bookstore – Remotely Intellectual

Pure Light

Sharp pain behind my right eye. Throbbing brain. A vortex of omnipresent pain. A doorbell chimed vaguely in the background. A customer appeared. Black. Queer. Immigrant. That trifecta, people thought, was the worst possible hand, he said. But he identified privilege in the knowledge that he could chart his own path, could see a futureContinue reading “Pure Light”

Nitty Gritty Review: Good Talk

Good Talk is on the Bookish 2021 Reading Challenge. And (embarrassingly) I totally discounted it as a memoir, because it’s in graphic form. Which was so short sighted. Because the art is really both understated (sketches over photos) and integral to the story she’s telling. And it’s all created by the author—which I’m totally wowedContinue reading “Nitty Gritty Review: Good Talk”

Allyship >White Woman Tears

If my goal is to be an antiracist—not just as a badge I stick on my person for a nod & a smile from other white liberals but as a way of being that goes to the core not only of my actions but my beliefs and my ideas/thoughts—I’m going to be wrong a lot. A whole hell of a lot.

Scholastic Book Fair Fangirl

Walking into the Scholastic Book Fair as a kid made me tingle with anticipation. All those Apple paperbacks lined up just so, each of them a whole little world contained in its pages. And then there were the scented erasers, which I collected like trading cards but refused to use. Ever. At 9 years old,Continue reading “Scholastic Book Fair Fangirl”

Dream Big (or even at all will do)

One of the greatest joys of being sober is doing shit you never even dreamed of… I didn’t have such a great imagination when I was drinking. Sure, I could sit on a barstool & tell you I was going to run a marathon the year I turned 30 (even though I’d never run moreContinue reading “Dream Big (or even at all will do)”

Wild Quests & Small Talk

I suck at small talk. It’s taken me a long time to reckon with that truth. But there it is. I love people, though. I think they’re endlessly fascinating. But only if they’re telling me about things that mean something to them. This made me ill-suited for office potlucks. But uniquely suited to own aContinue reading “Wild Quests & Small Talk”

The Nitty Gritty: Clap When You Land

I hugged this book when I finished it. I just couldn’t imagine putting the characters down & walking away from them. I’m still not ready to let go… Even if YA novels aren’t typically your thing, this deserves a read. It’s a novel written in verse, which is pretty damn cool to begin with. It’sContinue reading “The Nitty Gritty: Clap When You Land”

The Nitty Gritty: Charm & Strange

I read the best books without having any idea why I really picked them up. In this case, the copy of Charm & Strange that I have at the store has library markings on it. For some reason, that makes it much harder to sell. So I grabbed it out of a pile of booksContinue reading “The Nitty Gritty: Charm & Strange”

The Nitty Gritty: She’s Come Undone

I picked up Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone on a whim. A mass market paperback version was just laying about in the store, in a pile of used books I was sorting to shelve. They don’t really sell for us, those little block-like books, so I figured nobody’d be itching to buy it anyway. SoContinue reading “The Nitty Gritty: She’s Come Undone”

The Nitty Gritty: Welcome to Braggsville

I’ll be upfront with you… I have aspirations of getting my PhD in Southern Literature. And, sure, there are lots of the Southern classics that I haven’t made my way through yet. But when I was looking at a syllabus for a graduate level Southern Lit class, I ran across Welcome to Braggsville by T.Continue reading “The Nitty Gritty: Welcome to Braggsville”