📚 reviewing some recent reads 🌟// january, february, & march reading wrap up 

Love Poston's book and her YT channel. Nice to hear another glowing review of her poetry. Adding Persistent Voices to my queue now too!

I'm interested to read Julia Hungry. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I think I'll probably end up re-reading Journal of a Solitude at some point, or at least sections of it, having tabbed so much of it.

Very insightful reviews, Lillian. I'll confess, I'm skipping your review of "My Antonia" for now as I'm still adhering to this possibly silly fantasy of approaching all of Willa Cather's novels cold and unspoiled. I look forward to viewing your comments about "My Antonia" in the near future. I should say too that as much as I love "O PIoneers," the climax is violent, albeit beautifully written. I'm reading two books at the moment, both of which are from genres I don't often read. The first is "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain, which I suppose could be considered self-help. I find the first chapter particularly fascinating because Cain describes America before the 20th century as dominated by the "culture of character" with Lincoln as an example. Although Lincoln was an excellent orator, which could be considered an extroverted trait, he was and has been defined instead by his moral uprightness ("Honest Abe"). However, at the turn of the 20th century and with the rise of industrialism, America became dominated by the "culture of personality" in which extroversion became a personal ideal which certainly remains so today. Cain quotes a social critic from the 1920's who argued that everyone was being taught to be salesmen, including the ability to sell oneself, which, of course continues today in the form of celebrity culture and social media. The second is by someone who is as far removed from introversion as one can get. I don't often read celebrity memoir, but I've picked up "The House of Hidden Meanings" by RuPaul that's just been released. I've always thought of RuPaul as an excellent storyteller and I suspected that he could be a good writer as well because he does have a way with words. "The House of Hidden Meanings" has proved my suspicions to be true. I'm enjoying reading about his ongoing discovery throughout his youth of life as theater and specifically gender as performance. And, as a librarian, I appreciate his advocacy against book banning.

I have been reading a book called "Soldier's Heart" by Elizabeth Samet. She is a professor of literature at West Point Military Academy. Book is about her experience teaching cadets and their thoughts and behavior and how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan affected their lives. Thanks.