that survival was possible.”—pg. 4, Extending Our Reach: Reducing Homelessness Through Library Engagement

When you're homeless, you often aren't having your basic needs met; the hundreds of calls I fielded during my internship at a homeless hotline made this obvious. Seeking out food and shelter is important, of course, but when your homelessness is chronic, you need pockets of time spent doing things other than surviving.

I think a recent photo set from National Geographic perfectly captures this sentiment. The magazine published a series of portraits by Fritz Hoffman of homeless library patrons reading in libraries throughout the state of California. Some of them are reading to learn; maybe what they learn will be directly applied to improving their situation (i.e., finding steady employment), but many of them are diving into fiction, lighter non-fiction, and religious texts. They're doing what so many of us do on the weekend or after a long day: they're diving into a good book and losing themselves in it.

While I was never homeless as a child, I was more than once displaced. After my parents separated when I was 14, my mother and I got evicted from our new apartment. We spent months sharing a makeshift bed in the living room of my best friend's home, and after her (my best friend's) parents separated as well, all of us (my best friend, our two moms and I) rented a house together so she and I could finish out our junior and senior years of high school. Even before my parents split up, I was dealing daily with substance abuse, verbal and emotional abuse, and chronic depression in my household.

Throughout it all, books were my sanctuary, my lifeline, the places I could escape into (Hogwarts, Constance Billard School for Girls, the "territories" of the Travelers) and have the chaos around me melt away. Sometimes I even dove into bookish chaos (à la Chuck Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis) because it was more manageable than my own. I could always shelve the book in a way I couldn't shelve my reality.

I do not mean to fish for pity or to say I've had the hardest childhood in history, but these are the facts. I know what I went through, and I know what helped me endure it. It can be easy to dismiss books as a luxury that the homeless, poor or otherwise struggling wouldn't be able to take advantage of anyway—with all that surviving to do, who has the time?

But everyone should be given the opportunity to do more than just survive.

Another month, another wrap-up post!

May has been pretty fantastic in reading, blogging and other life events. While April brought exhaustion and some bookish ambivalence, May brought rejuvenation (well, minus that stupid cold) and fantastic reads across the board.

This was exactly the kind of month I needed before things get crazy at work. I'm planning and supervising a two-month summer internship program for six undergraduates and recent graduates, which will mean busier days, more weekend work and a constantly-frazzled Shaina. This is my second go at running the internship, and I feel much more prepared for things this time around. I know I'll be reading to de-stress, but I hope I find the time to keep blogging, too!

Anyway, back to May:

I read/reviewed:

• Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, by Johann Hari <-- This book is excellent and I can't believe I haven't reviewed it yet. Bad book blogger.


• All the Birds, Singing, by Evie Wyld (chat review here)


• The Shore, by Sara Taylor (review here)


• The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman <-- This book is good, but I want more time to dig in to research on Vietnam before I try to say anything intelligent about it. I read this for my 2015 TBR Pile Challenge.


• Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science—and the World, by Rachel Swaby (review here)

On the blog:

In life:

• I baked some delectable blueberry muffins, and then I blogged about it.


• My boyfriend's mom came to visit for Mother's Day. We ate; we beached; we bought books. It was lovely.


• I helped my boyfriend usher in his 24th birthday in style. Food, cake and booze galore.


• I went to Chicago and saw two wonderful people get married. Plus, I got to spend time with family and good friends!


• Oh, about those friends... I met Julianne! She's great. Check out the video we made answering questions from bloggers like you (while we were tipsy)!

In June:

• I want to continue my non-fiction streak. I'm currently in the middle of Considering Hate: Violence, Goodness, and Justice in American Culture and Politics by Kay Whitlock and Michael Bronski and The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science is Still a Boys' Club by Eileen Pollack. I'm really enjoying both, and you all have given me so many more options to explore!


• I want to dominate the discussion of All the Birds, Singing over at the Socratic Salon on June 11.


• I want to finally organize my Feedly so I can keep up with blogs in a timely fashion instead of reading (and commenting on) seven backlogged posts at once. Sorry, guys.