🦃 Holy Crap November
What a year-month it's been
What a year the month of November has been.
Last night while browsing Bookshop, I noticed that the past week’s bestsellers were all books on community activism, resistance and Indigenous reciprocity. I felt both a warm pang in my chest and, to be frank, an eye roll thinking about how we readers are in times of crisis with our progressive predictability. The world is literally and figuratively on fire so let me grab this book on the revolution of reciprocal care and tuck in.
It made me think about how I came to this mostly online form of bookselling. I was still at my brick-and-mortar store at the onset of the pandemic, and in the week leading up to the closures in New York City, wealthy, white Brooklynites had already been sent home from their jobs. They came into the store to complain to us booksellers about their boredom and that the store’s puzzle selection left something to be desired. On the last Sunday we were open, a shopper came in in a gas mask.
I went home that Sunday night very fearful. It would turn out to be the last time I rode the subway for several years and the last time I would ever be at my store. The next day I awoke to learn the city was closed but my store was not. I called my manager to ask what was going on and she told me in a hushed voice we would likely close and not to come in until someone notified me. A couple of days later the owner called personally to lay me off, in fact, nearly every staff member at the store would lose their jobs. At the time I was angry and hurt by that decision and how the store’s owners had handled the growing pandemic rumors the week prior. Throughout my years at the store, the job had been difficult due to problematic management and policies that I often chafed against.
But in the years since I have found some empathy for a situation that was in many ways impossible and the anger that once felt like a knife I now see mostly as grief over losing the parts of the job that sustained me so deeply.
I wish the store had been able to retain and protect us. But deeper than that I missed the incredibly talented and warm community of booksellers and families the store had surrounded me with. Giving up bookselling and that part of the book world seemed unthinkable, and RONAREADS became a pandemic pastime that has in all its little ways led us here today, reading and sharing books.
We are always organizing in little ways so let’s continue to celebrate that. Eye rolls and all, I’m happy to be surrounded by people who care and are eager to learn together. Without further adieu, here are the recaps of some of our favorite book recommendations and cultural tidbits from November!
…Best of the Book Recs!
From Issue #67 “Happiness is a Warm Puppy” is Time’s Undoing by Cheryl A. Head
This novel is based on the author’s own family history and seems uniquely moving and poignant for our current moment. Here’s the blurb from Bookshop:
“Birmingham, 1929: Robert Lee Harrington, a master carpenter, has just moved to Alabama to pursue a job opportunity, bringing along his pregnant wife and young daughter…But with his beautiful, light-skinned wife and snazzy car, Robert begins to worry that he might be drawing the wrong kind of attention in his new town.
Detroit, 2019: Meghan McKenzie, the youngest reporter at the Detroit Free Press, has grown up hearing family lore about her great-grandfather's murder--but no one knows what really happened back then. Determined to find answers to her family's long-buried tragedy, Meghan travels to Birmingham. But as her investigation begins to uncover dark secrets that spider across both the city and time, her life may be in danger.”
From Issue #69 “Eat a Whole Family (Saga),” is Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies by Laura Esquivel
Though it was recently adapted into a series, this novel first published in 1995, tells the story of Tita, born on the floor of her family’s kitchen and forever immersed in their rich recipes and traditions in turn-of-the-century Mexico. A love story and a family saga steeped in “special sauce” that has engaged readers for nearly 30 years.
And…drum roll please…from Issue #68 “The Cheug Express” is my brother-in-law Corey’s pick for his favorite family saga Jazz by Toni Morrison.
In the winter of 1926, middle-aged beauty supply salesman Joe Trace shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife Violet attacks the girl’s corpse, thus beginning a novel fixated on the “injustices of Black women” and broken families. Sounds like a cozy read! Can you tell we’re a family of lit fic folks over here?! This one is going directly on my TBR.
…the controversy and complications of blood quantum
Since November is Native American History Month we’re covering events and issues impacting Native communities. A major one is the concept of “blood quantum,” a controversial and complicated term referencing the methods white settlers have historically used to determine which Native peoples belong to which tribe.
According to the Native Governance Center, each Native nation has a different approach to sovereignty and the issue of blood quantum. Understanding the racial implications of this concept and how each nation confronts it can be a difficult but important topic. Here are resources for entering the conversation:
“Blood Quantum and Sovereignty: A Guide” from the Native Governance Center
“Reservation Mathematics: Navigating Love in Native America” by Tailyr Irvine (Salish, Kootenai) with The National Museum of the American Indian (this is a really cool photo essay about dating, intermarriage and childbirth as it relates to the issue of blood quantum).
“Blood Quantum and Its Role in Native Identity” by Kylie Rice with the Indigenous Foundation
…Explore the Native Land map
Native Land Digital is an Indigenous-led non-profit that has created tools like the Native Land Map for folks in North America to explore which Native tribes and groups were original inhabitants of our land.
Using the Native Land tool you’ll see not only which Native groups used to inhabit the land but who are still there today with applicable resources to learn more about their language and culture. Learn more about it all here.
…the Best of Fez Floof
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The RONAREADS shop is always open and you can get more on the ‘gram at @ronareads4u where we post daily(ish) book content.
Get Rec’d,
Wynne + Fezziwig