March 2024, sand and spice

I saw Dune: Part Two at the beginning of the month, which is what this subject line is about, but now that I'm sitting down to write this, I can't remember why this is what I thought I'd write about. I guess that said, my take on Dune is that Timothée Chalamet does not look like the biological son of Rebecca Ferguson and Oscar Issac, and I enjoyed the second movie more because Oscar Isaac wasn't in it, which sounds weird because I really like Oscar Isaac but I didn't have to think about how bad the casting was this time around. Well, as much, because it's hard for me to believe a lot of what Timothée Chalamet does outside of sitting on the hood of a car and saying, "that's hella tight" to Lady Bird. Anyway, here's what I read this month.

[Books I read]

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1953; 2008) | Quick summary: The Wilder family moves out of the big woods to colonize Indigenous lands.
Wow, this book is so racist. I might reflect on that more as I continue to read through the series, but my jaw dropped multiple times while reading this book. I plan to watch the show all the way through later this year. I'm curious how it manages the relationship between these white settlers and the Indigenous americans they stole land from.
[historical fiction, children's classic, written by a white american writer, fast read]

Quicksand by Nella Larsen (2011; 1928) | Quick summary: The story of Helga Crane, a Black-biracial woman trying to find some satisfaction in life.
Nella Larsen is most famous for her novel Passing, which was most recently made into a movie (2021) I've yet to see starring Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson. I've long loved Passing because, well, I'm a Black-biracial woman who passes as white and have experienced the complicated reality of the privilege and desire that comes with it. I'd need to immediately follow this read with another read of Passing to say for sure, but Quicksand feels more explicit than Passing, and more importantly, as this is my bookletter, I've never related to a character more than I related to Helga Crane. Her white relatives make her feel othered and uncomfortable, so she tours the country trying to find her place, continually brought down by her own melancholy, ultimately a product of the weight and confusion of being a Black and White person. We're never satisfied.
[fiction, classic literature, written by a Black american novelist, medium-length, steady read]

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer (2023) | Quick summary: An interrogation of how to experience art considering the link between genius and monstrosity.
tldr; I work very, very part-time for Third Place Books, my favorite bookstore, and because of that, I got to have a great conversation with Claire Dederer in March. It wasn't about books or anything that matters, but I got to chat with her while I was coincidentally reading her book Monsters, which offers excellent insight into the age-old question, "can we separate the artist from the art"? Dederer lives in Seattle like I do, so I feel kindred to her and appreciate this book, even if I hadn't met her while reading it!
[nonfiction, literary criticism, written by a white american memoirist, essayist, and critic, medium-length, steady read]

Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin (2019) | Quick summary: From apps to algorithms, understand how emerging technologies reinforce white supremacy even in a time of complicit racial equality.
This is one of those books that almost already needs a follow-up or a reprint! A lot has changed since 2019, but Benjamin's research and knack for turning a potentially uninteresting subject into something vital and fascinating made this book relevant and thrilling to read. I immediately passed it to a friend who I knew would appreciate it. I really found myself taken by Ruha Benjamin and will follow her work going forth!
[nonfiction, sociology, written by a Black american professor, founding director, and author, medium-length, steady read]

The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly by Kate Lebo (2021) | Quick summary: 26 essays (with recipes) about the fruit we consider challenging to handle, eat, or bake with, tied in with personal essays and some great sentences.
Kate Lebo is also kind of local but more like Pacific Northwest than Seattle itself. I believe she currently lives in Spokane, but I appreciated being from the same region of the country as Lebo because it helped me understand and appreciate the elevated "difficult fruits." This book is excellent, interesting, fun, and easy to skip around, though I read it cover to cover because that's how I prefer to read. It's going with my cookbooks, though, in case I ever get the hankering to make a quince shrub or something.
[nonfiction, fruit cooking, memoir, written by a white pie baker, food writer, and author, longer read with recipes]

[Books I heard]

Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing (MLM) by Emily Lynn Paulson (2023) | Quick summary: A former successful(!) MLMer shares her story of reckoning.
There is no reason Emily Lynn Paulson should be as genuinely educated and what someone might call "woke" as she is. This—she—is a white woman who has done the work, processed the work, and integrated the work into her daily life. She's capitalizing on her post-MLM story, as she's capitalized on her sobriety story, but Paulson is aware and, to the best of my knowledge, has been doing the repair and repentance work that most white women—white people—don't bother. Also, two weeks after I finished this book, I got my first-ever MLM pitch from a friend's cousin. I thought this was well in the past, but maybe we're not quite past the scammers scamming…
[nonfiction, feminist theory, cults, communication, written by a white american writer and speaker, longer listen, read by the author]

Stash: My Life in Hiding by Laura Cathcart Robbins (2023) | Quick summary: An addiction and sobriety memoir by the wife of a high-profile Hollywood producer.
This has been on my shelf for a while, but I decided to drop the physical book in a free library and listen to the audiobook instead. Color me surprised when I realized Robbins, the author and whose story this is, is a Black woman! I was immediately more interested, as I tend to find sobriety and recovery memoirs are very often white people, and the ones I tend to read are primarily by white women. I loved this, not just because Robbins is Black, but because she talked about her experience as a Black woman among white addicts in recovery. She has a lot of privilege in her rehab experience, as her (now ex) husband is Brian Robbins, former president, and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon, but I still really liked this book, I made the right choice by listening instead of reading, and want more Black women to share their stories!!!
[nonfiction, recovery, memoir, written by a Black american author, freelance writer, speaker, and podcast host, read by the author]

Can You Tolerate This?: Essays by Ashleigh Young (2016) | Quick summary: A collection of essays on youth, rock, aging, and growing up in New Zealand.
I love to sort my TBR by oldest added and pick a book at random to read or listen to, and this is how I decided to listen to Can You Tolerate This? Y'all know I prefer memoirs, or at least nonfiction, for audiobooks, but this excellent book of essays reads more like fiction, though it's clearly not. That said, I'd usually have returned the audiobook and opted for the physical copy, but…I am obsessed with New Zealand and Australian accents. I listen to a podcast, Cancelled, by two Australian twin sisters, and their voices, accents, senses of humor, and cackles have kept me afloat in many challenging moments this year. So I listened to this whole thing, but I wish I'd read it because it seems I'd have absorbed it better.
[nonfiction, essays, memoir, written by a white new zealander author, read by Saskia Maarleveld]

[What I recommend]

• If you enjoy classic literature you missed out on: Quicksand by Nella Larsen
• If you have feelings about Woody Allen: Monsters by Claire Dederer
• If you feel like digital media is kinda racist: Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin
• If you cook, bake, or like food writing: The Book of Difficult Fruit by Kate Lebo
• If you’ve ever been the victim of an MLM and definitely if you’ve BEEN in an MLM: Hey, Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson
• If you enjoy recovery memoirs: Stash by Laura Cathcart Robbins

“She was afraid to hope. Its possibilities made her feel a little hysterical.” Quicksand

“We is corrupt. We is make-believe. The real question is this: can I love the art but hate the artist? Can you? When I say “we,” I mean I. I mean you.” Monsters

“Invisibility, with regard to Whiteness, offers immunity. To be unmarked by race allows you to reap the benefits but escape responsibility for your role in an unjust system.” Race After Technology

“One must not loiter under the durian tree.” The Book of Difficult Fruit

“…white women aren’t actually being empowered with this ladyboss rhetoric, which convinces them that they are the hunter, when actually, they are the prey.” Hey, Hun

“Nighttime can be a beautiful time to enjoy your own company.” Stash

“Was there any story I could tell that was truly certain?” Can You Tolerate This?

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