Recent Reads
The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II
I've been fascinated by Russia long before the country was BFF with the entire Trump administration—maybe it has something to do with my Ukranian heritage or the fact that my name is Alexandra. I still haven't actually traveled to Russia yet, but seeing the too-beautiful-to-be-real St. Basil's Cathedral (preferably in the snow!) is at the very top of my life to-do list. My uncle also shares a love of all things Eastern European, and after our visit to Marjorie Merriweather Post's home (with its jaw-dropping collection of Russian treasures), he bought me two must-read books about the Romanovs: The Last Tsar, and The Rasputin File.
I finally dove into The Last Tsar, and truth be told it was a difficult, but ultimately fascinating read. The book is long and filled with Russian names (and nicknames) that I found incredibly hard to keep straight, and I was frequently confused by the timeline, relationships and politics. However, the story of the Romanovs—Nicholas and Alexandra and their children—is a fascinating one, and their letters to one another painted a vivid picture of their complicated (and tragic) lives together.
After spending weeks immersed in dreary pre-Soviet Russia, Shrill was the perfect palette cleanser. I wasn't familiar with Lindy West, but I'd seen Shrill mentioned by many people whose taste in books I trust, so I knew it was a safe bet. West is 34 years old, so she felt like a friend of mine—one that made me laugh out loud forcefully and often. I devoured this book in less than two days—not only to offset the weeks I spent on The Last Tsar or my arbitrary GoodReads challenge, but because I just couldn't, and didn't want to, stop reading.
After seeing the life-altering James Baldwin documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, I wanted to remedy the fact that I had never read anything by Baldwin. My dude had a copy of Another Country, so it seemed like a good place to start. The beginning and end are superior to what comes in the middle, and I found myself pretty much hating every character—but I ultimately loved the book. It's no secret that Baldwin had a way with words and an important and unique perspective on the world. It's not an easy or feel-good book by any means, but I won't soon forget Baldwin's musings on love, race and what it means to be a living, feeling human.
You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain
I seem to be in a pattern of following up a heavy book with a more light-hearted memoir, and after Another Country, I definitely needed a laugh. I got more than a few while reading You Can't Touch My Hair, and like Shrill, I found myself laughing out loud on the train more than once. I was vaguely aware of Phoebe Robinson's podcast Two Dope Queens, but I was surprised to learn that Robinson is 32-years-old and grew up in Cleveland (31-year-old Akron native here). Where Shrill dealt mostly with West's experience as a fat woman (her words), Robinson talks mostly about what it means to grow up black in the Midwest. You wouldn't think that a book as serious as Another Country would actually complement the hilarious You Can't Touch My Hair, but in hindsight they're the perfect pair. I don't know if I would have connected with Robinson as well if she didn't sound like a contemporary of mine (or if we hadn't grown up with such similar cultural experiences), but after reading her book I wished that we were real-life friends.
I'm going to be 100% honest: I bought this book a while ago after reading somewhere that it was Lauren Graham's all-time favorite book (I am queen of the tenuous connection). This was my first book by McCullers, who lived a life fraught with illness and died when she was just 50 years old. The Member of the Wedding is about 12-year-old Frankie Addams, who is struggling to find her place in the world. Although every year I grow further and further from being an angsty teen, the memories of how uniquely hard it is to be a young girl will never go away. McCullers captures this existential crises so perfectly—one that transcends place and time (Memberis set in Georgia during the summer of 1944). McCullers stopped me in my tracks several time with Frankie's observations on what a strange experience it is to just be alive.
"But there's this. I wonder if you have ever thought about this. Here we are—right now. This very minute. Now. But while we're talking right now, this minute is passing. And it will never come again. Never in all the world. When it is gone it is gone. No power on earth could bring it back again. It is gone. Have you ever thought about that?"
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“She was afraid of these things that made her suddenly wonder who she was, and what she was going to be in the world, and why she was standing at that minute, seeing a light, or listening, or staring up into the sky: alone.”
