Reading Life Continued

Finished This Past Week:

I found this at my local Little Free Library just a couple of days before I embarked on a train journey over Labor Day Weekend. It was the perfect slim size to bring with me and to read on the train. My second book of poetry in only a couple weeks. Highly recommend Adrienne Rich, and looking forward to reading more of her collections.







Currently Reading:

I'm about halfway through reading The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty, my former Hebrew school teacher turned African American culinary historian. Twitty uses his own family to define and describe the intertwined African American cultures and food, and as I was when I learned from him, I'm impressed by his bravery in confronting the horrors visited upon his ancestors. He doesn't shy away from the rape of his foremothers nor from claiming those white male fathers as his ancestors as well. Although his food typically has a healing, collaborative message, he also includes recipes for the cornmeal mush fed to slave children in a trough and the slurry sometimes force-fed to African captives on slaver's ships. I've never read anything quite like this before, and I'm glad he wrote it.

I wanted this book as soon as I saw it in an Instagram picture, but by the time I got it, it was summer, and it sat on my shelf for a while. I tried reading it, but I just wasn't in the mood. However, last night, after I had to put down The Cooking Gene, but still wanted something to read, I picked it up again, and it's clicking better. It certainly feels like fall around here already, and though I'm a sworn summer aficionado, I'm trying to be excited.