Friday, February 12, 2021

My Sister is so Nice & Message of the Week & #FridayReads

My sister ordered me a good ole copy of Cicely Tyson's memoir, As I Am, for my birthday.  Just waiting on this thing to come on.  I put it on hold at the library (with a little begrudge and potato salad on the side), but still gunning for my own copy to place nicely on my shelf.  A necessary copy.  Indeed.  Here's to waiting... impatiently... but allowing God to do His work.  I'll cry happy tears.


In the meantime, the message for the week is...


As for #FridayReads...

Earlier this week I chomped down big on A More Perfect Union by Tammye Huf for the #ReadSoulLit Read-Along.  I'm a little over one hundred pages from its ending.  I'll probably finish it early next week, or even over the weekend.  It's so cold outside that I don't want to even go anywhere.  But I definitely want to finish it before the end of next week.  Unfortunately, the connection and resonance isn't as profound as it was during my earlier experience of reading A More Perfect Union.  Maybe it's because I'm juggling three books... or maybe because...


...My reading of James Baldwin's Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone has swept me up and away.  This was the book that conquered my week.  And I'm a little over one hundred pages away from the end of this one as well (I see myself dedicating Saturday to finishing this).  But I'm going to be completely honest: I'm so under-sophisticated for Baldwin's work.  Or at least I always tell myself that.  The truth is that his themes land, it's the flightpath that always keep me in my head.  Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone definitely has me attached to Baldwin's themes surrounding a black bisexual man/actor's number of turbulent experiences during the 60s.  From his friends to his family, I'm attached to Train's star narrator, Leo.  But for every scene, exchange of dialogue, and chapter, I'm bug-eyed trying not to miss the most subtle of messages Baldwin is delivering.  It's like asking someone to stop beating around the bush and speak plain.  Shoot, oftentimes I think I'm looking for something that probably isn't there.  But that's how much his books encourage some healthy concentration. 

"Overthinking" is probably the word.  And then I relax and remind myself how I generally take first-time books for the story first.  And this story has me.

It has me so much that I think I'm going to follow on through with Baldwin's popular book...



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